64 pages • 2 hours read
Anthony HorowitzMoonflower Murders: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Limits of the Criminal Justice System
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses sexual abuse, ableism, violent murders.
The quest for justice is central to the intertwining fictional and real-world plots of Moonflower Murders. The novel’s structure revolves around two mysteries: the murders of Melissa James and Frances Pendleton in Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, and the murder of Frank Parris and the disappearance of Cecily Treherne in the real world. In both cases, Horowitz examines the process of uncovering the truth and bringing the guilty to account. Moonflower Murders reflects on the complexities of crime solving, highlighting the difference between the “tidy” resolutions of fictional crimes and the messier, more ambiguous nature of real-life justice. The book also shows that solving crimes constitutes only one part of justice, while the characters interrogate methods of punishment within the criminal justice system, questioning their efficacy and fairness.
In the tradition of Golden Age detective fiction from the 1920s and 1930s, authors like Agatha Christie presented crime as an intellectual puzzle, with justice restored once the detective solved the mystery. This framework portrays crime as the disruption of moral order, while holding the perpetrators responsible through logic and deduction restores justice. At first, Atticus Pünd Takes the Case seems to conform to these familiar conventions of detective fiction, with the brilliant detective Atticus Pünd neatly solving the puzzle by the end of the story and restoring order. Susan points out that readers enjoy the genre as “there’s something a little comforting in a book that actually makes sense of the world in which it takes place and leads you to an absolute truth” (150). The formula offers a sense of closure and reassurance that, in fiction at least, justice is not only attainable but inevitable.
However, Moonflower Murders complicates this comforting narrative by questioning whether simply solving a crime truly achieves justice. Through Atticus Pünd’s questioning of the criminal justice system, the novel introduces doubts about the system’s capacity to deliver fair outcomes. The detective clarifies that he sees himself as a cog in the wheel of justice rather than an avenger: “He was more of an administrator. Here is the crime. Here is the solution. His job was to bring them together” (391). This description highlights that while detectives can identify criminals, they cannot ensure that the punishment meted out to these criminals will be fair or effective. Pünd’s public speech, “Crime and Justice,” underscores these limitations and expresses his dissatisfaction with the punishment criminals receive once his part in the process is over. Outlining his opposition to the death penalty, Pünd lists examples of wrongful convictions to highlight how the criminal justice system is fallible. This point is underlined when Miss Cain commits a form of vigilante justice, murdering Francis Pendleton on the erroneous assumption that he killed his wife.
Moonflower Murders’ main storyline continues the argument that the criminal justice system is flawed and that the punishments meted out to criminals are often erroneous and unjust. Susan discovers that Stefan Codrescu was framed and falsely convicted of murder. DSI Locke’s role in this travesty of justice emphasizes that those involved in the criminal justice system are flawed human beings who often lack objectivity. Meanwhile, Susan and Craig Andrews’s discussions about prisons frame incarceration as an outdated form of punishment. Their observation that imprisonment is a “Victorian” relic raises questions about whether modern societies should seek alternative forms of justice beyond incarceration. The novel shows that traditional methods of punishment are neither just not effective.
By highlighting the fallibility of the criminal justice system, Horowitz questions whether justice can ever truly be achieved in the real world or if it exists only in the controlled environment of murder mysteries. The novel argues that society should examine and reform its approach to criminal punishment and consider what other forms justice might take.
The Power of Storytelling
The power of storytelling is central to the structure, narrative, and meaning of Moonflower Murders. The novel itself, as well as Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, the fictional novel within it, explore how stories shape both fiction and reality, revealing the complex relationship between life and art, and truth and invention. The meta-narrative blurs the lines between fiction and reality, showing that stories do more than entertain—they influence how readers understand the world.
The dual mysteries at the center of the novel—one fictional and one real—illustrate the fluid boundaries between fiction and reality. Susan Ryeland investigates two intertwined mysteries: Frank Parris’s murder and Cecily Treherne’s disappearance in real life, as well as figuring out their connection to the novel Atticus Pünd Takes the Case. Alan Conway’s narrative reflects and alters real people and events, and Susan struggles to separate truth from invention. At several points in the narrative, Conway’s fictional world seems more tangible to Susan than real life. For example, Susan feels the presence of Atticus Pünd guiding her investigation of the case. At the same time, she has to remind herself that people she has not met—such as Cecily Treherne and Stefan Codrescu—are real rather than fictional characters. Susan’s sense of disorientation shows that fiction—with its vibrance, narrative coherence, and emotional resonance—can be more engaging than the chaotic nature of lived experiences.
