A review by finlaaaay
Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz

medium-paced

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

1.0

I was already iffy about this book because I remember some things about the last works of Horowitz's that I read that put me off him. I gave it a go anyway because I thought the book-within-a-book conceit was enjoyable.

From the start it pissed me off because two of the three dead characters were gay men. Like honestly, that would be fine. Gay people die too, right? Not every instance of the bury-your-gays trope has to be negative, necessarily. But the ending royally pissed me off –

it turns out that the husband of the murdered woman, who we've spent the entire book batting away from suspicion because he's obviously such a loving husband, was a former rent-boy trying to make ends meet in London and killed his former male lover in a fit of rage. He then kills his wife when she figures things out. Horowitz takes delight in describing how perverted and depraved the dead guy had been, as if to justify it. His former rent-boy character then runs off to commit suicide, i.e. he didn't face consequences for his actions. His main character Susan then comments in the very next chapter how delightfully unhomophobic society has become. Bleaugh. I can think of a thousand other ways this could have ended satisfactorially.

Oh also the narrator of the audiobook does such an atrocious Scottish accent for that character that I burst out laughing as she was describing how he got away with the murders. Fucking godawful.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia