This is incredibly clever, although I think a sequel to Magpie Murders, which is written with the same conceit.
You get two books for the price of one here, a novel by Anthony Horowitz called Moonflower Murders and embedded within this a novel by the fictional author Alan Conway called Atticus Pund Takes the Case.
Conway is a character in Moonflower (although already dead) and the solution to the murders in Moonflower is buried within Atticus Pund, who knew the characters in Moonshine and disclosed the solution, buried in its text. Both books are very good as stand-alone detective stories and, apart from some plot parallels have no similarities, so it is not easy to pick up the clues to Moonflower from Atticus Pund – I did guess but largely for the wrong reasons.
Both are slightly conventional Agatha Christie style detective stories, but incredibly well constructed and written. I am embarrassed never to have discovered Horowitz before and will read more.
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