Moonflower Murders: A Novel

by Anthony Horowitz

Hardcover, 2020

Status

Available

Publication

Harper (2020), Edition: 1st, 608 pages

Description

Featuring his famous literary detective Atticus Pund and Susan Ryeland, hero of the worldwide bestseller Magpie Murders, a brilliantly complex literary thriller with echoes of Agatha Christie from bestselling author Anthony Horowitz. Retired publisher Susan Ryeland is living the good life. She is running a small hotel on a Greek island with her long-term boyfriend Andreas. It should be everything she's always wanted. But is it? She's exhausted with the responsibilities of making everything work on an island where nothing ever does, and truth be told she's beginning to miss London. And then the Trehearnes come to stay. The strange and mysterious story they tell, about an unfortunate murder that took place on the same day and in the same hotel in which their daughter was married-a picturesque inn on the Suffolk coast named Farlingaye Halle-fascinates Susan and piques her editor's instincts. One of her former writers, the late Alan Conway, author of the fictional Magpie Murders, knew the murder victim-an advertising executive named Frank Parris-and once visited Farlingaye Hall. Conway based the third book in his detective series, Atticus Pund Takes the Cake, on that very crime. The Trehearne's, daughter, Cecily, read Conway's mystery and believed the book proves that the man convicted of Parris's murder-a Romanian immigrant who was the hotel's handyman-is innocent. When the Trehearnes reveal that Cecily is now missing, Susan knows that she must return to England and find out what really happened. Brilliantly clever, relentlessly suspenseful, full of twists that will keep readers guessing with each revelation and clue, Moonflower Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage English crime fiction from one of its greatest masterminds, Anthony Horowitz.… (more)

Media reviews

User reviews

LibraryThing member Pat_Bunk_Malecki
Follow up to Magpie Murders. Did not disappoint. Writing Style was different. Divided into two "books" to tell the story. The ending was a total surprise. The characters were well developed . You definitely want to read Book 1 to enjoy this book. I am looking forward to reading his new stand alone
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book.
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LibraryThing member invisiblelizard
After Magpie Murders, I was hopeful for more of the same here. I thought that first book (in this series) was awfully clever. This one, meh, not so much.

The story goes that, once again, former literary editor Susan Ryeland is once again called upon to help solve a mystery that her erstwhile (and
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now deceased) author client Alan Conway wrote about in a supposedly thin veiled fictitious novel called Atticus Pund Takes the Case. And because he was either smarter than anybody else investigating that mystery (or perhaps for other reasons) he solved it while doing research for his book and wrote clues to that solution in his novel. But he told nobody else, even though an innocent man was in prison for the crime. Thus, a decade later, it's up to Susan to sift through the novel, and the clues, and figure it out.

Is it odd that I liked the book-within-the-book so much better? Atticus Pund Takes the Case was a more enjoyable story. Sure, it was simple, less complicated, but that's what made it fun. Pund arrives to solve a murder. While there, things happen, which he observes first hand, another murder takes place, suspects throw red herrings left and right, and in the end he prevails. The culprit is caught. Just about what you'd want from a detective story.

In the outer, wrapper story, Susan Ryeland arrives to solve a mystery. Not much happens. She talks to a lot of people. Thinks about it a lot. And then, just when you think she's going to give up, she comes up with the solution. The mystery is solved through the gentle art of conversation. Kind of boring. Kind of like another mystery novel I read recently. Why can't detectives (or people playing detective) do anything in these stories.

