This was my first experience reading Anthony Horowitz and I was not disappointed! It does have a strong Agatha Christe feel to it. At one point I was a little aggravated by the length, but it was well worth it and the story flowed well! It's also a book within a book, so that explains why it is a little longer. I wasn't able to guess who the killer was or why, because there were so many twists and turns. It will definitely keep you guessing and keep you up at night until you finish it. I highly recommend for any mystery fans!

This book is a sequel to the 2017 book MAGPIE MURDERS. Susan Ryeland, the former editor of the Atticus Pund novels written by deceased author Alan Conway, is retired and running a hotel in Crete. She returns to London when invited to investigate the disappearance of a local hotel owner because one of the books that Susan edited may have some involvement in the disappearance. The plot gets even more involved because there is a novel within a novel, similar to the first book. I liked the interior novel better than the wrap-around novel, but they both have many different and confusing characters. Keeping track of all those characters may not be worth the effort in the end. Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for providing an ARC.

For the fans of whodunits, Anthony Horowitz’s Moonflower Murders is a must-read. The author needs no introduction, but I will say that he is the master of his craft. Having read Magpie Murders, my expectations were high, and the book fulfilled every one of them. In Moonflower Murders, we meet Susan Ryeland again. The editor of the Cloverleaf Books which burned down in Magpie Murders. Susan is no longer in the publishing business and managing a hotel on Crete with her partner Andreas. She is approached by a couple wanting her to solve the disappearance of their daughter Cecily. The reason for choosing Susan is just one. She was the editor of the Alan Conway book Atticus Pund Takes a Case. Alan Conway is the author of the Atticus Pund series, introduced in Magpie Murders. The couple is convinced that the book has something to do with their missing daughter, as it is based on a murder that took place at their hotel eight years ago. Since their daughter disappeared right after reading that book, having claimed that the police got the wrong guy, the couple wants Susan to re-read the book and find out what happened to their daughter. Susan decides to investigate and what follows are the twists and turns in the story-line as the reader discovers the truth behind Cecily's disappearance. The plot is intricate, and the attention to detail is astounding. The intriguing part is that Mr. Horowitz has written a book within a book that creates a rich reading experience. It brings all the clues together in an entirely reasonable manner. Moonflower Murders is another masterpiece by Anthony Horowitz..…a must read!

A genius sequel to follow a superb, genre-breaking first. I loved this; perhaps not as much as I did Magpie Murders but why compare? A self-aware delight to all fans of the classic mystery.

Not quite the same achievement as Magpie Murders, but still worthwhile. Horowitz has to work quite a bit harder to get Susan Ryeland into the detective hot seat, but once there the twists are nice and twisty and a reader would be hard put to abandon the mystery before it's dramatic conclusion. Horowitz again puts the whole text of one of fictional author Alan Conway's books in the middle of his narrative. It's short even for a detective story (which Horowitz seems to recognize as he has Susan do a bit of hand waving around the subject), but that may have been the most enjoyable part for me. Perhaps Horowitz should just write a Golden Age style mystery without the meta sandwich.

Someone described the first book in the series as a turducken and I can't stop thinking about that! What a brilliant description! A book within a book is so much fun.

A sequel to the Magpie Murders, this book contains the same type of essence, but was a little slow to start for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery though, and reading about Atticus Pünd.

Anthony Horowitz's "Moonflower Murders," like "The Magpie Murders" before it, is shaped like a turducken.

The first layer, the turkey, is book publisher Susan Ryeland. In both books she solves murders by revisiting her relationship with author Alan Conway, the duck in this story but a true turkey: an egocentric, arrogant man who penned best-selling mysteries. To solve the mystery, Horowitz inserts in both books a Conway book with its main character -- the chicken -- a Poirot-like private detective.

Horowitz brings the same storytelling talent he showed off in "Midsomer Murders," The story is fast paced, accented with references to literary and Hollywood stars.

I loved the book that was within this book. It felt like a real pastiche of Agatha Christie. And then having Susan go through and find all the clues that Alan Conway had put into the book made me want to read it again. The mystery that Susan was trying to solve was not as complicated as it could have been. The clue was really on the first page of Conway's book, but I had already figured out some of it. The book did start out slowly -- especially since I didn't remember any of Magpie Murders. Horowitz certainly has captured the essence of the Golden Age of Mysteries when everyone is a suspect and anyone could be the murderer.

