Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz Narrator: Lesley Manville, Tim McMullen
Series: Susan Ryeland #3
Published by Harper Audio, HarperAudio on May 13, 2025
Source: Purchased
Genres: Mystery
Length: 17 hrs 38 mins
Pages: 582
Format: Audiobook
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Murder links past and present once again in this mind-boggling metafictional mystery from Anthony Horowitz—another tribute to the golden age of Agatha Christie featuring detective Atticus Pünd and editor Susan Ryland, stars of the New York Times bestsellers Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders.
Editor Susan Ryeland has left her Greek island, her hotel, and her Greek boyfriend Andreas in search of a new life back in England.
Freelancing for Causton Books, she’s working on the manuscript of a novel, Pünd’s Last Case, by a young author named Eliot Crace, a continuation of the popular Alan Conway series. Susan is surprised to learn that Eliot is the grandson of legendary children’s author Marian Crace, who died some fifteen years ago—murdered, Elliot insists, by poison.
As Susan begins to read the manuscript’s opening chapters, the skeptical editor is relieved to find that Pünd’s Last Case is actually very good. Set in the South of France, it revolves around the mysterious death of Lady Margaret Chalfont, who, though mortally ill, is poisoned—perhaps by a member of her own family. But who did it? And why?
The deeper Susan reads, the more it becomes clear that the clues leading to the truth of Marian Crace’s death are hidden within this Atticus Pünd mystery.
While Eliot’s accusation becomes more plausible, his behavior grows increasingly erratic.. Then he is suddenly killed in a hit-and-run accident, and Susan finds herself under police scrutiny as a suspect in his killing.
Three mysterious deaths. Multiple motives and possible murderers. If Susan doesn’t solve the mystery of Pünd’s Last Case, she may well be the next victim.
If you’ve read the first two in this series, you know that Susan should stay far away from Atticus Pünd novels, they only lead to trouble. If you’ve read the blurb above, you know that this time is no exception, even though there’s a new author since Alan Conway was killed in book #1. I would suggest at least reading Magpie Murders first, since a.) there are spoilers in this one, and b.) there are a couple of returning characters who have major pieces in this one.
As usual in this series we have a book within the book. In Pünd’s Last Case written by Elliott Crace, Lady Margaret Chalfont has been poisoned. Elliott believes his own grandmother, renowned author Marian Crace, was murdered 15 years ago and has worked clues to who the killer was into his novel. Then Elliott is killed in a hit and run before finishing the book – with Susan being the main suspect in the case. Susan, of course, believes the person who killed Elliott is also the person who killed Marian, she just has to work out who it is before she’s arrested.
I found both stories interesting, but Susan’s took main stage for me this time around. The two mysteries work well together too and there are twists and turns in both. The characters in Elliott’s book mirror the Crace family and shed light on how Elliott, 12 years old at the time, viewed events. The Crace family members have plenty of secrets and tensions and none want Marian’s legacy tampered with. Susan is a smart, likable amateur sleuth. It’s understandable how she gets pulled into the case. This is the last of the trilogy and I like where it leaves her at the end.
I listened to the audio and I do think having two narrators worked well, one for the Pünd manuscript and one for Susan’s portion of the story. Each did a good job and fit their part well. It’s over 17 hours on audio, but with the interconnected storylines and complicated plots, it kept my attention the whole time.
About Anthony Horowitz
Anthony John Horowitz (born 5 April 1955) is an English novelist and screenwriter specialising in mystery and suspense. His works for children and young adult readers include the Alex Rider series featuring a 14-year-old British boy who spies for MI6, The Power of Five series (known as The Gatekeepers in the US), and The Diamond Brothers series.
Horowitz’s works for adults include: the play Mindgame; two Sherlock Holmes novels; three novels featuring his own detective Susan Ryeland, Magpie Murders, Moonflower Murders, and Marble Hall Murders; five novels featuring a fictionalised version of himself as a companion and chronicler to private investigator Daniel Hawthorne: The Word Is Murder, The Sentence Is Death, A Line to Kill, The Twist of a Knife, and Close to Death.
The estate of James Bond creator Ian Fleming chose Horowitz to write Bond novels utilising unpublished material by Fleming, starting with Trigger Mortis in 2015, followed by Forever and a Day in 2018, and a third and final novel With a Mind to Kill in May 2022.
Horowitz has also written for television, contributing scripts to ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot and adapting six early episodes of Midsomer Murders from the novels of Caroline Graham, including the first three episodes. He was the creator and writer of the ITV series Foyle’s War, Collision and Injustice, and the BBC series Crime Traveller and New Blood.
In 2019 Anthony became a Patron to Home-Start in Suffolk, a small local family support charity working with families across the Suffolk county, as they navigate through challenging circumstances such as mental health issues, bereavement, long term or terminal illness, isolation, domestic abuse, poverty and so much more.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
We watched this series on TV. And now I am eager to reader the books.
I listened to the first book on audio and really enjoyed it (although I wonder if I missed the clue as to the murderer because of not seeing it on the page). I have also enjoyed the recent miniseries.