Anyway, my advice is to skip this one.
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LibraryThing member Sensory
I really enjoyed this mystery. It was cleverly written and even though another, completely different book, was inserted into the middle of it, I didn't manage to lose track of the story as I had expected I would. I picked this up from my local library by happenstance without realizing it was the
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2nd book in a series. References to the first book were made throughout but it didn't affect this one. This is exactly the type of mystery I enjoy. I will read the first book for sure.
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LibraryThing member thiscatsabroad
The book-within-the-book far outweighed the main story.
LibraryThing member janerawoof
Same format as the author's [Magpie Murders]. I feel the author overdid his Book within a book device. Still clever and a cerebral mystery, harking back to the "golden age" of mystery fiction. The same protagonist: a now former book editor solving murders in a hotel run by friends and clue to its
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solution hidden in the pages of a certain crime novel written by an author whose books she had edited.
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LibraryThing member beckyhaase
MOONFLOWER MURDERS -- Anthony Horowitz
A story within a story makes for a challenging memory device. Once I got used to the two stories (one completely inside the other) and got the competing characters and story lines straight, this was a compelling although challenging read. Horowitz is a master
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of the plot and he has come with two for this book. The main question is: can the second book prove the innocence of the convicted murderer in the first book?
An enjoyable and challenging read. Keep a notebook handy to keep all the characters and plot devices straight!
5 of 5 stars
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LibraryThing member pierthinker
A guest at a hotel is murdered and a member of staff convicted and imprisoned for the crime. Eight years later one of the hotel owners reads a novel by a man who had stayed at the hotel and questioned several witnesses about the crime, decides that the wrong man has been convicted, but then
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disappears. Susan Ryeland, a retired publisher who worked with the author, is asked to investigate exactly what the missing woman had found in the novel. Through careful questioning and a close reading of the novel she tries to unravel both mysteries (the original murder and the missing hotel owner).

This is an extraordinarily labyrinthine and complexly plotted book. There are clues within clues, twists, misdirections and red herrings galore. We are constantly being pointed at a suspect only to find our attention suddenly switched elsewhere before we can be sure of anyone’s guilt or innocence. The final denouement rests on the slightest of earlier clues.

Structurally the book is incredibly daring. The 200-plus page book that purports to identify the real killer is embedded in full in the story at the point where Susan Ryeland sits down to read it to see what the fuss is all about. Not only is this novel-within-a-novel written in a different style, it is printed with its own pagination, typeface and endpapers.

Does this complexity and cleverness work? Horowitz is paying homage to the Golden Age of Crime Fiction, the age of the country house murder, and especially to the work of Agatha Christie. He crams in as many tropes from those novels as he can, but often with a twist for modern sensibilities and always with an eye to entertain rather than bamboozle us. My only gripe is that the faux novel-within-the-novel is more interesting than the actual novel and it took me a while to adjust back to the characters and plot of the original when the novel reading ended.

Cleverly plotted, clearly written and with characters that are believable within the constraints of the novel itself, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

As with all novels written today, several of the characters and much of the plot revolve around the gay scene (I believe the word homosexual is frowned upon). Is there a literary code of conduct that makes this a requirement these days?
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LibraryThing member brangwinn
“Over the top” and “mindboggling” are two excellent description of this latest Horowitz mystery. It was almost too much for me, I struggled through to the end, but made it but I’m not sure I’m ready for another convoluted tale.
LibraryThing member cathyskye
In Moonflower Murders, readers will soon learn that Anthony Horowitz does indeed have a devious mind. This book is all about solving puzzles, and there are lots of them. If you wonder why the book weighs in at 608 pages, it's because you get two books for the price of one. Like Susan Ryeland, you
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have to read the Alan Conway mystery that Susan edited, Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, in order to figure out what's going on and who did what.

I did get tired of Susan procrastinating about reading the book, but I think Susan procrastinated in order to have readers become hopelessly tangled in the story. This is a marvelously twisted bit of plotting. The only problem I had with it is that I think I overdosed on puzzle-solving-- there are just too many. But it is fun, so if you're in the mood to decipher an ingenious tale full of twists, turns, and red herrings, Moonflower Murders may be just the book for you.

