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Marble Hall Murders

ebook
0 of 9 copies available
Wait time: About 16 weeks
0 of 9 copies available
Wait time: About 16 weeks

"Horowitz dazzles with the brilliant third entry in his Susan Ryeland series . . . . [He is] is at the top of his game here, linking past and present in a virtuoso finale worthy of Agatha Christie." Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Murder links past and present once again in this mind-boggling metafictional mystery from Anthony Horowitz featuring detective Atticus Pünd and editor Susan Ryeland, stars of the New York Times bestsellers Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders.

Editor Susan Ryeland has left her Greek island, her hotel and her Greek boyfriend, Andreas, in search of a new life back in England.

Freelancing for a London publisher, she's given the last job she wants: working on an Atticus Pünd continuation novel called Pünd's Last Case. Worse still, she knows the new writer. Eliot Crace is the troubled grandson of legendary children's author Miriam Crace who died twenty years ago. Eliot is convinced she was murdered—by poison.

To her surprise, Susan enjoys reading the manuscript which is set in the South of France and revolves around the mysterious death of Lady Margaret Chalfont, days before she was about to change her will. But when it is revealed that Lady Margaret was also poisoned, alarm bells begin to ring.

The more Susan reads, the clearer it becomes that Eliot has deliberately concealed clues about his grandmother's death inside the book.

Desperately, Susan tries to prevent Eliot from putting himself in harm's way—but his behaviour is becoming increasingly erratic. Another murder follows . . . and suddenly Susan finds herself to be the number one suspect.

Once again, the real and the fictional worlds have become dangerously entangled. And if Susan doesn't solve the mystery of Pünd's Last Case, she could well be its next victim.

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    • Library Journal

      Starred review from April 1, 2025

      Editor Susan Ryeland returns to London for a third adventure (following Moonflower Murders and Magpie Murders) after a self-imposed exile on the island of Crete. She's eager to reestablish her name in the publishing world, but her next freelance job is one she does not want: collaborating with troubled writer Eliot Crace on an Atticus P�nd continuation novel entitled P�nd's Last Case. The grandson of adored children's author Miriam Crace, Eliot reveals to Susan a nightmarish childhood living with his grandmother at Marble Hall, at odds with public perception. Reading Eliot's nearly complete manuscript, Susan recognizes in the poisoning of Lady Margaret Chalfont a lightly veiled attempt by Eliot to implicate a family member in the death of Miriam Crace 20 years before. Horowitz's cast of characters/suspects are entertaining, and his dialogue pitch-perfect, as Eliot's drunken and vociferous claims lead to a body count. Susan must race to solve P�nd's last case before another murder is announced--her own. VERDICT Horowitz crafts a deliciously witty, clever, and hefty mystery--two mysteries in one, really--in a terrific art-imitating-life send-up that works as a stand-alone as well as a series entry.--Peggy Kurkowski

      Copyright 2025 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Kirkus

      May 1, 2025
      Sharpen your mental pencils. Editor Susan Ryeland is taking on her most baffling mystery-within-a-mystery. Now that Susan's back from Crete and her latest romance, her boss at Causton Books, Michael Flynn, wants her to work with Eliot Crace, a failed mystery author who's writing a sequel to the late Alan Conway's tales of detective Atticus P�nd, which she knows far too much about already. As she reads Eliot's first installment, Susan gradually becomes aware of something seasoned fans will have assumed all along--that the central mystery and the leading suspects inP�nd's Last Case are all based on Eliot's family, whose matriarch, world-famous children's author Miriam Crace, died 20 years ago under circumstances that everyone involved insists weren't at all suspicious. Teased by the first and simplest of three key anagrams Eliot has sneaked into his manuscript, Susan asks him about all those parallels, whose revelation would surely offend the rest of the family and very likely endanger the big-ticket deal that Eliot's uncle, family estate manager Jonathan Crace, is negotiating over video rights to the Littles, Miriam's adorable franchise characters. The mystery Eliot's created around the fatal poisoning of Lady Margaret Chalfont broadly hints that Miriam was murdered as well. Susan's attempt to sift through the parallels in the unfinished manuscript and figure out who killed Lady Margaret and what light that knowledge may shed on the death of Eliot's grandmother is seriously upended when there's a second murder and DI Ian Blakeney identifies Susan as his prime suspect. No wonder she vows at the fadeout to have nothing more to do with Atticus P�nd: "Never. Never again." Uh-huh. Susan's third metafictional whodunit is Horowitz's most extended and intricately plotted yet--at least until next year.

      COPYRIGHT(2025) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from May 1, 2025
      In Horowitz's third novel featuring editor Susan Ryeland, she's back in London, having bid a fond farewell to her life in Crete after realizing she needed to re-engage with the literary life. She thought she'd made her final farewells to fictional detective Atticus P�nd and his creator, Alan Conway, but a new publisher asks her to serve as editor for a continuation of the series and she reluctantly agrees. In this outstanding "book within the book" mystery, the reader delves into the manuscript for P�nd's Last Case, and an intermittent narrative about Susan's dealings with self-destructive new young author, Eliot Crace, who turns out to be a handful. True to the Conway tradition, he has disguised a true crime in his novel. He is the grandson of the legendary children's author Miriam Crace, whose somewhat dodgy demise manifests itself in the book as the death of P�nd's acquaintance Margaret Chalfont. Eliot has channeled his antipathy toward his dysfunctional family into the book, and they, in turn, develop some dangerous animosity toward Susan. Both previous Ryeland novels, Magpie Murders (2017) and Moonflower Murders (2020), were adapted into dazzling PBS productions, and fans will hope this book will provide another.

      COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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