Moonflower Murders

Maybe 3.5. The main mystery was intriguing, but I thought the book within the book was tedious.

3.5

The first book was such a wonderful example of book witin a book and was also such an interesting take on the relationship of authors and their creatures and genres in general thaat this second book had big shoes to fill. It started a bit unevenly in trying to give Ryeland an excuse to be at the center of a second book, but then Horowitz picks it up and, again, we get two plots, two whodunits for the price of one, and he is a master of his art.

Recensie van audioboek (via Storytel)Net als [b:Magpie Murders 32075854 Magpie Murders (Susan Ryeland, #1) Anthony Horowitz https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1504599398l/32075854.SY75.jpg 3829748] was ook Moonflower Murders een schot in de roos.Dit vervolgdeel volgt dezelfde opzet van een boek in een boek, en ook hier voelde ik de drang om mee te gaan puzzelen. Weerom slaagde ik er niet echt in om de conclusie te raden, maar bepaalde aspecten had ik vrij snel in het snotje. Dit nam echter niks van het leesplezier weg. Waarom krijgt deze dan een lagere, doch nog steeds hoge, beoordeling dan zijn voorganger? Bepaalde delen van het verhaal sleepten wat te lang aan en we werden een beetje te veel om de oren geslagen met namen en gebeurtenissen. Uiteindelijk blijkt elk wel zijn nut en plaats te hebben in de ontknoping, maar tijdens het lezen voelde het soms wat langdradig.Maar opnieuw, een fantastische in elkaar stekende puzzel met tal van elementen die hommage geven aan de klassieke whodunit. Ik kijk enorm uit naar hoe Anthony Horowitz deze serie verder zal uitbreiden. Allan Conway schreef per slot van rekening 9 Atticus Pünd boeken, dus ik verwacht op zijn minst ook 9 delen in zijn Susan Ryeland serie! En ik zal elkeen ongetwijfeld verslinden!

I hadn't read the first Susan Ryeland book (I bought this one because it sounded good and was on sale, but didn't have any indications it was part of a series... oops) but I enjoyed this one! I feel like I understood everything without having read the first. I was a bit frustrated with the book-in-a-book style because it felt like a 200+ page deviation from the plot, but I actually came to enjoy it more than I expected. The ending came together well, so it's a solid mystery read.

4.5/5 stars

I really enjoy Horowitz's writing, and the Susan Ryeland series especially with its book-inside-a-book conceit. But I'm growing more uncomfortable with his relationship to homosexuality. He made Hawthorne, his meta detective written as nonfiction with Horowitz as the first-person narrator, a homophobe, and literally in his book said “I would not have chosen to write a character like this” but uh, he did. And with Alan Conway, whose sexuality is prominent through two books, we mostly get ugly caricatures as well. SpoilerThe eventual villain of this book turns out to be a former “rent boy,” who is apparently not actually gay but performed gay sex for money and is just disdainful of basically everyone around him. It looks like Horowitz once played devil's advocate in a TV discussion, against gay marriage, despite purportedly not actually objecting to gay marriage himself. It's not absolutely damning, but also, like, the devil doesn't need an advocate. So it kind of fits this bill, where I don't think he would see himself as homophobic but he's certainly not doing himself or the LGBTQ community any favors.

I feel like I missed an obvious clue (in retrospect) to JKR's transphobia in the early Cormoran Strike books, and I'm worried I'll be doing the same here if I continue reading these. I don't know, though. We'll see I guess.

A solid 3.49 stars! I dig the mystery within a mystery trope in this series.

However, I really don't like Susan Ryland very muc and find her sections of the book far less compelling. That was the case for me in the first installment in the series, but the story in book 1 was better. It seems like this book went out of its way to be complicated as opposed to creating interesting characters.