Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect
Ernest Cunningham Book 2
Mariner Books
I picked up the eBook of the first book in this series to read because my youngest daughter (13) and my niece (16) had each picked up copies to read at the same time. They wanted to read three chapters a week of Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone, then 3 a week of this, to finish for the launch of Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret. I ended up getting ahead of them, on book 1 and never circled back. This summer it was a title on a Goodreads Challenge so I picked the series back up. Benjamin is one in a long list of Australian authors; Marianne de Pierres, Sally Murphy, Scot Gardner, Jack Hath and more; I have discovered and greatly enjoyed. The description of this volume states:
“When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.
The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:
the debut writer (me!)
the forensic science writer
the blockbuster writer
the legal thriller writer
the literary writer
the psychological suspense writer
But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.
Of course, we should also know how to commit one.
How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?”
The sections in this book are:
The Layout of the Ghan
Australian Mystery Writers’ Festival, 50th Anniversary Program
Prologue
Memoir
Blockbluster
Forensic
Psychological
Legal
Literary
The Seven Deductions of Ernest Cunningham
Ghost
Co-Writer
The sections have between 1 and nine chapters each and there are a couple of chapters with a .5 numbering, specifically 11.5 and 31.5 where Ernest breaks the fourth wall to make sure we are all caught up and give us some insight.
I struggled with the first story, it was good but it really did not grab me until about the half way mark. If I had not been reading it with 2 others, it might have ended up on my ‘did not finish’ pile. That would have been my loss. I appreciated the story in this one more, and finished the book in a few days over a few sessions. It is a solid 4/5 stars..
Again I will state it is engaging and witty. Reading books by authors from the UK, Ireland, Scotland, and Australia is very different than reading most authors from North America. I find that life crime television it is just done better. I felt that way about this volume.
It is an intriguing story. Ernest is telling us the tale of his trip on a mystery tour, which is an interesting concept for a convention. Having a slew of mystery authors gathered and bodies start dropping, and add in the staff and the fans at the event and it makes for an interesting tale.
As of the writing of this review there are 42 editions of this volume, in numerous languages, and with a wide range of covers. It is a good second novel in the series and makes me wonder what will happen with the third offering.
Books by Benjamin Stevenson:
Fool Me Twice Find Us
Don’t Hang Up
Last One To Leave
She Lies in the Vines
Greenlight
…
Ernest Cunningham Series:
Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret
…
Jack Quick Series:
Trust Me When I Lie
Either Side of Midnight
…
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