Who Lance Gardner is
Lance Gardner runs The Moonflower hotel with his wife Maureen in Atticus Pünd Takes the Case. Melissa James owns the business, leaving the Gardners answerable to somebody who is becoming dissatisfied with its performance. Hospitality in this story includes accounts, dependency and arguments behind the welcoming front desk.
Role in Moonflower Murders
The hotel provides Pünd and Madeline Cain with a base for their inquiry. Lance is therefore close to both the victim’s financial concerns and the detective’s daily routine. His explanations must be weighed against Melissa’s suspicions about the business. The apparent ordinariness of hotel management makes a useful contrast with the former actress’s more glamorous history: a disappointing balance sheet can generate pressure as effectively as a romantic scandal.
Key relationships
Maureen Gardner is his wife and fellow manager. Melissa James owns the hotel, and Atticus Pünd stays there during the investigation. His contemporary counterpart is Lawrence Treherne, an owner of Branlow Hall.
Played by Adrian Rawlins
Adrian Rawlins plays Lance Gardner. Rawlins’s other role is Lawrence Treherne. Both characters must account for a hotel’s operations, but they face different people above, beside and dependent upon them.
Their story and fate — spoilers
Melissa confronts the Gardners about the hotel’s financial results. Their dealings provide a reason for anxiety about what she might discover or decide, but they do not explain her murder. Pünd ultimately identifies Leonard Collins as the person who killed Melissa after John’s earlier attack. The hotel’s problems remain part of the crowded field of motives the detective must sort rather than a complete solution in themselves.
Books and television — book spoilers
Rawlins plays both Lance and Lawrence, allowing the adaptation to compare two men responsible for a hotel. Conway’s fiction changes their exact position: Lance manages a business owned by Melissa, while Lawrence is a member of the owning family in the contemporary case. That shift alters the balance of power and demonstrates why the casting resemblance is a starting point for interpretation rather than a literal biography.
Read or listen to the book
Moonflower Murders (2020)
Anthony Horowitz’s novel behind the second television mystery.
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Adrian Rawlins plays both Lance Gardner and Lawrence Treherne, connecting the two story worlds.