Marble Hall Murders, Anthony Horowitz (Review by Melissa Frye)
Rating: 3.0/5 Stars
Being familiar with the title and the previous BBC adaptation for TV, I decided to take a peek into the world of Susan Ryeland and her latest mystery. While I do believe that one could likely find enjoyment from this novel if they are a fan of Agatha Christie-esque reads, I found less enjoyment than expected.
Marble House Murders is the 3rd book in the Susan Ryeland series and is a continuation of the crime adventures of Atticus Pund. Susan is working on the manuscript for Pund’s Last Case, a story about the mystery of Lady Margaret Chalfont’s death to which she later discovers might house clues for Marian Crace’s death. The manuscript is a cliché tale surrounding the will of Lady Chalfont and the inclination that poison was the cause of her death. This portion took ~100 pages or so of the novel which was a bit of a snooze. Ironically, later in the novel, we do learn that Susan had some of this same feedback for the author, Eliot, so my assumption is that this style was by design. I just couldn’t fathom with the flat set of clues how it could increase interest to unravel another mystery.
I’d recommend this book for someone who already appreciates the first 2 novels in the series or the Agatha Christie style it is compared to. I do believe this could be a great book if the format was appreciated in previous works.
1 Comment
I found this book to be contrived and frustrating. The author uses the same device he does in the Hawthorne books in which he places himself as a character in the book. With both his own character and the Susan Ryland character he has them take foolish and unrealistic steps, showing poor judgment and poor boundaries, seemingly as a way to get the character/narrator in a place where they get to see and hear things they wouldn’t otherwise. Here Susan, a bull in a china shop contacting her author’s family members and family doctor using poorly thought out cover stories, continually creates awkward and unprofessional situations. After being basically thrown out of the offices of the family business however she is inexplicably invited to a family celebration of the late matriarch’s life. She races to the side of her author’s battered wife though she barely knows her, thus putting herself smack in the middle of his bad behavior and personal drama. She compounds this by then driving to his seedy bar hangout to confront him (or is it appease him) and buys him a drink knowing he’s an alcoholic who has just assaulted his wife while in a drunken state. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t end well. It was obvious she should just go to the publisher who hired her to edit the book, explain how crazy things are and asked to get out of the assignment. But no, she keeps digging holes for herself ethically and placing herself at the mercy of a dysfunctional writer and his dysfunctional family.
The story within a story is disjointed without much in the way of great detection or urgency. Neither that plot nor the IRL Susan part of the book is compelling or logical. No one is particularly likable. This seems to be a hallmark of these books.