(Review copy courtesy of the publisher and Net Galley)
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LibraryThing member Dianekeenoy
Incredible read! There's a book within this book. When I saw that, I wasn't happy, how could that be good? Well, it was as good as the book I was actually reading! Anthony Horowitz keeps surprising me with every book! Highly recommended as well as Magpie Murders!!
LibraryThing member Doondeck
Very inventive. Two stories in one and the wrap up is even better than Poirot.
LibraryThing member MM_Jones
Anthony Horowitz knows what he's doing and includes statement in this story that sums it up: "As much as Alan Conway disliked writing murder mysteries and even looked down on the genre, he was undoubtedly good at what he did. There's something very satisfying about a complicated whodunit that
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actually makes sense."
The author is quite capable of writing a murder mystery that satisfies the reader, but it doesn't appear to satisfy him. He layers the complications on top of the mystery, keeping his audience looking forward to what he comes up with next.
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LibraryThing member TomDonaghey
Moonflower Murders (2020) by Anthony Horowitz. This is the second murder mystery starring now retired editor Susan Ryeland. She was a the reluctant investigator in Magpie Murders and she finds herself cast into the same role. The small hotel in Greece has wonderful sea views, close access to the
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nearby beach and almost more problems than she and Andreas can handle. It seems as if money is flowing out faster than the evening tide.
Enter the Trehernes. They run a very posh hotel in Suffolk. Eight years prior to new there had been a murder during their daughter’s wedding which was held on the grounds. A fairly well known man was bludgeoned with a hammer, the killer soon confessed, and life went on. A short time after those events occurred Alan Conway, the author of the Atticus Pund mysteries, stayed at the hotel. The next book he wrote was far different from the locations and events surrounding the original murder, but the Trehernes daughter Cecily read the book and is convinced the key to the identity of the real killer is hidden therein.
Now she has gone missing and the Trehernes beg Susan to come back to England and investigate. They feel that as she was the editor for the book, she is in part responsible for it, it’s secrets and hence the missing daughter.
£10,000 as a reward for solving the mystery is hers as payment. Since Susan feels she is partly responsible, and since the hotel she is jointly running is leaking money, she accepts.
What follows is, like Magpie Murders before it, a book within a book. While the Pund novel is not quite as good as the surrounding mystery, both are pretty good. Give it a 4 out of 5 is you like that sort of thing.
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LibraryThing member BrianEWilliams
"Moonflower Murders" consists of a pair of cleverly plotted whodunit murder mysteries in the Golden Age style. There's plenty of misdirection and red herrings. The characterization is interesting but doesn't dominant the story-telling: it's the plotting that keeps you reading. The two stories are
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tied together by yet another puzzle that is solved only in the closing chapters of the book. It's all great entertainment, especially for fans of the classic English detective story.
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LibraryThing member pgchuis
I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley,

I don't think I can succinctly summarize the plot, but the outer story concerns Susan investigating the disappearance of a woman called Cecily, which is linked to an eight year old murder. The secret to her disappearance is in a novel
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Susan once edited, and this is why Susan is asked to do the investigating. The logic of this didn't really convince, and nor did the lengths Susan seemed to go to to delay actually re-reading the novel, but I found that part of the plot entertaining and fast-moving.

Eventually Susan did re-read the novel in question, and it is embedded in this novel in its entirety. Things started to drag a bit for me at this point and I enjoyed this thread much less.

The solution to the main plot was logical and had been cleverly clued (although some of the clues were a bit of a stretch), but was lacking in emotional impact. The solution in the embedded novel was improbable in other ways, but was more emotionally satisfying. I liked the Susan/Andreas storyline.
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LibraryThing member JJbooklvr
This is the sequel to the Magpie Murders. Again it has a book within a book with two murder mysteries to solve. I totally guessed wrong on the book within the book, but had a pretty good idea who the killer was in the main story. I totally missed why the person did it though. Another fun read for
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mystery fans!
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LibraryThing member Gwendydd
This book isn't quite as much fun as its predecessor, but it's still delightful. When a woman disappears after reading an Atticus Punt mystery by the deceased Alan Conway, the book's editor, Susan Ryeland, is brought in to find the connection between Alan's book and a real-life mystery. She does
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some of her investigation, then reads the book, and the finishes her investigation, so we are treated to a book-within-a-book. This is a great way for Horowitz to have his cake and eat it too - he got to write a very traditional post-war murder mystery, fill it full of clever anagrams and wordplay that most readers would never notice, and then let Susan explain just how clever that mystery is while solving yet another mystery.
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LibraryThing member jmoncton
I love those traditional cozy mysteries that culminate with all the suspects in a room and the detective going over all the clues -- Professor Plum in the Library with the candlestick! I never figure these mysteries out, but I love the cleverness and the clues and for me, it's always a fun mental
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exercise. Well this book, has two of those mysteries! It's a mystery that involves a mystery book that's included. Twice the fun!
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LibraryThing member BookConcierge
Two books in one! A very interesting concept. Susan Ryeland is a retired publisher/editor who is approached by the Treherns, parents of a missing woman, for help in finding out where their daughter Cecily is and what has happened to her. Why? Because before she disappeared, Cecily mentioned that
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she had read a book by an author Susan used to represent, and that book gave her the solution to a real-life murder at the hotel her family owns and operates.

