Early literary work (1979–1991) Horowitz's first book,
The Sinister Secret of Frederick K Bower, was a humorous adventure for children that was published in 1979 and later reissued as
Enter Frederick K Bower in 1985. In 1981 his second novel,
Misha, the Magician and the Mysterious Amulet was published and he moved to Paris to write his third book. In 1983, the first novel in the Pentagram series was released. Entitled ''The Devil's Door-Bell
, the story saw thirteen-year-old Martin Hopkins trying to adjust to a new life with a foster mother on a Yorkshire farm, but it quickly becomes a nightmare when he ends up having to battle an ancient evil that threatens the whole world. Only three of the four remaining novels in the series were ever released: The Night of the Scorpion (1984), The Silver Citadel
(1986) and Day of the Dragon'' (1986). In 1985, he released
Myths and Legends, a collection of retold tales from around the world. He was also involved in writing scripts for the cult 1980s television series
Robin of Sherwood and a
novelisation,
The Hooded Man. In 1988,
Groosham Grange was published. Its central character is a thirteen-year-old "witch", David Eliot, gifted as the
seventh son of a seventh son. This book went on to win the 1989
Lancashire Children's Book of the Year Award. Some similarities have been noted between this book and
J. K. Rowling's later
Harry Potter series, but Horowitz did not choose to take action because of this. The most important release of Horowitz's early career was ''
The Falcon's Malteser (1986). This book was the first in the successful Diamond Brothers series, and was followed in 1987 by Public Enemy Number Two, and by South by South East'' in 1991.
Early children's fiction success (1992–1999) Horowitz wrote many stand-alone novels in the 1990s. His 1994 novel
Granny, a comedy thriller about an evil grandmother, was Horowitz's first book in three years, and it was the first of three books for an audience similar to that of
Groosham Grange. The second of these was
The Switch, a body swap story, first published in 1996. The third was 1997's
The Devil and His Boy, which is set in the
Elizabethan era and explores the rumour of
Elizabeth I's secret son. In 1999,
The Unholy Grail was published as a sequel to
Groosham Grange. It was later renamed
Return to Groosham Grange in 2003, possibly to help young readers understand the connection between the two books. In 2021, Horowitz revealed to a fan on
Twitter that he had plans to write a third book, but was dissuaded after the success of the
Harry Potter series
. In the same year, Horowitz published a collection of several short horror stories aimed for children and young adults, entitled
Horowitz Horror (1999). This was an opportunity for Horowitz to further explore a darker side of his writing. Horowitz attempted to reach out to an adult audience with a novel called
Poisoned Pen. The novel is based around Martin Holland, who is a childhood friend of a 21st century incarnation of
William Shakespeare. In the novel, William Shakespeare is reimagined as a Hollywood screenwriter who is murdered in a set of circumstances that Martin Holland finds rather odd, despite attempts from a
Los Angeles detective to dissuade him. The novel follows Martin's attempts to solve the ever-growing mystery through a series of rather unusual circumstances and a number of people who seem rather glad that Shakespeare was murdered. The novel has never been published in the
UK or even in
English, but copies in
Spanish and
Dutch have been released (retitled as
El asesinato de Shakespeare and
William S. respectively). As of June 2021, despite Horowitz's recent successes in adult literature, there are no plans to get the novel republished.
