Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz

I’ve enjoyed several of Anthony Horowitz’s novels, and while I prefer his Detective Hawthorne series, I’ve been looking forward to Marble Hall Murders – what is probably the final novel in the Susan Ryeland series which started with Magpie Murders and continued in Moonflower Murders.  Be warned, this is the third book in a trilogy and reveals the whodunnit for the first novel, so it really is best to read the series from the beginning if you’re going to.

Marble Hall Murders sees Susan back in the UK having decided that Crete isn’t for her.  She’s now working as a freelance editor for Causton Books, hoping to be offered a permanent position.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be on the cards, unless she agrees to work on a continuation novel in the Atticus Pünd series.  While those books have done very well and a continuation novel makes perfect sense, it’s a series that has caused Susan a lot of issues as she’s edited them, almost seeing her killed. Twice.  Given little choice, she meets with Eliot Crace and soon finds herself caught up in questions around the Crace empire and the death of their matriarch, beloved children’s author Miriam, twenty years earlier.

What I like most about this series is the story within a story.  Atticus Pünd is a great detective in the traditional vein, and I really enjoy the Golden Age style mysteries that he and his sidekick, James Fraser, are caught up in.  This one is no exception as we accompany Pünd to the Chateau Belmar in Nice where the family matriarch, Margaret, has died in mysterious circumstances, and with many family members seeking financial support for various reasons, there’s a range of suspects to be interrogated. 

While I could happily read a novel about Pünd, I do appreciate the editorial insights from Susan as she reads the novel.  It’s a fascinating insight into the process, and very revealing how much I miss as she picks over and makes notes as to elements that could be improved.  And Susan is a great character.  She’s a kind, clever woman who comes across as realistic in her flaws and in her reactions to the events that she becomes caught up in. 

There is, of course, more to the Atticus Pünd novel than just a text for Susan to edit, as the characters and the mystery hold greater meaning.  In this case, it quickly becomes clear that Eliot Crace is questioning the supposedly natural death of Miriam all those years ago when he was still a child.  And Susan being Susan, she can’t help but start to ask questions, although it quickly becomes clear that those questions aren’t welcome.  This adds something of a puzzle to the novel, as the Atticus Pünd novel reveals more about what actually happened to Miriam. There are also anagrams for the reader to solve if they wish, although these are worked out by Susan, so it’s not essential, but it adds a little bit of fun to the novel for me.

As with the rest of the series, Marble Hall Murders is an enjoyable novel with a clever mystery at its heart.  Recommended for those who enjoy cosy crime and stories within stories.

About the Book

Susan Ryeland has had enough of murder.

She’s edited two novels about the famous detective, Atticus Pünd, and both times she’s come close to being killed. Now she’s back in England and she’s been persuaded to work on a third.

The new ‘continuation’ novel is by Eliot Crace, grandson of Miriam Crace who was the biggest selling children’s author in the world until her death exactly twenty years ago.

Eliot believes that Miriam was deliberately poisoned. And when he tells Susan that he has hidden the identity of Miriam’s killer inside his book, Susan knows she’s in trouble once again.

As Susan works on Pünd’s Last Case, a story set in an exotic villa in the South of France, she uncovers more and more parallels between the past and the present, the fictional and the real world – until suddenly she finds that she has become a target herself.

It seems that someone in Eliot’s family doesn’t want the book to be written. And they will do anything to prevent it.