This is book two in a series featuring this literary detective, Susan Ryeland. And like the first novel, the secret to this one lies in a book Susan edited which featured the master German detective, Atticus Pünd (think Hercule Poirot). So, of course, Susan must re-read the book in question, and the mystery of what has happened to Cecily is interrupted after 227 pages, to allow the reader to experience the Atticus Pünd novel in its entirety, before returning to Cecily’s disappearance and to the murder she felt she had solved using the Pünd book.

Sound confusing? Well, that’s because I am no where near the talented writer that Anthony Horowitz is. I was completely mesmerized by this book (these books?). I enjoyed the difference in style between the two storylines, and was equally immersed in each mystery (or really three mysteries … the one that Pünd is solving; the murder that Cecily believed she had solved by reading the Pünd novel; the disappearance of Cecily).

I like Susan as a character, and I like Atticus Pünd. Both are meticulous and thorough and deliberate in analyzing the evidence they uncover. And I love the way that Horowitz plays wit words

I haven’t read the first in the series - Magpie Murders - yet, but I definitely will, and I look forward to future installments as well.
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LibraryThing member Nancyjcbs
Moonflower Murders is a book within a book. Susan Ryeland, editor of the Atticus Pund books, is asked to solve a current mystery that was hinted at in one of the books. Two-thirds of Moonflower Murders shows Susan's attempts to solve an old murder and find a missing woman. To do that she must
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re-read Atticus Pund Takes The Case. And we read it along with her.

I find this type of storytelling by Anthony Horowitz both unique and intriguing. There were truly four mysteries to solve and although nearly everyone is a suspect I was only convinced of one early on.
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LibraryThing member hhornblower
All I can say is Anthony Horowitz must be a bit of a bastard. It is just so unfair that one man can be in possession of so much talent. I'm kidding of course, but I have yet to read of book he has written or watched a tv show he has created and not thoroughly enjoyed it. Do yourself a favor and
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just get lost in this book.
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LibraryThing member lostinalibrary
Susan Ryeland is hired by distraught parents to find their daughter, Cecily. She had phoned her parents about a murder that had occurred in their hotel several years before. The only clue they provide Susan - Cecily claimed that, having read Alan Conway’s book Atticus Pund Takes the Case which
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was based on the murder, she knows who was guilty. However, she vanished before she got a chance to reveal the guilty party. The police seem unable to find her and they hope Susan can do better based on her success in solving the magpie murders (from the first book in the series) and because they hoped that having been Conway’s editor, she can spot the same clue that Cecily did hoping it might lead to Her whereabouts.

Anthony Horowitz has an uncanny ability to recreate the voice of writers from the Golden Age of mysteries, most specifically Agatha Christie, while maintaining his own unique voice. In Moonflower Murders, the second (and hopefully not the last) book in the Susan Ryeland series, he gives us a book within a book and makes them both unputdownable. As in most Golden Age mysteries, there is little action and the crimes, in this case from both books, are solved through careful investigation, talking with a myriad of suspects, and, of course, the ‘little grey cells’ of the investigator with lots of red herrings and twists and turns thrown in to keep the reader guessing. Loved it!

Thanks to Netgalley & HarperCollins Canada for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review
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LibraryThing member Twink
I'm a big fan of Anthony Horowitz's writing. His latest is Moonflower Murders, the second in his Susan Ryeland series.
Susan Ryeland returns as the 'detective'. She's a retired book editor and now runs a hotel in Crete with her boyfriend. I quite liked her from the first book and was happy to see
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her again. She's incredibly smart and dogged in her search for the final 'whodunit'.

The Treahornes are guests at Susan's hotel, and they tell her the story of a murder at their hotel in England. A man was convicted but their daughter Cecily believes he was innocent and that the real sulprit might be in the pages of a book that Ryeland edited for now deceased author Alan Conway. (Another of his books was the basis for the first book in this series - Magpie Murders) Susan is ready for a change of scenery and agrees to travel to London, stay at their hotel and see if she can shed any light on things - especially now as Cecily has gone missing.

Okay, that a great starting point, but the plotting of Moonflower Murders is so much more involved than you can imagine. It's absolutely fantastic. There are many, many characters, so readers or listeners will want to pay close attention.

