Moonflower Murders

But Madeline Cain is also a murderer and she kills Francis Pendleton – FP – the fictional equivalent of Frank Parris.

Madeline Cain is an anagram of Aiden MacNeil.

As I got back into my car, I reflected on what I had learned. I kept going over and over one thought in my mind. Just about every student who had been at Bromeswell Grove had disliked George Saunders. They’d all wanted him to drop dead. Just the sight of him had been enough to reduce Derek Endicott to a jabbering wreck.

But it had been Frank Parris who had died

Obviously, that’s Raymond Chandler, who created Philip Marlowe, perhaps the most iconic of private detectives. Algernon Marsh comes from Ngaio Marsh, Madeline Cain from James M. Cain, who wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice and the wonderful Double Indemnity, Nancy Mitchell from Gladys Mitchell, who wrote over sixty crime novels – Philip Larkin was a fan.