First off let me say a big thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy of this book because second; this was AMAZING!

I did not have high expectations for this one. I really enjoyed the 1st book but, like Ernie says, sequels are tough. And yet this one surpassed its predecessor.

I loved the writing style/the voice of Ernest and what he goes through mentally after the events of book one. I loved the setting of the posh train combined with a writers festival. And I loved how Benjamin Stevenson lays everything out there for us to make our guesses and I still had no clue!!

I can’t say enough good things about this book. Just know that it combines all my favorite things into one. Trains, writers, and the oxford comma.

Right off the bat, I have to say this book is a winner. A sequel to Benjamin Stevenson’s previous book Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, this book doesn’t disappoint. Not. At. All. This time the setting is an opulent train traveling for four days from Darwin to Adelaide with a gaggle of mystery writers and enthusiasts on board for the Australian Mystery Writers’ Festival. Among the participants is Ernest Cunningham, the protagonist and survivor of a series of murders that took place at a remote ski lodge. After writing a book about the events, Ernest is desperately trying to develop his next mystery novel.

I thoroughly enjoyed Everyone on This Train is a Suspect. It is filled with interesting characters, great dialogue, and a well-plotted, locked door mystery – a bit reminiscent of Agatha Christie. The pace is good, with descriptions that make the story, the train and the characters come alive. This author has written a mystery that is imaginative, creative, and unique and it kept me engaged to the very last page.

I must say, I’m quite impatient for the next book to appear. Thank you, Mr Stevenson, for writing such an enjoyable book! NetGalley provided an advance copy.

What a delight!

The second installment of Ernest Cunningham’s amateur sleuthing adventures is possibly more fun than the original. This time, Ern (and partner) find themselves hurtling through the stark emptiness of the Australian outback on a luxury train chock full of authors bearing all manner of personal agendas and grudges… of course, MURDER ENSUES! Ernest, in his self-effacing way, bumbles through, contending with relationships hiccups, family annoyances, and the second-book-slump along the way.

The story somehow manages to be both full of surprises and hilariously predictable, in large part to Ernest’s narration, which splendidly over-explains every salient detail in this send-up of golden-age locked room mysteries. Sure, you end up solving the mystery well before the “de-noo-moh”, but that’s the point. Ernest is taking you along for the ride, egging you into the role of amateur sleuth for yourself.

Sure, this isn’t great literature, but that’s also the point. This book was meant to be enjoyed, meant to take you out of your own world and plop you into Ernest’s farce of a deductive game. It's endearingly humble, unapologetically ridiculous, and absolutely a success.

EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN IS A SUSPECT (ERNEST CUNNINGHAM #2)
BY: BENJAMIN STEVENSON

A book is only a book until its read.

This is the first time that I have been aware I was reading Meta-Fiction which in basic simple terms means self reflective fiction where the narrator inserts him/her into the narrative. Which is exactly what I got in this excellent locked room/box mystery. I didn't read the first one in the series because I hadn't known about it around the time it was published. I'm thinking about reading it in the future. This is number two in the Ernest Cunningham series or it could be a just a sequel, however it can easily be read as a standalone because the story is completely different according to the synopsis of both of them. It seemed possible that this talented and well read author Benjamin Stevenson may decide to continue due to my interpretation of how this ended. I hope that there is more of this series to continue, since I really loved the main character whose name is Ernest Cunningham who is also a writer.

This takes place on a train called the Ghan that travels through Australia from Darwin to Adelaide. It seemed to me to travel through quite a bit of the desert. You can't help but love Ernest who has written one book as he narrates this narrative in the voice of the first person in a warm conversational style. As I said above since this is Meta-fiction he inserts himself into his storytelling as one of the main characters. He starts off as telling the reader that he is writing again from his cabin on the train. With his prior book that he wrote he is trying to reach a balance between not rehashing his backstory boring the readers who have already read his prior book versus confuse the new readers by leaving too much out. He informs the reader that he solved a series of murders in addition to writing his first novel.

Ernest has been invited to attend the 50th anniversary for the Australian Mystery Writers' Festival which he is attending with his girlfriend named Juliette and he will solve murders on this outing. I wish that I had read his former book called, "Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone." I did really enjoy this more as I got towards the end because there are murders that happen and I couldn't for the life of me figure out who the murderer was. There are about six writers and many other characters that are secondary and I couldn't figure out how the many secondary characters were relevant, but by the end I did say to myself WOW!

There's one writer murdered and the other writers try to solve the crime aboard the Ghan chiefly Ernest is the one to take the lead. Everybody it seemed at one point had a motive but in the end Ernest figures out how, why and who the murderer is and I guarantee that this mystery is not one that most readers can figure out all of the above. I appreciated how well written this one was after I finished it. The title is perfect for this caper.