The novel also draws attention to the manipulative mechanics of storytelling. The metafictional narrative highlights how authors control the reader’s experience through techniques such as narrative perspective and literary devices. Mystery novels are particularly manipulative as they involve the use of red herrings, deliberately created to mislead the reader. Alan Conway is portrayed as an author who takes this authorial power to extremes, using his fiction to manipulate and harm others. Conway’s reflection and distortion of real-life events in Atticus Pünd Takes the Case is a malicious literary game. His caricatures of the real people he encountered, such as Derek Endicott, are cruel and insinuating. Meanwhile, his veiled references to the true identity of Frank Parris’s killer are literary traps within the text. Although Cecily Treherne’s murder takes place years after the novel’s publication, its cause can be directly traced to Conway’s novel. The real-world consequences of Alan Conway’s fiction demonstrate that authorial power comes with significant responsibility. This concept is highlighted by Susan’s regrets over her editorial input into Atticus Pünd Takes the Case. In retrospect, she feels she should have used her editorial power to reshape Conway’s narrative into something more benign.
Ultimately, Moonflower Murders shows that storytelling has the power to make a meaningful impact on the real world. That impact may be positive, negative, or, in the case of Alan Conway’s novels, both at once. Despite the malignant motivations of their author and the damage they cause, the Atticus Pünd novels possess a positive power that transcends their creator’s intentions. Susan loves the detective series and is fond of the protagonist, Pünd, despite disliking Alan Conway, showing that literature can take on a life beyond its author’s original intentions.
The Harmful Impacts of the Abuse of Power
Moonflower Murders portrays characters who attempt to exert control over one another, and it also shows the harmful consequences of power that is wielded without accountability. The novel explores the dark human tendency to exploit the relative powerlessness of others, illustrating how the misuse of power leads to oppression and dehumanization. The novel also demonstrates that unchecked power inevitably leads to resistance.
The frame narrative and the novel-within-a-novel both include examples of how characters abuse their power within personal and professional relationships. For instance, the murder victim, Frank Parris, enjoyed sexual power games where he was in control. James Taylor’s assertion that Frank was “[o]ut to give you a bad time” proves that he derived sadistic pleasure from hurting and humiliating the sex workers he employed (179). Frank’s wealth allowed him to oppress and dehumanize the young men he hired. His desire to maintain this control is illustrated when he meets Aiden again and tries to blackmail the former sex worker into sleeping with him. Frank also associates himself with Count Almaviva, claiming his “droit de seigneur” (right to have sex with his subjects) demonstrates his arrogance and sense of entitlement. Similarly, Lisa Treherne abuses her position as Stefan Codrescu’s employer to sexually control him, stripping him of his rights, autonomy, and dignity. In Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, Melissa James uses her fame and beauty to control others. Melissa’s exploitation of her advantages is careless rather than calculated. She has a habit of discarding people who care about her when a more attractive alternative comes along; this is illustrated in her plan to leave her husband and her last-minute withdrawal from Simon Cox’s film project. Melissa selfishly pursues her own agenda, with no thought of her actions’ impact on others.
Through Aiden MacNeil’s character, the narrative demonstrates how those who were once powerless themselves can become corrupt after they acquire power. Aiden’s socially disadvantaged upbringing drives him to sex work in which he is exploited and subjugated. However, once he gains wealth and social status through his marriage to Cecily Treherne, he will stop at nothing to retain his newly acquired power, murdering both Frank and his wife when they threaten this. Likewise, Francis Pendleton is both a victim and perpetrator of abuse. Melissa’s intention to leave him makes him powerless as he loves his wife and surrendered his inheritance when he married her. He, therefore, reasserts his sense of authority by seducing Nancy Mitchell, who is in awe of his aristocratic social status. The meager sum he offers Nancy to terminate her pregnancy underlines his view of her as dispensable.
Alan Conway likewise abuses his power as an author in his malicious caricatures of real people. His portrayal of Derek Endicott as Eric Chandler, an impotent voyeur dominated by his mother, is particularly cruel. Conway’s fictional depiction continues Derek’s victimization by schoolmates and his former principal. At the same time, Conway offers a rare example of fair and benevolent power in the character of Atticus Pünd: As a detective, Pünd exercises authority over the fates of others, but he uses this power with care and delicacy. The novel implies that the Jewish detective’s experience of persecution in a World War II concentration camp has made him a compassionate arbiter of power.
In exploring the harmful impacts of the abuse of power, Moonflower Murders is a cautionary tale, showing that exploitation leads to further callousness and corruption. The murders of Frank Parris, Melissa James, and Francis Pendleton reveal that power, when misused, is ultimately self-destructive.
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By Anthony Horowitz
