Anthony Horovitz talks about the "Russian dolls" of "Rhythm Mortelle"

• Paris Première is broadcasting the Mortal Rhyme

  series this Friday .

• British writer and screenwriter Anthony Horovitz adapts his own novel here.

• The creator of

  Inspector Barnaby

  tells

  20 Minutes

  the difficulties of adapting such a complex plot.

A survey in Russian doll mode!

, miniseries in 6 episodes broadcast this Friday at 9 p.m. on Paris Première and directed by Peter Cattaneo (

), follows a double investigation: that of Inspector Atticus Pünd (Tim McMullan), the hero of the latest novel by 'Alan Conway (Conleth Hill), and that of his editor, Susan Ryeland (Lesley Manville, who plays Princess Margaret in season 5 of

), who became a detective in spite of herself, in order to find the final chapter (and the murderer !) of its favorite author.

The prolific writer and screenwriter Anthony Horovitz once again adapts his own novel and signs with this mise en abyme a skilful variation of

, sprinkled with references that will delight fans of Agatha Christie's stories.

met the prolific best-selling author Anthony Horovitz at the CanneSeries festival, when he chaired the jury for the short format competition.

When you wrote the novel “Rhyme Mortal”, were you already thinking about adapting it for the small screen?

No way !

The novel is 650 pages and the plot is very complicated.

I thought it wouldn't be possible to adapt it for television.

When my wife, who is a producer, decided to do the adaptation.

The BBC immediately said “no, it's impossible to do”.

It took me two years to write the adaptation.

Normally, adapting a book takes three to six months.

But, I couldn't figure out how to start… The heroine doesn't appear at the start, and that's not possible.

We had to find a way to put the two stories side by side.

We have different timelines… And all of a sudden, everything was unblocked!

I never think about the future life of a project when I write it.

For me, a book is book, television, television.

It would be a mistake to think about adaptation too soon,

"Deadly nursery rhyme" is a story that hides another, like Russian dolls...

Exactly !

That's how I describe this book.

There are three Russian dolls: the world of Atticus Pünd, the heart of the book created by fellow writer Alan Conway, superbly played in the series by Conleth Hill;

that of the editor Susan Ryeland who knows that the world of Atticus is not real, and there is a third layer, my life… My whole life is contained in this book.

There are lots of little clues scattered around: for example, at the end of the novel, Susan Ryeland leaves for Crete, that's where I spend half my time.

You have written two novels on Sherlock Holmes, many episodes of "Inspector Barnaby", created detective series like "Foyle's War" for the BBC, screened Agatha Christie novels, etc.

What always pleases in these stories of murders?

I am not interested in the murders, but in those who commit the murders.

When someone comments on a murder, emotions run high.

You don't kill someone because you're angry or a little jealous!

So I like the fact that in a murder story, the emotions are very strong.

On the other hand, what is a murder story?

It is the pursuit of truth.

We live in a world where it is almost impossible to know the truth with the continuous news, which changes every minute, the fake news.

We are almost three years in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

What is the cause of this pandemic?

How did it start?

Nobody actually knows.

A mystery novel gives the reader a complete truth.

At the end of the story, the detective has done his job, the crime is solved,

the community damaged, healed.

Everyone can relax.

It is one of the great paradoxes of our life, today, fiction is the only place where we find the truth.

How do you find pleasure in such a coded genre as the detective novel?

I try to avoid clichés.

I'm afraid of clichés.

It's the same with my Alex Rider series of novels.

After 14 adventures with this young spy, how to write the 15th without redoing what I have already done.

I don't want to repeat what Agatha Christie has already done.

So, I'm still looking for an original way to change the "whodunit".

Foyle's War - my long-running TV series that never aired in France, c'est fou - isn't really about crimes, it's about war... I got to tell stories about plastic surgery, the anti-Semitism, homophobia during the war, which were far more important than murder, clues and suspects.

In my series of Hawthorne and Horowitz novels, I'm the detective's sidekick.

Normally, the author is the one who knows everything, there, I don't know anything.

It amuses me a lot to find myself lost in my own novel.

My job is to take the whodunit, and try to do things that no one has ever done before, that's the challenge;

Did you collaborate with Guy Burt on the serial adaptation of Alex Rider?

I really admire Guy Burt, he did a superb job.

We talked a lot online, he did the work, but I'm the author.

I really admire what adapter Guy Bird did, he did a superb job.

We swapped.

I was involved in development, casting…Producer Jill Green is my wife, so she's very close to me…I don't take any credit for myself, but I'm proud that we worked so well together and that this collaboration has been very creative and fruitful.

We are now discussing season 3!

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