Ernest is hoping that being immersed in four days of literary conversations on this comfortable, luxury opulent hotel on rails will spark some ideas for writing his second book. The four days and three nights is going to offer an extravagant setting for a literary festival with stops that make it a world-renowned tourist destination. The train length ran close to a kilometer. This came highly recommended to me from another Good Reads friend. One aspect towards the beginning I think it was Ernest was highly disappointed by getting a one star rating on a review of his former book. Their is a lot of humor infused into this story so it really delivers a great unsolvable mystery to readers, but also a down to earth mystery author with great detective skills with self deprecating humor.

Publication Date: January 30, 2024

Thank you to Net Galley, Benjamin Stevenson and Mariner Books for generously providing me with my wonderful eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#EveryoneonThisTrainIsaSuspect #Benjamin Stevenson #MarinerBooks #NetGalley

Well, Ernest is back at it. If you don’t know, this is the sequel to Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone. I do wish I would have reread the summary of the first to refresh my memory a bit because I forgot a lot but one thing I didn’t forget was Ernest’s dark humor. It makes these books so fun all while he is trying to solve a crime while the crime is actually taking place around him. It’s an interesting format and I will definitely continue to read this series if more books get released.

I was disappointed in this as a follow up to the first novel. I knew what to expect, but had a very tough time getting through this one and couldn’t wait until I was finished.

This sequel to Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone finds new author Ernest attending a small writing festival on a trans-Australian train. He's there with a few other crime writers, hoping to get some inspiration for a second novel — preferably one that isn't inspired by a spate of real life murders, which is how he got the idea for his first book. Unfortunately, with a train full of crime writers and their fans, these are just the sort of people to know how to creatively commit a crime, and sure enough, murder soon appears on the festival agenda.

I didn't read the first book, but that's not exactly required for this one. The characters and plot are interesting, and I honestly would have loved this book if it wasn't for the fourth-wall-breaking that kept taking me out of the story. It's very meta — a book that's from the point of view of an author who's writing a sequel to a popular debut murder mystery — and that in itself isn't unheard of or irksome. But the wink-and-nod "this is how you plot a murder mystery novel with word count markings for twists" and "this is how many times I'm going to mention the killer's name" and "hey, this is where we are on the word count and the number of times I've mentioned each character's name" breaks only served to distract from the otherwise compelling novel.

This year I've promised myself to stop being quite so liberal with my four and five star reviews. I'm a reader and I love to read everything even things I don't particularly enjoy, because I really enjoy expanding my knowledge and my imagination. That being said, the five stars I am giving this book is 1000% deserved.

This is the second book with Ernest as our protagonist that I've read {and exists} and I am already hoping there will be more. It's so hard to review mystery novels because you don't want to give away anything, I don't like giving away even one little part of the plot because then it will change the way you read this and I don't want to influence that so here is my attempt at a review with absolutely not even close to a spoiler.

Ernest is both likable and insufferable at the same time. I love how in this book he's schooled by multiple women, and it's pointed out that while he's a nice guy he definitely has some learning to do in regards to feminism. Ernest's voice is unique and makes me laugh out loud occasionally which is fun in a mystery novel. I also really appreciate that at least in my opinion the foreshadowing and our clue building was obvious enough that I could follow along, I read this as an ebook and it was very easy to highlight things and refer back to them when things popped back up later in the novel.

I also really love the setting of this novel, basically 100% on a train, in a rural setting (traveling across the middle of Australia), and I find it one of the top three all time settings for mystery novels so it does have that going for it as well.

I think this author is so unique in the way he lays out his novel by giving you word counts even as to when significant milestones will happen. I love that he makes it out to be our narrator, narrating after the fact and telling you in his world 'true events'. I find it endering and unique. I've never read a book that did this before and I am loving it.

I also really appreciate that there was more than one twist. We keep thinking that we've gotten to the last one, and then there was literally another giant twist at the end. I enjoy being surprised by mystery novels, and it does not happen very often, so I really appreciate it very much when it happens multiple times in one novel.

This author is going straight to my auto buy list and I will for sure read more in this series, and I will definitely be checking out any of their other books as well.

A huge thanks to Benjamin Stevenson and Mariner Books for providing an e-ARC for my review purposes. This did not influence my review in any way.

Everyone on This Train is a Suspect is a continuation of the author’s, Everyone in this Family Has Killed Someone. This story can be read as a standalone, but I do think reading them in order will help the reader understand the characters. While Ernest has a good sense of humor, this story just fell flat for me. It was slow developing, with a lot of characters and details, but a nice ending.