I love reading mysteries by Anthony Horowitz. Even when I figure out who the killer is, there's always a twist I wasn't expecting. Moonflower Murders, like it's predecessor Magpie Murders, is a mystery within a mystery with the delightfully ambivalent protagonist Susan Ryeland, who never seems to know what she wants to do with herself, but is an astute reader and editor which makes her a more clever detective than anyone ever thinks. Ryeland was the editor for a notoriously difficult yet prolific and successful author who died a couple of years previously. Despite his death, he is still managing to get her in trouble - when one of his novels leads to the disappearance of a young woman who runs a hotel. Ryeland is asked to investigate and does so with her usual aplomb. The detective from his novels is a carbon copy of Poirot, except German rather than Belgium, and it's a joy to read both the frame and the book inside it.

Though there's not much romance in the book, and honestly I'm usually not much for romance anyway, I have to admit there was a lovely scene between Ryeland and her partner that made me break out in a ridiculous grin. The resolution was complex yet the clues were all there throughout the book - I just would never likely read a mystery novel closely enough to have found any of them. To me, that's the best type of mystery. Clever enough that I don't figure it out but not so clever that I don't see how I could have.

4.5 stars! Treat yourself to reading this good old fashioned whodunit told in a new kind of way! This is the second in a series of Atticus Pund/Alan Conway novels with the protagonist Susan Ryeland. It is hard to explain the concept of these novels. I started off reading the first in this series but then it got “too weird” for me and I stopped. I wish I hadn’t. This time I was ready, and stayed the course. What is too weird? Well, it isn’t at all. Horowitz uses a novel within a novel to help solve the mystery that Susan finds herself working to solve. It can be a bit of a brain switch- you’re reading along getting to know modern day characters in modern day Greece and England- and then you as the reader are moved into an Atticus Pund novel set in the 1950’s. Susan Ryeland was the editor of the Atticus Pund novels for her terribly prickly and now deceased client- the author Alan Conway. He liked to bury Easter eggs in his novels to hint at real life crimes. It is a really neat gimmick. This book written by Anthony Horowitz is a tip of the hat to classics such as Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes- or even a game of Clue. I really liked this book. Do yourself a favor and start with Magpie Murders then read this one. This way you don’t cheat yourself of the experience like I did! Thank you to #netgalley for letting me read this as an ARC!

Moonflower Murders (sequel to Magpie Murders) is an homage to mystery writers, past and present. Again, the author uses a story within a story to create a very entertaining reading experience. There are plot twists, red herrings and all the hallmarks of a classic whodunit. What sets it apart from other titles in this genre is the complexity of weaving a fictional story within the "real" story being told. Recommended for all cozy mystery fans and anyone just looking for a good, well-written novel.

I was so pleased to see there was a sequel to The Magpie Murders which was one of the most inventive mysteries I had ever read. This story is just as intricate as Magpie, but then that was exactly what I would expect in a sequel. I thought the story/mystery was a little slow to get started but once it did I found the book very hard to put down. Magpie set a high benchmark and Moonflower is close but not quite where Magpie was in my mind.

Thank you, Netgalley, for my arc!!

This second Susan Ryeland novel is infinitely clever, just like its predecessor. I loved "reading" Atticus Pund. Susan and Andreas were believable and realistic -- I really liked Susan.

I highly recommend these books!

I always enjoy Anthony Horowitz & can recommend his titles to my mystery readers who prefer things on the cozier side. The mystery within a mystery got a little long but the ending was satisfying.

Having read the two Hawthorne mysteries by Horowitz, I wondered how another series would work. We have far less of the tongue-in-cheek insider stuff here because the author isn't a character in the book. Instead we have a serviceable mystery, set in a small seaside village that is being gentrified by a rich Hollywood actress. Our detective is Susan Ryland, a former book editor, drawn into this case because she was involved with the Magpie Murders due to her relationship with the author she'd edited; this author had written a book based on an earlier murder in this village and there is a suspicion that she can help decipher what he wrote to help solve the murder and find a missing daughter.

I say all this because the authorial trick here is to include that book in the pages of this one, allowing us to read along with Susan. There are tables aligning characters and actions, etc., all very Golden Age-esque. And, as with those books, we don't completely follow the leaps of deduction Susan makes (although close readers might).

There were times in both this book and the Hawthorne's that I wished there were fewer tricks, that this was a straight mystery without the creeping coziness. Still, YMMV.

eARC provided by publisher.

