will soon look like the skull. He graduated from the University of York with a lower second class degree in English literature and art history in 1977, where he was in Vanbrugh College. Horowitz's father was associated with some of the politicians in the "circle" of prime minister Harold Wilson, including Eric Miller. Facing bankruptcy, he moved his assets into Swiss numbered bank accounts. He died from cancer when Horowitz was 22, and the family was never able to track down the missing money despite years of trying. Horowitz now lives in Central London with his wife Jill Green, whom he married in Hong Kong on 15 April 1988. Green produced Foyle's War, the series Horowitz wrote for ITV. They have two sons. He credits his family with much of his success in writing, as he says they help him with ideas and research. He is a patron of family support charity Home-Start in Suffolk and child protection charity Kidscape. Politically, he considers himself to be "vaguely conservative". Ahead of the 2010 United Kingdom general election, Horowitz stated he would vote for the Conservative Party in response to the then policies of the governing Labour Party but "with little enthusiasm." In 2017, Horowitz expressed criticism of the notion of cultural appropriation after a publisher had allegedly tried to dissuade him from creating a black character as a central figure in one of his novels, and supported fellow author Lionel Shriver's critiques on the same issue. He also criticised the social phenomenon of cancel culture and "mobbing" of figures for expressing diverse opinions, stating "There is a rigidity in the way we have begun to think and speak. If we step outside certain lines on certain issues, we find not just people disagreeing, but disagreeing to the extent of death threats. When somebody says something untoward in the press, and I am not saying this about myself, people don't just say that was a stupid thing to say. They say, Lose your job. They want you to never ever have an income again." Horowitz was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours, both for services to literature. Literary career Early literary work (1979–1991) Anthony Horowitz's first book, The Sinister Secret of Frederick K Bower, was a