Anthony Horowitz

The author of the internationally bestselling Alex Rider novels, Anthony Horowitz has also written for television and been commissioned to write books continuing the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and James Bond....

Horowitz was born in 1955 in Middlesex and went to Rugby School in Warwickshire before reading English Literature and Art History at the University of York. Soon after Horowitz graduated his father died and the family were bankrupted – his father’s assets had been held in Swiss bank accounts and couldn’t be traced.

Already certain that he wanted to be a writer, Horowitz submitted his debut novel, The Sinister Secret of Frederick K Bower, for publication and it was released in 1979. Several standalone novels soon followed, as well as work for television – Horowitz’ credits include adaptations for ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Murder Most Horrid for the BBC, several early episodes of Midsomer Murders and the award-winning Foyle’s War.

Horowitz embarked on his perhaps most successful creation, the Alex Rider books, in 2000. Centred on a 14-year-old boy taken on as a spy by MI6 after his family have died, the fast-paced stories have sold over 21 million copies around the world. As part of his high-stakes investigations – a plot to kill thousands of children via a new computer system in the series debut Stormbreaker, plans to unleash a nuclear bomb, an attempt to poison an entire country – Alex faces secret organizations, double agents and an array of gadgets, identifying him for many as a ‘teenage James Bond’. While his story seemed to conclude in 2011’s Scorpia Rising he returned to action six years later with Never Say Die, then 2020’s Nightshade and the recently published Nightshade Revenge.

Also popular among young adult readers are Horowitz’ Power of Five books. Published between 2005 and 2012 they see five teenagers from across the world come together to battle the Old Ones – ancient gods determined to destroy humanity.

A true accolade came in 2011 when the Arthur Conan Doyle estate revealed that Horowitz had been chosen to write a new Sherlock Holmes novel. The House of Silk was published later that year and was followed by Moriarty in 2013. Further honour came in 2014 when Horowitz was requested by Ian Fleming’s estate to write a James Bond novel. Since then he has penned two further adventures starring the secret agent, as well as the mystery series Hawthorne and Horowitz in which he imagines himself accompanying a detective and writing about his crime solving skills.