Reviews with content warning for Violence - Moonflower Murders

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz

7 reviews

lisaarnsdorf's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I really struggled with how to rate this book. I hated some aspects of it and really enjoyed others. But overall, the negatives outweigh the positives for me.

On the plus side, it’s really well written with elements and wordplay woven through that are truly mind boggling. I really liked the story within the story.

But the present day mystery was such a bummer. Horowitz clearly wanted to tie the current murder back to the first story. But the aspect of Alan Conway’s life he chose to build out was his sexuality. And he did it by making all of the gay characters in the story terrible people who were terrible because they were gay. Right from the ghetto, having the murder victim be yet another gay man left a bad taste in my mouth. But the predators he turned the gay men into was totally unnecessary and sickening.

I almost didn’t finish the book. I should have listened to that intuition. The reveal only made the gay men into worse villains than they started as.

It’s a shame that such a well crafted book should rely on such hate.

Content Warnings

atalea's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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jodar's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Another very well-written and intriguingly complex murder mystery from Horowitz.

There is a novel embedded in the novel, but it is not a story within a story. The solution the MC is trying to unravel is the puzzle within the puzzle of the embedded novel of the dead author whose works the MC was an editor of.

Scandal of sexual predation by the powerful against the susceptible is at the core of the mystery – it seems even with today’s easygoing attitudes to sexual morality there are limits to social acceptability.

My one regret is not noting down the characters, as there are quite a few to keep track of. But actually, I largely enjoyed it for the settings and characters – especially the woman MC – rather than in trying to puzzled out who did it. I liked having an MC who was happy in her relationship but also frustrated and struggling to work through her personal issues.

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