Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect: A Novel (Hardcover)
Staff Reviews
Ernest is back! After the tumultuous and deadly happenings in Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone, Ernest is at an Australian Mystery Writer’s Festival. Which, as the title gives away, is on a train. Not just any train, but a train that cuts through a huge swath of Australia and cuts in and out of cell phone range at various points. And as Ernest tells us, “Seven writers board a train. At the end of the line, five will leave it alive. One will be in cuffs.” Another locked room mystery in which Ernest attempts to teach us the finer points of writing a mystery novel. Highly entertaining and hilarious - I had to race through to know who did it!
— Jason KennedyDescription
For fans of Richard Osman and Anthony Horowitz, a fiendishly fun locked room murder mystery from the author of the indie darling Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone —this time set on a train full of mystery writers, agents, editors, and fans.
Ernest Cunningham returns in a deliciously witty locked room (train) mystery.
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?
About the Author
Benjamin Stevenson is an award-winning stand-up comedian and author. He has sold out shows from the Melbourne International Comedy Festival all the way to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has appeared on ABCTV, Channel 10, and The Comedy Channel. Offstage, Benjamin has worked for publishing houses and literary agencies in Australia and the USA. He currently works with some of Australia’s best-loved authors at Curtis Brown Australia. He is the author of three novels, including Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone.
Praise For…
"Sparkling with wit and witticisms about the world of writers and writing, Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect offers a tip of the hat to the great Agatha Christie novel while at the same time being a modern reinvention of it. Leave it to Stevenson to make high-jinx and murder deviously good fun." — Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest
"An outstanding and exceptional mystery from start to finish . . . everything fans would hope for. It’s a spectacular sequel, every twist and turn as fun and fiendish as the first novel." — Jane Harper
"Clever, satisfying, impossible to put down and gloriously inventive. It's fantastic. Books like this are why we love reading." — Stuart Turton, author of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
“Stevenson’s brilliant and creative second closed-circle mystery toys with golden age mystery tropes while delivering its own hugely satisfying whodunit… This is another triumph from a gifted genre specialist… deliciously clever.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Stevenson rivals his golden age models in his willingness to sprinkle every scene with clever clues, outdoes them in setting up a dazzling series of false conclusions, and leaves them in the dust for modern-day fans with an appetite for self-reflexiveness.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“This is just as cleverly written as the previous book, with wit, laugh out loud moments and humorous asides and observations on the nature of writers and festivals. … If you enjoy meta fiction and Stevenson’s previous novel featuring Ernest, then you will surely enjoy going along on this wild and deadly train trip with him.” — Mystery & Suspense Magazine
“A witty twist on classic whodunits… Stevenson not only ‘plays fair,’ he plays the mystery game very, very well.” — Washington Post on Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
"An ingenious and hilarious meta-murder mystery." — Sunday Times (London), best crime of the year on Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
“I absolutely loved it. Utterly original, hugely entertaining, and a must-read for every fan of the mystery genre. What an exceptionally fresh, smart, funny book—I’ve never read anything like this before.” — Jane Harper on Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
“Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone is a jaunty and clever mystery with unexpected twists. Absolutely not to be missed.” — Karin Slaughter
