MOONFLOWER MURDERS

By Anthony Horowitz

Novelist and screenwriter (Foyle’s War, Midsomer Murders) Horowitz brings back German-Jewish detective Atticus Pund and book editor Susan Ryeland from Magpie Murders in this superb new crime novel that prominently features many gay male characters.

It’s actually two books: clues to a reallife murder are planted in an Atticus Pund crime novel, and Susan Ryeland, who edited the book, is enlisted to find the crucial information.

It’s not easy to keep the reader engaged when the author runs a storyline for more than 200 pages then interrupts it with a completely different storyline that runs a similar length, then returns back to the original. But Horowitz is highly accomplished at creating pageturners and memorable, surprising characters.

Here, we have a beloved British film star whose career is waning after an absence from Hollywood, her much younger husband who may be aware she is having an affair, numerous characters who have ripped her off financially, a gay advertising executive with money troubles, a couple of high class rent boys, and the owners, staff and guests of a high-class boutique hotel on the Suffolk coast.

The double plot may sound complicated, but it isn’t. Horowitz is one of the best at creating ingenious, surprising crime fiction. Fans of Agatha Christie will lap up this exceedingly clever homage, with a plethora of twists, red herrings, and the startling truths revealed at the climax!