I have really enjoyed the novel way Mr Horowitz has approached his recent murder mysteries (The Word is Murder etc) and whilst different, this again captures the essence and atmosphere that surrounds both the main character, Susan Ryland and her previous life as an editor with successful author, Alan Conway. Recalled back from Crete by parents of missing daughter Cecily on the basis of her inside knowledge of Alan Conway (and a decent pay cheque) it is apparent Cecily’s disappearance ties into something she had read in one of Alan Conway’s books revealing to her that the wrong man had been arrested for a murder committed some 8 years previous and on her Wedding Day! Thus the storyline develops as a book within a book.
I confess to flagging a little by about a third of the way through but as we retrace the murder victims last known words and the book she was reading, so the pace picks up and the brain engaged. No doubt Mr Horowitz is a class act and if you stick with it you’ll be glad you read it.

Oh dear, this was a bit of a slog. I guess, the expectations were a bit high, but sadly this did not really work for me at all.

I was delighted to be able to return in this novel to the world of Horowitz’s earlier book, “Magpie Murders”, and to meet again his characters Susan Ryland, a literary agent, and German emigre detective Atticus Pund, the creation of her most successful author, Alan Conway, now deceased. Susan is asked to investigate the disappearance of a wealthy young woman whose family own a hotel where a brutal murder had taken place some years previously. This is because Conway, now dead, had visited the hotel shortly after the murder to harvest inspiration for one of his crime novels, and had declared that the wrong person was now imprisoned for the crime. The parents hope thatSusan’s undersatanding of Conway’s work will help them to find their missing daughter. As before, the book features a crime story within a crime story, that of Susan’s investigation and the case investigated by Pund after Conway’s visit to the Hotel, which will offer clues to the earlier murder. This series is old-fashioned detective story telling in the best possible sense- complex plotting, red herrings, a range of suspects each with possible motives and suspicious backgrounds, twists and turns to the final reveals. Both the contemporary and the “fictional” 1950s narratives are extremely enjoyable, written with verve and intelligence, providing a challenging read for crime fans without the visceral gore and misogyny of so much in the genre these days.

This was the first book I have read by Anthony Horowitz and I enjoyed it. I thought it was very well written and easy to read although the plot was fairly intricate, with all the different characters from both books - the book inside a book!
I did feel it was a little slow and quite long, but a fairly good plot and worth a read.

Thanks to NetGalley for my free copy in exchange for an honest review.

A woman has gone missing and an editor is asked to look again at a book by one of her own authors. Alan Conway is dead but Cecily Treherne read his book and knows who committed a murder at her parent's hotel. The only trouble is, the book isn't about that murder and now Cecily is missing so nobody knows what she found. Can Susan, Alan's editor, solve the case by reading the book within the book?

This is a strange novel, rather slow moving and in two very definite parts with the Atticus Pund section definitely being a better read than the "real life" novel.

It's not that I didn't like it but I just think it tried to be far too clever for it's own good and I am afraid I really lost interest. When the ending is revealed, I really didn't feel as if the investment in time was worth it.

This is the sequel to Anthony Horowitz's Magpie Murders, another homage to classic golden age of crime, replicating the same structure of a book within a book, and the return of publisher, Susan Ryeland, operating as an amateur detective once again. After the fallout from the last book, Susan is no longer working in publishing and is instead jointly owning and running a hotel in Crete with her long term Greek boyfriend, Andreas Patakis. It is not quite the idyll that might have been expected, it is hard work from morning to night, every single day, with never ending problems, along with some awkward and opportunistic guests, and Susan goes to bed exhausted, and what is worse, they are in debt. There is little in the way of job satisfaction, running a hotel is Andreas's dream that she invested in, but now she is not so sure about her relationship with him, and the truth is that she is missing England and her former profession as an editor.

