Marble Hall Murders
ISBN: 9781804943007
Description
Susan Ryeland has had enough of murder. She’s edited two novels about the famous detective, Atticus Pünd, and both times she’s come close to being killed. Now she’s back in England and she’s been persuaded to work on a third. The new ‘continuation’ novel is by Eliot Crace, grandson of Miriam Crace who was the biggest selling children’s author in the world until her death exactly twenty years ago. Eliot believes that Miriam was deliberately poisoned. And when he tells Susan that he has hidden the identity of Miriam’s killer inside his book, Susan knows she’s in trouble once again.
Reviewed on 19th October 2025
Susan Ryland's third adventure sees her back in the UK, and hired to edit a 'continuation' novel that turns out to have all the same issues as the originals, including murder.
I got through the book slower than I expected, but it's a hefty paperback and I wasn't in my usual location, so that probably had more of an impact that the text itself.
There's some great jokes at the author's expense, but mostly it's just more of the same - another cleverly structured tale of book within book, with more trauma and tragedy.
I enjoyed finding out what had happened again - but I understand this is the last book in the series, and I think it works well as an ending. It's a clever structure, but probably not one that stands up to too many returns, and probably is quite hard to make work.
