Moonflower Murders: A Novel

Susan finishes reading Atticus Pünd Takes the Case. She feels she has learned nothing as the novel’s events bear only a superficial resemblance to Frank Parris’s murder. Susan recalls the edits she unsuccessfully tried to persuade Alan Conway into making, such as his offensive portrayal of Eric Chandler. It occurs to Susan that Alan may have refused certain changes as they were vital to the secret message of the novel. For example, she felt the chapter “Darkness Falls” was too derivative of Agatha Christie’s Endless Night. She also objected to the references to real people such as Bert Lahr and Alfred Hitchcock. Most of all, she was troubled by the anachronistic inclusion of the LMR 57 steam engine in the final chapter.

Susan looks for patterns in the text and realizes that all the characters’ last names reference mystery writers such as Raymond Chandler, Ngaio Marsh, James M. Cain, and P.D. James. Also, each character’s name is connected to a real-life person. For example, Leonard Collins and Lionel Corby share the same initials, as do Simon Cox and Stefan Codrescu. However, Susan can detect little logic in these connections. For example, Melissa James shares the initials of Melissa Johnson, but her character seems to be based on