So when Susan is approached by wealthy couple, Lawrence and Pauline Trehearne, to return to England and their exclusive Suffolk hotel, Branlow Hotel, to look into the disappearance of their daughter, Cecily, it feels like just what she needs to do, with the bonus of being paid. Eight years ago, a hotel guest, Frank Parris, had been brutally hammered to death on Cecily and Aidan MacNeil wedding day for which ex-offender, Stefan Codrescu, was arrested and charged by Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Locke, there was plenty of evidence, for which he received a 27 year prison sentence. Cecily had phoned her parents the day before she went missing, telling them there had been a miscarriage of justice, and after reading the late Alan Conway's Atticus Pund Takes the Case, featuring his post-war German detective, an obvious story based on the Parris murder, she knows who the real killer is. Susan examines a host of suspects in the present and their possible links to Frank's murder, before re-reading Conway's novel, in her hunt for a dangerous double killer.

As usual, Horowitz writes two intricate and complex murder mysteries, inserting Conway's Pund novel for the reader in the middle, a Conway who is known for his clever twists, hints and clues, his little jokes and anagrams, and characters, cruelly but clearly drawn from those involved or present in the time period of Frank Parris's killing. Once again the author entertains and engages with a compelling and riveting book in a book crime mysteries, resurrecting an unusual detective in Susan, that ends in the classic tradition with all the suspects gathered for the final reveal of the murderer. Those who loved Magpie Murders are likely to enjoy this too! Highly recommended to all crime fiction and thriller readers. Many thanks to Random House Cornerstone for an ARC.

Well, given how much I loved the previous book in this series, The Magpie Murders, I was predisposed to liking this book. But I didn't expect to be completely entranced from the very first page. The Russian nesting doll aspect of these books, where publishing and other works are crucial to understanding the mystery, make this a delight for book lovers and mystery fans alike.

I love our protagonist, Susan Ryeland, who we see trying on a new life with her love, Andreas, in Crete. Having turned her back on publishing after the trauma of the previous book's events, they have opened a hotel and are exhausted with it's endless demands. When a couple appears and asks her to come back to England to help find their daughter who thinks she solved a murder after reading a book that Susan edited, she gets pulled back to England and danger.

The characters are wonderful, in multiple aspects (as comes apparent in the book- but no spoilers). The pace and story were also exceptional. I cannot wait for this to be released, as I know a handful of people I will personally tell to get this book on the publishing date.

I received a free ARC of the book. Many thanks to Netgalley and to Random House for the opportunity.

Before picking up this book, I hadn’t read any Anthony Horowitz before, and that includes book #1 of this series, Magpie Murders. Moonflower Murders is book #2 in the Susan Ryeland series. As a reviewer it is sometimes helpful not to start at the beginning of a series. You can tell prospective readers whether this particular story can be read as a stand-alone. In this case it presented no difficulties, there appeared to be no crucial backstory missing. The murderer from book #1 was not outed, though I suspect that if you read Magpie Murders afterwards, your pool of suspects my be narrowed purely by their presence in Moonflower.

An elderly couple approach Susan Ryeland, formerly a publisher, now a hotelier in Greece. They want her to investigate the disappearance of their daughter. They believe it is related to a possible miscarriage of justice, eight years previously, that was hinted at in a fictional book based on a real murder. The author of that book is now dead, but Susan, as the publisher, may have inside knowledge. She agrees and returns to England to begin stirring up the past.

Horowitz’s writing is intelligent without being pompous. The plot is interesting and this book includes the full text of the whodunnit within, it’s kind of a two for one. I became so engrossed by the book within the book, I was a little disoriented when the narrative returned to the original story. In the best tradition of the murder mystery, I attempted to spot the clues myself and identify the murderer before the narrator. I could say I succeeded but actually I suspected almost everyone at some point, which is, of course, a sign of a truly rip roaring whodunnit.

This is the kind of book that makes you instantly plan a reread to spot all the clues that the author dangled in front of you while you were looking the other way. There won’t just be a reread for me though. I felt that thrill a reader feels when they realise they have found a great new author to obsess over and immediately checks what other books they have written. I foresee many more Horowitz mysteries in my future.

