in for a penny, in for a pund

Susan Ryeland is back in London. She left her boyfriend Andreas and their small hotel behind in Greece, starting over in the city she loved. She got her MG out of storage and found a new place to live. She’s still working as a freelance editor for Causton Books, but she is hoping to find a full-time job. And that’s when a new opportunity opens up for her.

Her boss calls her into his office to talk about her new project. Author Eliot Crace has been commissioned to write a new book in the Atticus Pund mystery series. The original author, Alan Conway, was killed shortly after he finished the series. He had intended for the series to stop. Susan had been his editor, and they had not gotten along. Alan had very strong opinions about his writing, and he often refused Susan’s suggestions. But now that Causton was intending to continue the Pund series, Susan was the perfect editor to take on Pund’s Last Case, especially since she knew Eliot as well.

Eliot had written a couple of mystery novels before, and they had been bought by the publisher where Susan had worked. She had read them and thought them mediocre, but she’s impressed when she starts reading his new pages for the Pund book. In it, a wealthy matriarch named Lady Margaret Chalfont is poisoned at her estate in France. Before she had left for France, she had bumped into Atticus Pund in London. She’d had concerns, so she had invited the detective to France to speak with her and possibly investigate her concerns. He decided to take her up on her invitation, but before he was able to meet with her, she had been killed.

The French Surete detective assigned to the case allows Pund to join him as he investigates, and they question Lady Margaret’s two sons and daughters-in-law, her husband, and her attorney as well as those around town who might have something to offer the investigation. As Susan is reading about this, she has concerns as well.

Eliot Crace is the grandson of Miriam Crace, who had written a beloved series of children’s books before her death twenty years ago. Susan suspects that Lady Margaret is based on his own grandmother, and when Eliot admits that he believes his grandmother was poisoned also, Susan warns him that using the Pund book to hide facts about a real murder is dangerous.

Susan knew that Eliot was playing with fire, so she wasn’t too surprised when his family members turned on her one by one, accusing her of encouraging Eliot to pursue the book. But then someone else ends up dead, and Susan’s MG seems to be part of the crime. She needs to figure out who was behind the death of Miriam Crace by using Eliot’s manuscript and what she knows of Alan’s fondness for hiding real clues in his books to find a killer. If she can’t solve the murder in the book and in real life, Susan may find herself in jail, or as the next victim.

Marble Hall Murders is the third book in the popular Susan Ryeland series from Anthony Horowitz. These books are like reading two books in one: the mystery starring Atticus Pund as the infamous detective, and the mystery starring Susan as the editor of the Pund book. Marble Hall Murders takes you back and forth from modern day London to 1950s France, layering in clues about both murders throughout.

I am a big fan of the Susan Ryeland mysteries. These books are clever and misleading, hiding the clues in anagrams and subtle nods, so that once you do find out the answers, you realize they were right there the whole time. Marble Hall Murders is brilliantly written, with strong characters and meticulous plotting. It’s engrossing and clever and an absolute delight to read. I was struggling the entire time I was reading it because I wanted to race through it to get the whole story, but I also wanted to take my time with it and savor every page. Marble Hall Murders is a triumph, and I can’t wait to sit down and read it all over again.

Egalleys for Marble Hall Murders were provided by Harper through Edelweiss, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.