Who Pauline Treherne is
Pauline Treherne is Cecily and Lisa’s mother and a co-owner of Branlow Hall with Lawrence. Cecily’s disappearance makes her part of the appeal that draws Susan away from Crete. She is asking for something an editor cannot promise: that reading the right book will help bring a missing daughter home.
Role in Moonflower Murders
Pauline’s role places the family’s anxiety beside the practical life of a hotel that has already been marked by one murder. The Trehernes must recount the wedding-day death of Frank Parris while trying to understand a new disappearance. Their memories are affected by what they believed had been settled years earlier. Susan’s work requires reopening those memories rather than simply searching for a new event.
Key relationships
Lawrence Treherne is her husband and business partner. Lisa Treherne is Cecily’s sister, while Aiden MacNeil is the missing woman’s husband. Susan Ryeland becomes an invited investigator whose persistence increasingly unsettles the household that employed her.
Played by Pooky Quesnel
Pooky Quesnel plays Pauline Treherne. Quesnel’s other role is Maureen Gardner. The pairing brings the two hotel households into visual alignment while leaving their individual motives and histories distinct.
Their story and fate — spoilers
Susan eventually identifies Aiden as both Frank’s murderer and Cecily’s killer. The family’s hope of finding Cecily alive cannot be fulfilled. The explanation also overturns the accepted story about Stefan and reveals that he is Roxana’s father. For Pauline, the solution is therefore not a restoration of the earlier family arrangement: it exposes how much of that arrangement rested on deception.
Books and television — book spoilers
Pooky Quesnel also plays Maureen Gardner in the embedded novel. The two women are connected through hotel management and the shared casting, but Pauline’s missing daughter has no simple equivalent in Maureen’s fictional circumstances. The screen invites viewers to compare their manner and position while Susan asks a different question: what did Conway keep, distort or redistribute when he wrote about Branlow Hall?
Read or listen to the book
Moonflower Murders (2020)
Anthony Horowitz’s novel behind the second television mystery.
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Pooky Quesnel plays both Pauline Treherne and Maureen Gardner, connecting the two story worlds.