Moonflower Murders is out 20th August 2020. Magpie Murders is out right now.

The follow up to The Magpie Murders is a slow burning murder mystery with some twist and turns.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

A good read and very clever but overly long for me. I did feel it was a bit too padded. I did enjoy The Magpie Murders and more so The House of Silk. It's a book within a book and an interesting idea to give you a copy of the book that is being talked about in the book itself.
I did have some empathy with Susan although she felt very male. There was also a line "too busy planning the future and worrying about it to enjoy the life you have now"- not an exact quote but the sentiment really did resonate with me.

Anthony Horowitz is a good author- just a bit too long winded on this occasion and trying to be too clever

Absolutely fantastic, a whodunnit inside a whodunnit! As if one alone to solve isn't hard enough.. The prose are on point, the characters are incredibly well built and i was sucked into the tale right from the start. If you're a fan of any mystery , whodunnit yarns old or new then i can't recommend this highly enough. Horowitz has managed something incredibly special with this novel and you'll see exactly why when you read it.

I absolutely loved this Author and this book. A modern day Agatha Christie, although I didn’t’ figure it out whodunnit. We revisit Susan , living on a Greek Island with her partner Andreas. Who is asked to investigate a daughters disappearance.
I enjoyed exploring the characters and village the story is set, I had my suspicions about few of them, how wrong was I !
I love the way the Author writes a Story within a story within a story, twists and turns at every corner. Had to read it in short bursts I didn’t want it to end!
Brilliant way to spend a few lazy afternoons with a glass of wine.

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read this prior to publishing

When I read that this was a second Atticus Pund book, I was intrigued, having read Magpie Murders.
This is set two years later and Susan Ryeland is living on a Greek island with her partners Andreas, and running a hotel.
She is tempted back to England by a couple whose daughter has disappeared, and her disappearance is tied up with the third book in the series, “Atticus Pund takes the Case”, which Susan edited.
The couple own a hotel where a murder had taken place, and Alan Conway stayed at the hotel soon after, and then used the murder as a basis for his book, using the hotel family and staff as characters in the story.

As with Magpie Murders, we have first an investigation, and the a book within a book, and then the final resolution of the mystery.
I love how Anthony Horowitz is playing with the detective genre, and certainty enjoyed both books, I manged to identify one murderer, but missed most of the clues.
An excellent compelling read.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for the opportunity to read this book.

As an avid fan of 'Magpie Murders' I was thrilled to receive an advance review copy of this sequel 'Moonflower Murders' and it did not disappoint. Anthony Horowitz is one of my favourite writers and his ability to weave gripping narratives and build fist-clenching moments of unadulterated tension is nothing short of masterful. The 'Murders' series is clearly inspired by the good old fashioned whodunnits of Agatha Christie but updated for a contemporary audience. In this story we revisit Susan Ryeland who is now a retired publisher turned Greek hotelier turned amateur sleuth, as she is asked to return to England to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Cecily Treherne. As the narrative develops, Susan realises that she needs to read 'Atticus Pund Takes The Case' the last book she edited before the collapse of her publishing house. At this point, the novel become a book within a book as we, the reader also read Atticus Pund in order to search for clues to Cecily's disappearance.

I was thoroughly absorbed by Horowitz's use of all the tropes of a whodunnit murder mystery from red herrings to the motives of various characters, uncovering clues right down to the thrilling climax which celebrates the tradition of gathering all the suspects together in one room to uncover the murderer. I emphatically recommend this book as an exciting, escapist read and thank Netgalley for the advance review copy. I hope there'll be more to follow in this series!

This was probably a 3.5 for me as it was a good, engaging read. It's a clever idea for a book - I hadn't read the first story in the series so the book within a book came as a surprise for me. I actually really liked Atticus Pund, and I enjoyed his Christie-esque story. The character I struggled with was Susan. When I started reading I knew nothing of the story, and I assumed that the character I was learning about was a man...Susan just reads like a man, and I never quite believed she was a woman for the whole book. I also felt it was a huge stretch that the family would hire her (an editor?!) to investigate their daughter's disappearance, rather than getting a detective on the case...

