There’s absolutely loads of choices available for this prompt. I took a look at the British classic, Richard and Judy Book Club to see if there was anything on there that matched something I already has on my shelves. Moonflower Murder by Anthony Horowitz is a former choice and on my list of books I wanted to read this year.

What it’s about?

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 Trehernes 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 Branlow 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 Branlow Hall. Conway based the third book in his detective series, Atticus Pund Takes the Cake, on that very crime. 

The Trehernes’ 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 Trehernes 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.  

What I think:

This series is so clever I find it astonishing that someone can come with all the pieces that work so brilliantly. Horowitz’s knowledge of crime fiction must be extensive, to say the least.

This is essentially two books.

The present-day story begins with the disappearance of Cecily. Married mother of one, Cecily is the daughter of the owners of Branlow Hall. Years earlier, a guest was murdered at the hotel during her wedding to husband Aidan. A suspect was arrested and convicted, but after reading Alan Conway’s book based on events at the hotel, Cecily is convinced that the wrong man is in prison.

As Alan Conway’s former editor, Susan Ryeland is asked to look at the book and work out just what Cecily saw. And whether or not her disappearance is connected to her revelations.

I found this very clever and multi-layered. I felt it was a bit slow to start with as Suasn seems to delay reading the book for far too long, which made the first part of the story drag a bit. But once it gets going it’s compelling and twisty and everything you would expect.

There’s lots of red herrings, and the reveals are cleverly done.

I don’t think I loved it as much as Magpie Murders – there was a lot to keep track of and I did lose a few details from Susan’s investigation with the interruption of Conway’s book. I’m not sure the whole book was necessary – I think excerpts or chapters would have been enough.

Having said that, this was still an enjoyable and clever read.