Name: Moonflower Murders
ISBN: 9780062955456

Anthony Horowitz

"Farlingaye Hall is a beautiful hotel in Suffolk on the east coast of England. Unfortunately, it is also the site of the brutal murder of Frank Parris, a retired advertising executive. Stefan Codrescu, a Romanian maintenance man, is arrested after police find blood spatter on his clothes and bed linen. He is found guilty and spends eight years in prison. It appears an open and shut case, but there is more than meets the eye. Alan Conway, the late author of the fictional Magpie Murders, knew Frank Parris and once visited Farlingaye Hall. Conway based Atticus Pund Takes the Cake, the third book in his detective series, on the hotel. Cecily Treherne, the daughter of the hotel owner, read the book and believes the truth of Stefan's innocence is found in its pages. But now...she has disappeared. Conway's former editor Susan Ryeland leaves her own hotel in Crete and travels to Suffolk to investigate the murder and Treherne's disappearance"--

Moonflower Murders

Featuring his famous literary detective Atticus Pund and Susan Ryeland, hero of the worldwide bestseller Magpie Murders, a brilliantly complex literary thriller with echoes of Agatha Christie from New York Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz. 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, Anthony Horowitz.

A Novel

Kaylee Ray

** spoiler alert **
           I have to say I love Horowitz’s writing style. I also love the “book within a book” thing he does. I found this sequel to be much more interesting than the first book in the series. I like that Susan’s character was fleshed out more, and I’m glad we got to see more of her relationship with Andreas. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him at the beginning but I was quite fond of him by the ending. There were parts of this story that I didn’t particularly like however. The side plot with Susan’s sister Katie seemed out of place and unnecessary. The reveal of the killer was fun and twisty but the whole BDSM sex thing was just…strange. Certainly a choice. That aside I did enjoy this story, and the story within it.

Retired publisher Susan Ryeland is running a small hotel on a Greek island with her longterm boyfriend Andreas. Then a couple - the Trehearnes - come to stay, and the 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. Susan knows that she must return to London and find out what really happened ...

Lotty 

Susan Ryeland, Lektorin außer Dienst, führt mit ihrem Lebensgefährten das zauberhafte kleine Hotel Polydoros auf Kreta. Aber ganz so idyllisch ist es dann doch nicht, denn der Alltag mit den ewig unzuverlässigen Lieferanten, unpünktlichen Angestellten und den nicht immer einfachen Gästen, macht das Inselleben anstrengender, als sie es sich vorgestellt hat. Auch ihre Beziehung leidet unter dem Stress, und Susan vermisst ihr altes Leben in London. Da kommt das Ehepaar Treherne gerade recht. Sie erzählen eine bizarre Geschichte von einem Mord in ihrem Hotel Branlow Hall just am Hochzeitstag ihrer Tochter Cecily. Und als sie schildern, wie Cecily verschwunden ist, kurz nachdem sie "Atticus unterwegs" gelesen hat, den Roman, den Susan seinerzeit lektoriert hat, wird ihr klar, dass sie dringend nach England muss. Die 10.000 Pfund, die die Trehernes für Susans Hilfe anbieten, sind ein zusätzlicher Anreiz.

Der Kriminalroman erinnert mich an Krimis der Autorin Agatha Christie oder M.C. Beaton, dort besonders an die Reihe "Agatha Raisin", welche ich etwas mit Susan evaluiert habe und sie als ähnlich willensstark und Power-Frauen wahrgenommen habe. Somit konnte ich das Buch gar nicht schnell genug lesen und habe es in mich aufgesogen wie ein Schwamm. Besonders das Mitraten und Ermitteln fesselt an das Buch und lässt die Lesezeit im nu vergehen, zudem ist es dadurch sehr fesselnd.
Der Buch im Buch Aspekt, also die Einbindung von "Atticus unterwegs",  hebt das Buch aus der breiten Masse und ist ein hoher Wiedererkennungswert.

Loved it! It was so cleverly written and the twists were really good. A book inside a book I’ve never read anything like it before! 

Jodie Reads

Cindy Lieberman

A book within a book about a murder, a man falsely accused, and the murder mystery novel that identifies the real killer. Can the book’s former editor figure it out before someone else dies? Very entertaining!

Tessa Francis 

Really unique, simple read, I loved that there was a book within a book. Some parts felt slightly theatrical, however I feel that was partly the point - to be a typical whodunnit. The end was slightly anti climatic but still tied in really well. 

Caitlin Snyder

3.5 rounded down

"The greatest evil occurs when people, no matter what their aims or their motives, become utterly convinced that they are right."

(+) I love how Horowitz puts an entire other novel into these books and incorporates it into the plot. Great references to famous mystery writers.

(-) This one dragged on a lot more than the first one. Alot of extra details that I couldn't make myself really care about. I just didn't connect with main character and didn't care about the her relationship or the details of her life which made the book seem drawn out.

Pam Sartain

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz is the second in the Susan Ryeland series, the first of which is  Magpie Murders. 

Susan is a former editor, and now joint hotel owner in Crete, and she's feeling fed up with life.  She's offered £10,000 to look into a murder and disappearance which are linked to a book that she edited, and so she's off to the UK!

I know of Anthony Horowitz from things like Foyle's War, and heard that he had written a couple of James Bond books, and a couple of books with Sherlock Holmes as the lead, but I didn't know what to expect.

I really enjoyed this book!  The characters were enjoyable, and you can see where they are in the book that Susan edited.  There are twists and turns that I didn't see coming at all.

I would describe this as a crime book, with sections of cosy crime.  You'll understand more when you read it.  I don't know if there's a similar section in the first book in the series!  That's as spoilery as I'll get!

 Moonflower Murders  was published on 20th August 2020, and is available to buy on  Amazon ,  Waterstones (signed editions!)  and from your  local independent bookshop .

You can follow Anthony Horowitz on his  website ,  Twitter  or  Facebook .

I was given this book in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to  Random House UK Cornerstone.