little_sparrow3 's review for:

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz
4.0
This is a very well crafted murder mystery. It wasn't perfect as there were a few answers that I felt the characters arrived at through supposition rather than through actual evidence, but these weren't enough to take me out of the story.

I do want to note that although the story is good, this book did have some very questionable portrayals of LGBTQ+ characters that personally gave me a bit of an icky feeling.
Spoiler All of the LGBTQ+ characters are extremely morally gray and are somehow tied up in the sex industry either as a buyer or a seller. The two older gay characters are also both into young boys (not underage, but close enough that I got a little grossed out).
If there had been some good LGBTQ+ characters mixed in to even things out, I'd be a little more comfortable with what Horowitz has done in these stories, but because all of the gay characters are portrayed in this way, it suggests a pattern that I'm not sure I'm okay with. I believe there's going to be one more book in this series so I'll definitely be reading it as I really like the old school whodunnit detective format of these books, but I'm not particularly inclined to pick up any more of Horowitz's books.