Marble Hall Murders; Stone of Farewell

 

"Marble Hall Murders" is the third Horowitz book featuring editor Susan, after "Magpie Murders" and "Moonflower Murders". After I reread what I posted about those two books, I was ready to go.

Susan moves back to London after breaking up with her boyfriend in Crete. She's freelancing at a new publishing house (since Charles Cloverleaf is in prison for killing Alan Conway and trying to kill her). They've decided to continue the Atticus Pund series and have hired Eliot Crace to write them. Eliot is the grandson of Miriam Crace, who was famous for writing a series of children's books about a family named the Littles. 

Much like Conway, Eliot puts little puzzles and clues into the story. "Pund's Last Case" takes place at the summer home of wealthy Lady Chalfont in the south of France. The characters are all based on Eliot's own family and Susan is leery of publishing a "revenge" novel since Eliot is hellbent on tearing down his famous grandmother's sainthood. According to Eliot (and many of the family members Susan is able to talk to) Miriam Crace was a horrible human being and everyone was glad she died. Horowitz did a masterful job of incorporating the story within the story this time around as well as planting clues for the reader along the way (I won't pretend I caught them all, I'm sure I didn't, but I did get a few and I'm pretty darn proud of myself). It was really well done, I enjoyed it. 

I read the first book in the series, "The Dragonbone Chair", two years ago and meant to finish up the rest of it but unfortunately life got in the way (not to mention these books are like 1,000 pages long. Jeez). 

I think I actually enjoyed this book more than the first one. It seemed to have more action and I'm more familiar with the characters now. I'm not even going to attempt to sum up the story (see above re: 1,000 pages) but it was fun. And someday I'll get to book three!