Moonflower Murders
A Novel
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4.2 • 645 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
New York Times Bestseller • Now a MASTERPIECE mystery series on PBS!
Bestselling author Anthony Horowitz brings back his famous literary detective Atticus Pund and Susan Ryeland, hero of Magpie Murders, in an inventive, labyrinthine story that is “catnip for classic mystery lovers” (Time magazine).
Retired publisher Susan Ryeland is living the good life. She is running a small hotel on a Greek island with her long-term boyfriend Andreas. It should be everything she's always wanted. But is it? She's exhausted with the responsibilities of making everything work on an island where nothing ever does, and truth be told she's beginning to miss London.
And then the Trehearnes come to stay. The strange and mysterious story they tell, about an unfortunate murder that took place on the same day and in the same hotel in which their daughter was married—a picturesque inn on the Suffolk coast named Farlingaye Hall—fascinates Susan and piques her editor’s instincts.
One of her former writers, the late Alan Conway, author of the fictional Magpie Murders, knew the murder victim—an advertising executive named Frank Parris—and once visited Farlingaye Hall. Conway based the third book in his detective series, Atticus Pund Takes the Cake, on that very crime.
The Trehearne’s, daughter, Cecily, read Conway’s mystery and believed the book proves that the man convicted of Parris’s murder—a Romanian immigrant who was the hotel’s handyman—is innocent. When the Trehearnes reveal that Cecily is now missing, Susan knows that she must return to England and find out what really happened.
Brilliantly clever, relentlessly suspenseful, full of twists that will keep readers guessing with each revelation and clue, Moonflower Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage English crime fiction from one of its greatest masterminds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Horowitz's masterly sequel to 2017's Magpie Murders finds Susan Ryeland, who misses her previous work as a London book editor and publisher, discontent in her new life running a struggling hotel in Crete. Then she's visited by Lawrence and Pauline Treherne, the owners of Branlow Hall, an upscale Suffolk hotel, who think she can help in finding their missing daughter, Cecily. Cecily disappeared shortly after calling her parents to say that an injustice had been done. At the time of Cecily's wedding at Branlow Hall a decade earlier, Frank Parris, a hotel guest, was bludgeoned to death in his room. One of the staff, Stefan Codrescu, was convicted of the murder based on powerful circumstantial evidence. Cecily told her parents on the phone she was convinced of Stefan's innocence after reading a mystery inspired by the Parris murder by the now deceased Alan Conway, one of Susan's authors. Susan accepts the Trehernes' generous fee and travels to Branlow Hall to investigate, which involves looking into Parris's death and rereading the Conway novel for clues. Horowitz, who matches a baffling puzzle with a sympathetic, flawed lead, has never been better at surprising the reader and playing fair. This is a flawless update of classic golden age whodunits.
Customer Reviews
Moonflower Murders
Interesting but convoluted mystery.
Moonflower Murders
The beginning of the book is great, and that’s the problem - this only the first 4 chapters of the book
A book within a book!,,
Amazing