Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

Publisher's Synopsis

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, six authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.

Or commit one.

How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?

My Review of Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

Ernest Cunningham, now a published author and a man garnering a certain amount of respect, returns to regale us once again about the rules of a good mystery novel. This time he’s going to be travelling on The Ghan from Darwin to Adelaide, taking part in an Australian Mystery Writers’ Society festival along the way. As the title so aptly foreshadows, the festival is going to take a nasty turn and Ern’s going to gather more fodder for a follow-up book.

The rarely seen first person narrator who speaks directly to his readers is back and once again he goes to pains to assure us that everything he tells us is the truth and he won’t be cheating in his narrative by springing any unfair surprises on us. Indeed, we’re told right from the off that all the clues to who the murderer is are given to us through the course of the book. We’ve just got to be attentive enough to see them.

Ernest is at the stage of his career where he has to produce the dreaded second novel. He’s received the advance from the publisher and is now desperate to come up with the goods before having to give the money back. This trip on The Ghan will hopefully provide him with the material to unplug the writer’s block that’s currently crippling him.

Also on the train is a group of fellow mystery writers, some of whom are not prepared to play nice with others. In fact, their personalities stink, sticking verbal barbs into panel members with nary a care in the world. The perfect setup for creating the type of animosity that leads to…murder. 

Cue the amateur detectives, Ernest being one of them, who jump into action running an investigation based on their vast backgrounds of writing fictional stories. Things get tense, a hint of farce creeps in and every character becomes a potential suspect, just as the title claims.

If there was an irritating aspect to the story, and there was clearly, it was Ernest himself. He came off as a petty whiner who went out of his way to irritate others. In my eyes, he went from the good guy protagonist to the same type of annoying wannabe author he was setting up as the story’s antagonist. This was absent in the previous book and wasn't a pleasant addition here.

There was also an inclusion of a fantastical coincidence involving Ern's uncle that played an important part in the case that just came off as over the top in the believability side of things. This definitely detracted from the story considerably. (What...does Australia consist of only 50 people or something?)

This is another clever take on the golden age mystery that combines plenty of sly humour with self aware deprecation and a sneakily convoluted mystery to solve. Rather than a narration of the story, the reader is being confided to by Ernest Cunningham as he, first, tells us that there’s going to be a murder, assures us that all the clues are presented to us during the course of the story and then challenges the reader to figure out the murderer before he does the big reveal. In fact, it’s very similar to the way Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone plays out and it’s a particularly engaging style.

This is a well-plotted mystery that tends to lull you with the outlandishly childish behaviour of the authors before things become real serious real fast. Even then, we’re treated to, not one but two denouements that very much hearken back to the absolute Poirot moments of yesteryear. The characters are beautifully defined with the provision of just enough personality flaws built into each to ensure that any of them could perceivably come under suspicion.

So, what might have originally been thought of as a one-trick pony has been extended to two tricks and kudos to Benjamin Stevenson for managing to do it again.