Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect is a new murder mystery by Benjamin Stevenson that gives the classic ‘stuck on a train’ premise a fun literary twist. When Ernest Cunningham—author of the murder mystery memoir Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (yes, based on his actual life)—gets invited to the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society annual festival, he’s both delighted and apprehensive. A first-time author, he doesn’t know how he’ll stack up against the other writers in attendance, most of whom have multiple bestsellers and awards under their belts. Plus, this year’s festival will take place aboard the Ghan, a luxury train that traverses 1,800 miles of Australian desert, so once the journey begins, there’s no backing out. And yet, Ernest is badly in need of some help with his second book (murder mystery again, but fiction this time), so he dons a brave face and boards the Ghan in hopes that the writerly atmosphere will spark some inspiration. From the beginning, tensions are high; the writers are angling for blurbs from their peers, the fans are vying for face time with their favorite authors, and the agents are striking shady deals in the background. All is pretty standard fare for a literary festival until the unmentionable happens: one of the attendees is murdered. Now, Ernest has the plot for his next book (as long as one of the other writers doesn’t poach it first), but this one is a bit trickier to solve—when everyone on board knows the ins and outs of murder, how in the world is he supposed to suss out the killer?
With eccentric characters, a stunning backdrop, and a humorously ill-equipped protagonist playing detective, Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect is peak entertainment. I found the concept of crime writers competing to solve a murder incredibly unique. Stevenson sets it up so that each of the writers has a specialty—one knows forensics, one studied psychology, one writes about lawsuits, etc.—and seeing each writer use his or her skillset to solve an aspect of the murder is fascinating (and also funny, when their research-based knowledge only takes them so far in the real world). Similarly unique is the narration style; Ernest speaks directly to the reader from the future—he’s writing this, his “second book,” from a hotel room at the end of the train journey—and amiably coaxes us along so that we can puzzle through the investigation ourselves. One thing to note is that this book is technically a sequel to Stevenson’s Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, but I read it without its precursor and thought it worked wonderfully as a standalone. Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect is a hilarious mystery that comes together in a brilliant finale, and I absolutely loved it.
I’d recommend this book to…
- Anyone looking for a cheeky update of the classic train mystery… it’s similar in theme to Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
- Anyone who loves when the narrator guides them through a twisty plot… it’s similar in style to How Lucky by Will Leitch
- Anyone obsessed with the combination of humor and murder… it’s similar in tone to the Hulu show Only Murders in the Building