Susan Ryeland is at a bit of a crossroad. After leaving her career in publishing to run a hotel in Crete with her boyfriend, she has reached the realization that running the hotel might be more trouble than it’s worth. Her relationship is also somewhat in a holding pattern. So it is fortunate for her that a couple, the Trehernes, offer her £10,000 to return to England to investigate the disappearance of their daughter Cecily. Susan isn’t a private investigator, but she has some connection to the Trehernes. One of her former clients, the now-deceased writer Alan Conway, had written a book about a murder that took place 8 years previously at a country hotel owned by the Trehernes. The murder happened on the wedding day of their daughter Cecily, and one of the hotel workers had been convicted of the murder. Now, all these years later, Cecily called her parents with the news that the wrong man had been convicted of the murder, and that the clue to the real murderer was in the fictional book written about the case. Soon afterwards, she disappeared. The Trehernes have nowhere else to turn, and beg Susan to follow Alan Conway’s clues in the book to uncover the mystery of what happened to their daughter. Eager for an escape and needing the money for her floundering hotel, Susan is only too happy to temporarily return to England where distance will also hopefully help to clarify her own personal issues as well.
Once at the hotel, Susan is met by mostly hostile and suspicious people – all of whom are potential suspects in both the original murder of the guest, and the more recent disappearance of Cecily. After questioning various people in an attempt to get some background on Cecily, Susan decides to re-read Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, the book which Cecily was convinced revealed the real murderer. So in the middle of the story, we are suddenly switched to the fictional book based on the murder. In the fictionalized account, a famous Hollywood actress has returned to her homeland of England and purchased a country hotel, where she is found murdered. There is no shortage of suspects, and when the police are stumped, the detective Atticus Pünd is brought in to see if he can get to the bottom of the case. Of course he eventually solves this case (and we are also given a rather lengthy description of the most famous case that he solved), but even after finishing the story, Susan is no further along in figuring out what the book has to do with her own current mystery.
Eventually, both Atticus and Susan call together all their suspects and point out the reasons each would have for committing the crimes, as well as why they were all innocent – except for when the true culprits are exposed. Once Susan’s crime is solved, she does go back over the original book and pointed out the many clues that had been included in the text – none of which I picked up on!
I enjoyed reading this story a great deal, both because of the Agatha Christie overtones, and the fact that you get a second mystery right in the middle of the main book! While I did feel that Atticus Pünd’s story was much more interesting (there were many more twists and turns than there were in Susan’s story), I did love seeing all the clues pointed out at the end.

Anthony Horowitz has written another clever, engaging, unique, and exciting mystery. His use of the story-within-a-story works well in the Moonflower Murders. For readers who enjoyed his earlier books, this one is sure to please. A great read!

What must it be like to be Anthony Horowitz? Surely exhausting to have a brain working so well in so many directions all at once. After the brilliance of Magpie Murders, one could never expect the same level of dazzle for the second one. I mean, after all, the man wrote a novel within a novel plus some, and made every single thing effortlessly fit. Could he do it again.? Well, yes, of course he could, and did. Admittedly, this is the same man who created Daniel Hawthrone just so he could claw down the fourth wall as his sidekick,. (And, if I let this be Ode to AH, I'd have to mention how long ago, Foyle's War opened a new relationship with my father and Alex Rider a new one with my daughter - okay okay I'll stop, I love this man...). Moonflower Murders brings back author Alan Conway, still deceased, Poirot like Atticus Pund, still fictional, and the surprisingly solid character of editor/publisher Susan who is now living in Greece! A couple on vacation visit the hotel she runs with her boyfriend, (also returning from Magpie), and asks her to find their daughter. They feel that the Atticus Pund mystery that was based on their personal events, hold the key to her disappearance. And so begins yet another wild ride. Yes, you could, in theory, read without having read Magpie Murders, but to be honest - don't. Read both. In order. Enjoy.

If you read and loved the delightful Magpie Murders, this is a wonderful treat. Susan Ryeland and the deceased Atticus Pund are back in a mystery that is unspeakably clever. It helps if you've read the first book, but even on its own, it is a tour de force. A book within a book again, and I want to read all the Atticus Pund novels. I absolutely loved this book, if you can't tell, and will recommend it to my mystery group and everyone I know.
Congratulations to Mr. Horowitz and thanks for brightening these oppressive summer pandemic days.

I’m a fan of everything Anthony Horowitz writes and Moonflower Murders is no exception. I like that it’s a sequel to Magpie Murders as I really like the character of Susan. You can start with this book alone and not miss a thing, but I think it’s more enjoyable to read Magpie Murders first.
A first rate mystery that shows Anthony Horowitz for the master mystery writer he is.