Moonflower Murders
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.
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Anthony Horowitz
Long before Alex Rider became a teenage icon or Sherlock Holmes returned to the page with fresh intrigue, Anthony Horowitz was crafting mysteries of his own—first in his imagination, then on the page. Born in 1955 in Middlesex, England, Horowitz grew up surrounded by stories, both real and invented. He discovered early that fiction was more than escape; it was a place to find order in chaos, to solve puzzles that real life couldn’t.
What sets Horowitz apart in the world of crime and thriller fiction is not just the breadth of his work, but the way he reinvents the familiar. Whether he’s breathing new life into Conan Doyle’s beloved detective or twisting timelines in Magpie Murders, Horowitz writes with a sleight of hand that keeps readers constantly guessing—and always a step behind. His novels don’t simply offer whodunits; they explore the act of storytelling itself, often blurring the line between author and character, fiction and reality.
Susan Ryeland
In the world of modern mysteries, few characters blend suspense, intrigue, and clever literary twists as seamlessly as Susan Ryeland. Anthony Horowitz's Susan Ryeland series brings a refreshing, meta approach to the genre, where the boundary between fiction and reality is constantly shifting. At its heart, the series follows Susan, a savvy editor caught up in mysteries that force her to unravel more than just the stories she's editing.
Susan Ryeland consists of three books — considered a complete series. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