The Treahornes and their employees all seem to be harboring secrets. Susan decides to learn what she can about them all before re-reading the book. And here's the part I love. When she does start reading the book, Horowitz takes us completely into the book. Story within a story. Hard to do well, but Horowitz does it brilliantly. The book is 'Atticus Pund Takes the Cake', a series that Conway penned. Pund brings Hercule Poirot to mind, in mannerisms and methodology. This second murder is just as well plotted as the first. How are the two related? How and what has Conway hidden in his fictional book?

Horowitz is fiendishly clever. I really enjoyed the 'recap' at the end, 'seeing' the clues that I didn't pick up on. The twists, turns, red herrings and more kept me guessing til the last final whodunit . I most certainly didn't figure it out!

Absolutely recommended for those who love 'old school' mysteries, where the answers are in deduction, not DNA.
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LibraryThing member blbooks
First sentence: The Polydorus is a charming family-run hotel, located a short walk away from the lively town of Agios Nikolaos, one hour from Heraklion. Rooms cleaned daily, all with Wi-Fi and air con, some with sea views. Coffee and home-cooked meals served on our lovely terraces. Visit our
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website or find us on booking.com. You have no idea how long it took me to write that.

Premise/plot: Moonflower Murders is the sequel to Magpie Murders. Susan Ryeland (editor/amateur detective) is now living on Crete running a small hotel with her boyfriend Andreas. Two of their guests have arrived with a proposition for Susan. Their daughter, Cecily, has gone missing. Before Cecily disappeared, she'd called her parents saying that reading Atticus Pund Takes The Cake has changed her mind about who murdered their own guest so many years before. Stefan Codrescu may have been convicted of the crime and may be in prison, but, he's innocent. The proof is hidden within Alan Conway's mystery novel.

The Trehernes are offering to pay Susan to investigate both crimes. Perhaps as Alan's editor she can spot what Cecily spotted in the text. And she did have success in solving who murdered Alan, after all. Susan takes the case for two reasons--she's TIRED and worn down from running the hotel and misses her old life, and the MONEY will prove useful whether she stays or goes.

As she begins detecting the two cases--surely Cecily disappeared because she knew too much--Susan tries to sort out where she belongs and what she really wants.

About three-quarters through this one, Alan Conway's novel ATTICUS PUND TAKES THE CAKE is embedded.

My thoughts: What a wearisome novel this was!!! The pacing was all over the place--and obviously not in a good way. I didn't mind Alan Conway's novel kicking off the first book. The fact that the missing end chapters was the literal conflict (or one of them) in the "main" story helped me stay engaged. It was a fun, premise-driven novel. I didn't love, love, love it. But it always kept me reading.

Moonflower Murders doesn't have a great premise working on its behalf. Susan is retired. She is no longer an editor; she is no longer in the book business. If Susan had been less bored or less in need of money, chances are she'd not left the island or her boyfriend to play detective.

My biggest issue with this one, however, is that almost all the characters are so unlikable and in some cases so disgusting. It's hard to spend HUNDREDS of pages (felt like thousands of pages) with characters that you despise/dislike. My neutral feelings for Susan and Andreas weren't enough to really rescue this one.

I don't know that this one needs a trigger warning exactly. But so much of the unfolding mystery surrounds adult men (aged 50+) engaging with very young barely-legal (and perhaps not legal) young teen male prostitutes. And it gets descriptive/graphic. Okay, that may not be fair. I don't think it's meant to be graphic in a romantic/sensual way. But it's a LOT to process.

I wrestled with whether to keep reading this one or to abandon it. It was just so wearisome.
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LibraryThing member Vesper1931
Eight years previously at their daughter Cecily Treharnes wedding, Frank Parris, 53, was murdered. Maintenance man Stefan Codrescu, 22, was arrested and imprisoned for the murder. Having recently read Alan Conway's book entitled 'Atticus Pund Takes the Case' which is set in the 1950s and based on
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the case, Cecily states she knows who the murderer is, but she promptly disappears. Parents Lawrence and Pauline Trehearne of Branlow Hall ask amateur detective Susan Ryeland to investigate, as she was the previous editor of Conway's books and might understand the clues.
An interesting and entertaining well-written mystery with a cast of varied characters.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Awards

Barry Award (Nominee — Novel — 2021)

Language

Original language

English

Barcode

9214
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