{"id":5491,"date":"2024-01-20T06:09:04","date_gmt":"2024-01-20T14:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5491"},"modified":"2024-01-20T06:09:04","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T14:09:04","slug":"benjamin-stevenson-everyone-on-this-train-is-a-suspect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/benjamin-stevenson-everyone-on-this-train-is-a-suspect\/","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Stevenson: Everyone on this Train is a Suspect"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ernest Cunningham #2<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>If you are a fan of Knives Out <\/em>or Poker Face, <\/em>this is the book for you.\u00a0 Clever but still human, it\u2019s very meta, yet appealingly compelling.\u00a0 Protagonist Ernest Cunningham is a writer who achieved a sensation with his first book, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, <\/em>and now finds himself a guest at a writer\u2019s conference taking place on an ultra-luxe train traveling through the center of Australia. There are several other varieties of mystery writers attending \u2013 with the blockbuster, \u201cliterary,\u201d legal, psychological thriller, and forensic subgenres all represented.\u00a0 Also joining Ernest on the train is his girlfriend, Juliette as well as the usual assortment of editors, agents and fans.<\/p>\n

Ernest and Juliette lived through the actual events of his last book, and everyone on the train is a bit nervous that real murders may inevitably follow Ernest as he sits back and smugly records the results.\u00a0 As it turns out, they are quite right to be worried, as the trip turns into the scene of several murders and a number of revealed betrayals, small and large.<\/p>\n

The festival headliner is Henry McTavish, who writes a bestselling series featuring a traditional police detective.\u00a0 In person he turns out to be a fairly unpleasant drunk, with many sinister undercurrents swirling around him.<\/p>\n

As the trip proceeds, there\u2019s a murder \u2013 or is it just a heart attack? \u2013 before the first stop.\u00a0 The train staff allows Ernest and the writer with a forensic background to examine the body and make a determination as to the cause of death.\u00a0 Their summation turns out to be mostly correct but the police inspector who joins them discounts their attempted assistance.<\/p>\n

This is a well-paced and laid out story, and the next death, gorier and more upsetting than the first, takes place before the next train stop.\u00a0 Ernest helpfully gives clues and heads up to his readers, but to be honest, this was such a clever story I don\u2019t think I could have put it all together. Much like reading an Anthony Horowitz novel, it made me want to revisit the story the minute I finished the last page.<\/p>\n

For a narrative like this, the reader must enter into a double suspension of disbelief as Ernest is supposedly relaying \u201creal\u201d events and he is himself a \u201creal\u201d person. As you read, this suspension of disbelief becomes easier and easier, as twist follows twist and the snarky relationships between the writers (who after all have their own careers to consider) complicate matters.\u00a0 Everything is perceived through a veil of egotism which Ernest must pierce to see clearly, and he ultimately needs to take his own ego down a peg in order to arrive at a solution.<\/p>\n

This has a very golden age feel \u2013 there\u2019s a closed circle of suspects, a detective on site who eventually draws everyone together for a summation and a reveal of whodunnit, and it\u2019s not too upsetting.\u00a0 The puzzle is almost all.\u00a0 Almost, as\u00a0 Ernest is quite an appealing character and narrator, and I\u2019d love to see where he ends up next.\u00a0 I might warn the people around him, though, to be on their toes.\u00a0\u00a0–Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ernest Cunningham #2 If you are a fan of Knives Out or Poker Face, this is the book for you.\u00a0 Clever but still human, it\u2019s very meta, yet appealingly compelling.\u00a0 Protagonist Ernest Cunningham is a writer who achieved a sensation with his first book, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, and now finds himself … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[352,1519,1521,1520,1522,856,452,1523],"class_list":["post-5491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-austrailia","tag-benjamin-stevenson","tag-ernest-cunningham","tag-everyone-on-this-train-is-a-suspect","tag-knives-out-alike","tag-mariner-books","tag-traditional-detective","tag-train-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5493,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491\/revisions\/5493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}