Medium – Book
About the Book – Susan Ryeland is an editor at Cloverfield Publishing, which publishes the novels of Alan Conway, the creator of the German detective Atticus Pund. She is sent the latest installment of Conway’s series, and finds herself immersed in the mystery happening in the 1950s English village. However, the manuscript she is sent is incomplete, missing the final chapter. As she tries to locate the missing chapters, an even bigger mystery comes to her attention – Alan Conway has been killed, and Susan believes it to be a staged suicide. Susan must find the murderer, and the missing pages, whilst trying to avoid becoming a victim.
My Rating – 5/5
My Thoughts – This was one of those books that I wished for the end of the day for, so that I could carry on reading it. It’s a really cleverly written book, with the story of Susan interwoven with the 1950s ‘cosy crime’ story starring Atticus Pund. The book includes important letters and articles, all of which include some clues to the motive of the murderer. Mystery-wise, I guessed one of the murderers (in the modern timeline) but not the one in the 1950s timeline. Both of the parts of the book were excellent, and you can tell, straightaway, that this is a book written both by someone who enjoys mysteries and who knows how to write a good one (the author, Anthony Horowitz, has written for Poirot, Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War). There were plenty of ‘mystery’ elements and some great twists in the end. Ironically, there were some slight issues with editing, but they didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the book!
The characters were excellent and I especially enjoyed Susan and Andreas from the modern timeline, and Atticus and Dr Redwing from the 1950s timeline. But all of the characters were cleverly crafted, each one having their own particular significance, even when it came down to their names. There were plenty of red herrings and I liked the fact that in the modern timeline, Susan wasn’t an entirely reliable narrator – she was quite flawed and sometimes leapt to the wrong conclusion, and I liked that about her. It felt very much how I would be if I were trying to solve a crime! I would definitely recommend this book, and once I am through my TBR pile, I am looking forward to reading the next in the series!
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