Marble Hall Murders

 Anthony Horowitz does it again with the third installment of the Susan Ryeland mystery novels.  

This time the novel is titled Marble Hall and it so cleverly picks up right where the second book ended.  Susan Ryeland reminds the reader that Atticus Pund, the great detective was murdered and Ryeland’s life also almost ended as the last novel came to a close.  She had moved to Greece with her boyfriend and was going to start a new life.

But now she is back in New York and having just moved into a new apartment by herself she is looking for editing work again with a new publisher. She has realized that she needs to live in New York and work in publishing, the quiet island life is not for her.

The first job to come along is a new young talent who is writing a conclusion novel with the protagonist being Atticus Pund.  He has an idea to continue the series even though the original author is dead.

But all is not as it may seem and Susan gets mixed up with the writer and his family and strange things start to happen.  Life and fiction start to overlap and the secret to an old murder and a new murder may be revealed in the script that is being written.

Twisty and tangled plots run through the novel with a story within the story and characters that blur the lines of fiction and “fiction”.  I may have solved part of the mystery as I lay awake last night after reading to just before the reveal chapter, but then there was of course another twist that I was not expecting… 

Horowitz is a master of the craft and again brings an entertaining, incredibly well written mystery that there are quotes to underline and ideas to think about long after the book is closed.

 Anthony Horowitz is probably one of the best mystery authors around.  Definitely on my favorites list and as soon as his newest novel comes out I am putting everything else aside to read it.

Horowitz has an incredible background having written for many of the television shows I have enjoyed. He wrote episodes of Midsommer Murders and Foyle's War.  He also wrote scripts for Agatha Christie's Poirot TV programs and also the Alex Rider middle school books.  Then there are the fabulous series he is writing now.  Two of them.  Magpie Murders and The Word is Murder.   

Each of these new series are so well written; they are funny, captivating and you never can guess where the plot is taking you.  One series is written about a mystery writer who has been writing a cleever very popular mystery series. The plots are a story within a story, the author tells the story and the editor is reading the story and living her real life.

In this latest book, Marble Hall Murders, the editor is working with a new mystery author.  This author is trying to continue the series of a dead author.  When the editor and the author clash over edits and rewrites they part ways.  But the editor cannot seem to separate from the author, her future is tied to this relationship.  Either shee finds a way to resolve things or she may not ever work in the business again.

Of course there are intriguing  questions about all the relationships between the characters, and there is a murder or two.  The writing is phenomenal and always very insightful.