Mainstream children's fiction success (2000–2010) Horowitz began his most famous and successful series in the
new millennium with the
Alex Rider novels. These books are about a 14-year-old boy becoming a
spy, a member of the British Secret Service branch MI6. As of 2024, there are eleven books where Alex Rider is the protagonist, and another connected to the Alex Rider series:
Stormbreaker (2000),
Point Blanc (2001),
Skeleton Key (2002),
Eagle Strike (2003),
Scorpia (2004)
Ark Angel (2005),
Snakehead (2007),
Crocodile Tears (2009),
Scorpia Rising (2011), plus
Russian Roulette (2013). Horowitz had stated that
Scorpia Rising was to be the last book in the Alex Rider series prior to writing
Russian Roulette about the life of
Yassen Gregorovich, but he has returned to the series with
Never Say Die (2017),
secret weapon (2019),
Nightshade (2020) and
Nightshade Revenge (2023). In 2003, Horowitz also wrote three novellas featuring the Diamond Brothers:
The Blurred Man,
The French Confection and
I Know What You Did Last Wednesday, which were republished together as
Three of Diamonds in 2004. The author information page in early editions of
Scorpia and the introduction to
Three of Diamonds claimed that Horowitz had travelled to Australia to research a new Diamond Brothers book, entitled
Radius of the Lost Shark. This claim was further backed up when a new Diamond Brothers novella entitled
The Greek who Stole Christmas! was released in 2007, where it is hinted at the end that
Radius of the Lost Shark may turn out to be the eighth entry in the series. However, the next novel in the series was instead called
Where Seagulls Dare, and is unrelated to the Australian-based adventure that was previously announced. Horowitz published the first six chapters unedited on his website throughout 2020, and the full, edited novel was published in 2022, with all profits going to support the
NHS. Horowitz also published two sequels to his short horror story collection;
More Horowitz Horror (2000) and
More Bloody Horowitz (2009). Many of the stories in
Horowitz Horror and
More Horowitz Horror were later repackaged in twos or threes as the
Pocket Horowitz series, while
More Bloody Horowitz was later reissued as
Scared to Death. One of the short stories in
More Bloody Horowitz is notable for serving as Horowitz's opportunity to get even with fellow author
Darren O'Shaughnessy, more commonly known as Darren Shan. In 2008, the pair had gotten into a joke dispute over O'Shaughnessy's use of Horowitz's name for an objectionable character (Antoine Horwitzer) in
Wolf Island. In retaliation, Horowitz chose to plot a gruesome literary revenge in the short story
The Man Who Killed Darren Shan. In 2004, Horowitz again attempted to branch out to an adult audience with
The Killing Joke, a comedy about a man who tries to track a joke to its source with disastrous consequences. The book was not very successful, and in August 2005, Horowitz returned to young adult fiction by releasing a book called ''
Raven's Gate which began a second successful series entitled The Power of Five (The Gatekeepers
in the United States). Based heavily on one of his earlier novels entitled The Devil's Door-Bell
, each of the first four entries of The Power of Five
subsequently ended up being a rewritten and expanded version of their respective counterpart from the Pentagram
series. The second book in the series, Evil Star (based on The Night of the Scorpion
),
was released in April 2006. The third in the series is called Nightrise (based on The Silver Citadel
), and was released on 2 April 2007. The fourth book Necropolis (based on Day of the Dragon
) was released in October 2008. The fifth and final book, the only one not based on an earlier Pentagram
novel, was released in October 2012 and is called Oblivion''. Horowitz describes this series as "Alex Rider with devils and witches". In October 2008, Horowitz's play
Mindgame opened Off Broadway at the
SoHo Playhouse in New York City.
Mindgame starred
Keith Carradine, Lee Godart, and Kathleen McNenny. The production was the New York stage directorial debut for
Ken Russell. In March 2009 he was a guest on
Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme on
BBC Radio 3.
Continued success (2011–present) On 19 January 2011, the estate of
Arthur Conan Doyle announced that Horowitz was to be the writer of a new Sherlock Holmes novel, the first such effort to receive an official endorsement from them and to be entitled
The House of Silk. It was both published, in November of 2011 and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. A follow-up novel,
Moriarty, was published in 2014. In October 2014, the estate of
Ian Fleming commissioned Horowitz to write a
James Bond novel,
Trigger Mortis, which was released in 2015. It was followed by a second novel,
Forever and A Day, which came out on 31 May 2018. A third novel entitled
With a Mind to Kill was released on 17 May 2022. Horowitz is the only author in recent years to have been invited by
Ian Fleming Publications to write successive, official James Bond novels. In 2016, Horowitz's adult novel
Magpie Murders was published. Having previously spoken about the book in 2005, it was initially described as being about "a whodunit writer who is murdered while he's writing his latest whodunit". Horowitz finally finished it in late 2015, and it was published in October 2016. A follow-up novel,
Moonflower Murders, was released in 2020. A third and final novel in the series,
Marble Hall Murders, was released in April 2025. In 2017, Horowitz began a new series of detective novels which includes himself as a novelist enlisted by an out-of-work detective called Hawthorne to write books about the way Hawthorne solves crimes. The fictional Horowitz accompanies Hawthorne as he investigates murders committed in London and other locations. So far, starting with
The Word is Murder, five of these books have appeared, with three others commissioned. In 2011, Horowitz tweeted that he had plans to write a new trilogy for the same demographic as his
Alex Rider and
Power of Five books, but that it's still "a secret". During 2012 and 2013, Horowitz tweeted out some more information regarding the series, where he stated that it will be "a completely new genre" from anything else he'd done so far, and that it will have a contemporary setting in modern-day London with a 15-year-old protagonist. He also revealed that it's tentatively entitled
The Machine. However, Horowitz revealed in 2021 that he has yet to begin writing this series and that he has no immediate plans to do so. ==Film and television career==