Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“It felt strange. I was about to read one murder mystery while sitting inside another.”

Moonflower Murders (Susan Ryeland, #2) by Anthony Horowitz

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What a fun, twisty (not so) little whodunnit. I was skeptical about this one, because it seemed on the surface like it would just be the same thing all over again, when the resolution of the first book would seem to make that impossible. But he made it work! I should have trusted. This is a 600-ish page book that I read feverishly in about two days one weekend in July. Some spoilers for book one below; you have been warned. We return to former […]

This book is like a golden poppy growing from the manure of the last 12 months. Its existence makes me smile.

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz

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I was surprised when I heard that Anthony Horowitz was releasing a sequel to Magpie Murders, one of the most delightful books I read in 2019. That mystery-within-a-mystery was clever, well-constructed, and utterly entertaining, but how could Horowitz plausibly make that format work again using the same characters? To my tremendous joy, Horowitz has constructed an equally triumphant (maybe even better?) sequel. At the start of Moonflower Murders, former publisher Susan Ryeland is living in Crete, trying to succeed in the boutique hotel business along […]

Hooray for the Book Exchange, and hooray for narfna!

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

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This was a lovely treat from narfna, courtesy of the 2020 Book Exchange. I loved the clever telling of the story-within-a-story, and I almost wanted to know the end of the ‘fictional’ story more than I did the ‘real’ one. Susan Ryeland is an editor. Her company publishes the Atticus Pund series, wildly successful detective books with a Poirot/Gamache-style main character. She introduces herself at the beginning, saying the ninth book in the series would change her life. Then you get to read the manuscript […]

Murder, They Wrote (And Directed)

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas by Glenn Kenny

The Big Fix by Roger L. Simon

The Damsel by Richard Stark

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I went on a bit of an unexpected reading tear these last few days, which is good because I need to clear some space off the TBR pile in advance of reading Barack Obama’s new book.   Moonflower Murders 4 Stars ::Trigger Warning:: Tragic homosexual plot And how sad it is because the book didn’t need it. I was curious as to how Anthony Horowitz was going to follow up with his superb Magpie Murders series. He does so by giving us most of an Atticus Pünd novel, […]

It’s Two Mysteries In One

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz

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Double your pleasure, double your fun, with two mysteries in one! Anthony Horowitz has done it again.  Following up his Magpie Murders, with the sequel Moonflower Murders.  Moonflower Murders, is once again a book within a book.  The “outer” book follows publisher Susan Ryeland as she is hired to solve a murder which occurred eight years ago at a hotel and my be tied to a hotel employee who has just gone missing.  The ‘inner” book, was written by Susan’s former writer, the late Alan […]

Entertaining enough, but disappointing

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

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 Warning: While I try to avoid any outright spoilers, you might want to skip this review if you are planning on reading this novel. Summary: I found Moriarty entertaining enough, but compared to the fabulous House of Silk, it’s downright disappointing. Kind of like how Cars would be a decent enough animated movie from any other studio, but from the studio that created Toy Story, WALL-E, and The Incredibles, you’re like “Lame, Pixar.” Now, the review: I’m sitting in a little Japanese restaurant eating my lunch, […]



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