Medium – Audiobook
About the Book – In the sequel to ‘Magpie Murders’, our heroine, Susan Ryland, is living in Crete with her boyfriend, running a slightly unsuccessful hotel. One day, she is approached by the Trehernes, the very wealthy owners of a hotel in Suffolk, which was also where their daughter Cecily was married. Shockingly, on the day of the wedding, a hotel guest was horribly murdered. They tell Susan that Cecily has gone missing after reading a book called ‘Atticus Pund takes the case’, which was edited by Susan in her days working for a publisher. The book was loosely based on the events at the Trehernes’ hotel, and they are convinced that it has played a part in Cecily’s disappearance. Susan is employed to come back to the hotel and try to find Cecily with the help of the Atticus Pund book – but this could be extremely dangerous.
My Rating – 3.5/5
My Thoughts – The Magpie Murders was the fourth book that I read this year, and I gave it maximum stars! I really enjoyed the mixture of a modern murder mystery and a ‘cozy crime’ mystery within the same book. The Moonflower Murders follows the same pattern, although I do have to say that I haven’t enjoyed it quite as much as I did the previous book. I think it’s probably just my style, but I enjoyed the 1950s set murder mystery far more than the modern day one – Atticus Pund is an excellent, likable detective, very much like Poirot character-wise. The 1950s story I thought flowed better, and to be brutally honest, I would be much more interested in just having the Atticus Pund books as stand-alone novels rather than having to hear about Susan and her love life.
The 1950s story really was the saving grace of this book, and it was a really clever murder mystery. The modern day one kind of pointed the finger at the possible culprit from the off, but we had to think more about the means, motive and opportunity. The ending of the modern one is actually quite chilling at the end, and I have to admit to needing to read something non crime related afterwards! I don’t know if I would read anymore of these murder books if they come out – probably, but I might just skip forward to Atticus Pund! I have to say that the audiobook version of this was excellent. The two parts of the story are read by different narrators, which really gives the idea of a story within a story. I would probably do the audiobook route again for any more books in this series.
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