The novel received strong positive reviews for its many-layered plot and brisk pace of the prose, “meaning that what we are reading can literally be described as a mystery wrapped in an enigma”.

Susan accepts an offer of ten thousand pounds to return to England, stay at their hotel, and use any insight she may have gained by editing the book to find Cecily and the true killer of Frank Parris.

In a meeting at Branlow Hall Hotel, with the Treherne family and the police detective, Susan reveals the murderer as Cecily's husband, Aiden.

Aiden had previously been a sex worker and had left this life after meeting Cecily, whom he had married not out of love but because of their home and his job at the hotel.

The novel also contains the complete text of Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, and readers can see where the fictional author Conway left clues throughout pointing to the "real-life" crime.

[4] Publishers Weekly considered it “a flawless update of classic golden age whodunits.”[3] Kirkus Reviews noted all the same features of the complex plot and clear prose, yet felt it was “over the top”: “The novel within a novel is so extensive and absorbing on its own, in fact, that all but the brainiest armchair detectives are likely to find it a serious distraction from the mystery to which it’s supposed to offer the key.“ Thus does Kirkus Reviews limit the audience of this novel to only the brainiest readers.