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

You might remember that I read Magpie Murders earlier this year and immediately got on the waiting list for this, the sequel. This book features the fearless editor, Susan Reyland. It opens in Greece, where she’s living with her fiance and running a hotel. She’s approached by an obviously wealthy couple who tell her that someone has suggested that she can help them find their missing daughter, Cecily. After further discussion, Susan learns that – yet again – the cantankerous (and quite dead) author Alan Conway is behind the connection. He based a detective novel on a murder involving the missing girl’s family years previously – a novel that would help Susan understand what happened to Cecily.

The books in this series are cleverly structured. Both are built so that we read a novel within a novel and we use the clues from one to solve the mystery in the other. They are a lot of fun and help unpack the complexities of mysteries while building the most intricate plots. I was completely captivated by both books! I hope Horowitz writes more of them.