But, if you let go of things like that, it's a good read. Twisty turny and I didn't guess what was happening.

I can thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who loves to read whodunnits in the Agatha Christie/Hercules Poirot genre where everyone is gathered together at the end and the murderer/ess revealed.
However, what makes Moonflower Murders unique is that is a book within a book and you have 2 storylines to follow as you try to work out who ,what and why. So clever and it makes a definite 'can't put it down' read.
Just to make it more complicated you know that the characters in the 2 books are linked together and it becomes harder and harder to try any work out who in the book in a book is based on who within the main book. Wonderful.
Books like this leave me wondering in my own investigative powers as once again I ask myself - should I have worked this out? - were there enough clues? - as usual I failed miserably to work out the culprits.
The only 'criticism', if I can call it that, of the Moonflower Murders book is that I preferred the book within a book, more depth of characters and a very clever ending.
Just when you think it is all over - it isn't - and you are left with the revelation of a name anagram that revealed the culprit in Moonflower Murders from the book in a book. Don't want to say anymore as it may spoil it for the reader.
Definitely not to be missed

When I read Magpie Murders (no ‘The’!) I never thought that there would be a sequel however Anthony Horowitz has worked his magic and produced a second story which is just as devious, gripping and page turning as the first.
Once again we have two complete stories in one. The book opens with Susan Ryeland, narrator and heroine of the first book, now living in Crete with her partner. She is approached by an English couple, the Trehernes who own an upmarket hotel in the English countryside. Their daughter, Cecily, has disappeared shortly after having told them that the man convicted of a murder which took place on her wedding day some eight years previously was, in fact, not the killer. This, it seems, she has deduced from reading ‘Atticus Pünd Takes the Case,’ third (of nine) in the fictional series of novels by Alan Conway. As Alan Conway died in the events of the first book they cannot approach him so they have come to Susan, who edited the Atticus Pünd series and offer her £10,000 if she can solve their case by finding out what has happened to Cecily and the truth of the events on that fateful wedding day.
Susan heads to England and begins her investigations. As she edges closer to the truth she decided that she needs to revisit ‘Atticus Pünd Takes the Case’ and, as she reads it, so do we, getting to enjoy a fully fledged novel set in the 1950s which sees our titular hero heading to Cornwall to solve the mysterious murder of an actress. Tragedy builds upon tragedy until Atticus Pünd gets to the truth. The link between these two stories is that Alan Conway visited the Trehernes’ hotel shortly after the murder seeking inspiration for his book and, as was his wont, based his fictional characters on those he met on his visit, usually turning them into cruel caricatures of their real life counterparts. Conway, however, also liked to hide clues and messages within his novels, in the form of symbolism, anagrams, cryptic messages and acrostics. It is in these that Susan must search for the same truth that Cecily saw and provide a solution to the mystery of her disappearance as well as what really took place eight years in the past.
Mr Horowitz also likes playing gentle games with his readers, for example there are nicely remixed versions of events from ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,’ ‘Death on the Nile’ and ‘Dumb Witness’ which pay homage to Dame Agatha’s classic novels whilst giving them a modern twist and Atticus Pünd is clearly based on a certain M. Poirot. In both the Atticus Pünd novel and the present day events we are, as always, presented with all the clues. We see what Susan sees, hear what she hears and yet still, as always, we are fooled – twice!
The two stories are written in quite different styles, as would be the case if they had really been written by two different people. Susan’s present day story is told in the first person (past tense thank goodness) whilst the Atticus Pünd novel is a much more traditional ‘golden age’ style. Indeed Mr Horowitz even goes in for some self criticism as Susan comments on which bits of the book she had not liked at the time and had tried to edit out only to be over-ruled by the author.
The characters in both stories are nicely drawn. Although I thoroughly enjoyed both ‘books’ I found that none of the characters were particularly nice people apart, perhaps, for the Cornish Detective Chief Inspector with Atticus Pünd teams up and the rather naive receptionist in the Mayflower Hotel who finds herself ‘in the family way’ with no one to turn to. The nicest person of all seems to be Cecily whose long shadow hangs over the whole story, she saw something in the Atticus Pünd story which convinced her of a grave injustice and her disappearance is obviously linked to this but we also feel her influence over the other characters, many of whom she has known for years. She is really the driving force behind the whole tale even though she is absent from it.
Overall I loved the book, I am delighted that Mr Horowitz has decided to continue this series and, as several more in the Atticus Pünd series are named in the text, I hope that this will not be the last we hear of him and reluctant sleuth Susan Ryeland. I felt, contrary to several reviews I have seen, that this is definitely a sequel to Magpie Murders and that these stories should be read in order. The primary reason being that, although this book is fully able to stand alone without its predecessor, the first book would not be so enjoyable if read second as many of the characters would no longer be suspects and the ending would not be as tense and nerve wracking.
My thanks to Random House for a review copy and to Mr Horowitz for winning the game – yet again!

