Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

Starred review from November 27, 2023
Stevenson’s brilliant and creative second closed-circle mystery featuring author Ernest Cunningham (after Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone) toys with golden age mystery tropes while delivering its own hugely satisfying whodunit. Cunningham’s published account of the murders detailed in the previous book has netted him an invitation to the 50th Australian Mystery Writers’ Festival. He’s been asked, along with five much-better-known authors, to be a panelist aboard the Ghan, a luxury train whose route bisects the Australian desert. Soon after the journey starts, one of the writers turns up dead, and each of the train’s other panelists—including Cunningham himself—becomes both suspect and sleuth. As the investigation unfolds, Stevenson plays scrupulously fair: as in the previous book, Cunningham addresses readers directly, promising “to be that rarity in modern crime novels: a reliable narrator.” Even before the first murder, he reveals that a comma will be a crucial clue, and that there will be more than one victim. Dashes of humor (while introducing his fellow panelists, Cunningham pokes wicked fun at the publishing industry) light the way as Stevenson charges toward the deliciously clever final reveal. This is another triumph from a gifted genre specialist. Agent: Pippa Mason, Curtis Brown.

December 13, 2024

Narrator Barton Welch delivers another rollicking portrayal of writer and accidental sleuth Ernest "Ern" Cunningham, whom listeners first met in Stevenson's hilarious Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. With his incredibly patient girlfriend Juliette in tow, Ern speeds across the countryside aboard the luxurious Ghan, the Australian Outback's version of the Orient Express, on which he is serving as a panelist in the 50th annual Australian Mystery Writers' Festival. Soon after the 1,846-mile journey begins, a star mystery writer drops dead, just days after giving most of the other panelists' books devastating one-word reviews. As he did in his first Ernest Cunningham mystery, Stevenson has Ern break the fourth wall and actively write the novel as listeners are experiencing it--a wonderfully interactive narrative structure of which Welch takes full advantage. His expert pacing keeps the twisty plot on the tracks, allowing listeners to sit back and enjoy their madcap journey alongside the snarky cast of backstabbing characters. In a sweet wrap-up, narrator Megan Smart, as Ern's much better half, Juliette, handles the epilogue. VERDICT Fans of Golden Age mysteries should really enjoy this modern, metafictional take on the locked-room mystery.--Beth Farrell

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