30. Everyone On This Train is a Suspect

Everyone On This Train is A Suspect. Benjamin Stevenson. 2023. 335 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: 
Hi <Redacted>,
It's a hard no on the prologue, I'm afraid. I know it's the done thing in crime novels, to hook the reader in and all that, but it just feels a bit cheap here. I know how to do it, of course, the scene you want me to write.

Premise/plot: A handful of mystery writers board a train on their way to the Australian Mystery Writers' Festival. But not everyone who boards the train exits the train....still breathing. Hence, everyone on this train is a suspect. 

Ernest Cunningham is the main character "author" who wrote the book Everyone In My Family Killed Someone based on a horrific family reunion. He's working on a second novel, hopefully a book not based on his personal life, but events of the train are proving challenging. If he survives the trip, then a second book has conveniently unfolded right when he needs it. (Though is that a motive for crime???)

Most all of the characters are new in this one--with the exception of his love interest. 

My thoughts: I absolutely loved Everyone In My Family Killed Someone. I thought Ernest Cunningham was a delightful narrator. I liked the gimmick of it, the premise of it. In theory, I like the premise of this one as well. In theory. I didn't quite love this one. I'm not sure if I just wasn't in the right mood for it, or, if the first book was just better. I still like the main character, and, sometimes with detective novels, each mystery has a little bit of hit or miss to it. Some you just enjoy more than others all the while loving the detective character at the center of the novel.

 

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