Having loved Magpie Murders, I was super excited to be able to read Moonflower Murders; thank you Net Galley and Random House publishers for that.
I think it is the sheer scale of meticulous plotting by Anthony Horowitz that makes these books such a joy to read. That and the fact that you are getting two books in one! Thoroughly recommend and a real salve to read in these troubled times. I hope it’s not the end of Susan or Atticus Pund.

Loved this book! The writing style is so easy to read and the intricate plot twists kept the story moving along at pace. Loved the idea of a book within a book, which I think worked really well and as a lover of Agatha Christie, I loved the big reveal at the conclusion. Have read a few Anthony Horowitz novels and loved them all. Will read more in future.

Ex publisher, now living in Crete, Susan Ryeland, is visited by Pauline and Lawrence Treherne. They are seeking help to find their daughter Cecily, who has disappeared and they think that Susan may be able to help find her as they are convinced that her disappearance is connected to a murder mystery entitled ‘Atticus Pünd Takes The Case’ written by Alan Conway, a client of Susan’s. Alan died two years earlier but based his book on a murder at the hotel owned by Pauline and Lawrence on the wedding day of Cecily some 8 years earlier.

A man was convicted for the murder but Cecily’s parents’ are not convinced that the right man was convicted and that Cecily had seen the real truth in Atticus Pünd Takes The Case just before she disappeared.

I found this book quite hard work to get through as it is actually 2 books in one in that about 40% of the book is the entire text of ‘Atticus Pünd Takes The Case’. This meant introducing a whole new cast of characters, all of whom were loosely based on the already large cast of characters. To make matters worse there was another story within entitled ‘The Ludendorff Diamond’. Ironically, Susan Ryland, mentions that when she read ‘Atticus Pünd Takes The Case’ as a publisher she was not happy with the chapter ‘The Ludendorff Diamond’ which really sits as a short story!

I also struggled with other things such as Susan’s car starting first time when she retrieved it from storage after she’s been in Crete for 2 years. The fictional detective Atticus Pünd was German and carried a rosewood walking stick as affection as it was not needed. He said things like “It is a mystery, is it not, how this trick was performed, Miss Cain” to his secretary. I just kept thinking of David Jason playing Poirot at each mention of Atticus Pünd.

After the conclusion of ‘Atticus Pünd Takes The Case’ there is a lengthy section where Susan compares the characters in each scenario and explains the connection of their names, anagrams, same initials, etc. I found this all very tedious and just skipped over it while also wondering if I was then missing some vital clue (I wasn’t). It felt quite contrived at times and was very pedestrian in the approach, especially the first 40% which was mostly Susan visiting lots of different people who had known the murdered man in some capacity to question them.

3.5 stars but a little disappointing, especially given the author.

With thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review