This is a fun book. I did not read the first book in the series, "Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone:" and I plan to. I have been an avid mystery reader from a very young age and think often about form and plot. So one engaging aspect of this book is Ernest Cunningham's checklist about what features in a fair mystery. Ernest has written one book (Everyone in my Family) but it was a true crime story. Here he is also present for one or more crimes when attending a writer's conference as a panelist/speaker. It is the fiftieth anniversary of the organization and so the conference is being held on a luxury old Australian train, the Ghan. Ernest's girlfriend, Juliette, also a writer, is with him. The other invited speakers range from a wildly famous Scottish mystery writer to, well, Ernest. He is supposed to be writing a novel but nothing at all has come to him. No plot, no paragraphs, no nothing. Just a checklist showing at what point in a mystery various things should have occurred.

Thanks to enmity among some of the passengers with a history and the personality of some of the passengers there is unease, a bit of nastiness amongst those at the bar, and eventually a murder. Ernest recognizes fairly quickly that he has a potential book afoot and he starts doing his research, i.e., questioning people, looking about in places that may not be public and comparing notes with one of the other writers who is also hot on the trail. The book flows nicely. Nobody is particularly deep but the characters are amusing, the formula is followed, I probably missed a dozen hidden puzzles but the clues were also there. Yes. I missed some key ones and the red herrings worked on me this time. Definitely a recommend.

While this title is a bit reminiscent of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, the humor makes it stand on its own. Authors, literary agents and publishers are travelling across Australia in tthis private train. All the characters have secrets-of course, but then bodies keep turning up. Written in the first person, the narrator is a character on board. That can be a bit tricky, but it rolls smoothly along. Great fun-I look forward to reading the author's other book!

Yeaaa, I don't think this is the series for me.

It's not a bad book at all but it just couldn't hold my full attention. Most of the characters and storylines didn't intrigue me and blended together as one note. I'm going to be honest and say that by the end of the story, I was left feeling exhausted and definitely didn't like Ernest. Like being trapped in a locked room with a person who never knows when to stop talking to you. A little too meta for me at the moment.


Thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for providing a copy for an honest review.

Ernest Cunningham, murderer, is a year out from the disastrous family reunion discussed in his book Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, on a book festival train, transversing remote Australia, when the dead bodies start piling up.

This hilarious book takes murder investigating to new levels with self-deprecating charm, red herrings, and fair play clues. I truly loved it.

Ernest, I mean Benjamin, did it again! And dare I say the second was better than the first?? A classic whodunit with all the twists and turns of pieces that you thought meant one thing but turned out to mean something different, this one is so fast-paced and fun! Add it to your TBR. Bravo, Mr. Stevenson!

I am a huge fan of Benjamin Stevenson. ‘Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone’ was one of my top reads of 2023, so I was very excited to read book #2. I love Ernest Cunningham’s narration and the format of the book is so fresh and interesting. I feel like I’m the Watson to Ern’s Holmes, and who doesn’t love being that engrossed in a story?

Unfortunately, the first 2/3 of Everyone on this Train is a Suspect fell flat for me. Especially compared to the first Ernest Cunningham story.
The last 1/3 of the book was everything I wanted. Acton packed, pieces falling into place, fingers pointed and questions answered.
The beginning was just too slow for my personal liking.
I do hope we see more of Ern!!

I read the first book featuring Ernest Cunningham, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, last year but apparently never wrote a review. I totally enjoyed it and its gimmick worked well, which is why I picked up #2, Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect. I don’t typically like meta elements in mysteries, but I like how aware Ernest, our first-person narrator is. He knows the rules of his genre and often references us as the reader and what we might be expecting from his sequel.

This time around, Ernest is a guest speaker at the 50th Australian Mystery Writers Society festival, which is taking place on a train. Of course, one of the authors is murdered and Ernest decides to investigate – and write his second book.

This book is funny and almost too clever. The characters are an interesting bunch, with plenty of secrets and more history than one might expect. Ernest is still witty and self-conscious. The plot is put together very well, with several twists and a couple of amusing epilogues.

I really enjoyed Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, so I was very excited to read this!

I love how meta this is and how Ernest breaks the 4th wall.
When I read thrillers/mysteries, I don’t usually try to figure them out, but since Ernest was giving clues, I did try in this book (I did not guess it).
I loved the fact that this was a locked room mystery with different twists and spoilers from Ernest that kept you guessing. I would definitely another book by Ernest (and Juliette 😉).

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the copy!

"It's not the writing that tells the story, it's the reading." But Stevenson writes Everyone on This Train is a Suspect in a way that makes the story one of the most fun and exciting stories I've read.

After reading the first Ernest Cunningham story, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, last year, (yes, I was late to the party) this sequel was one of the two books that I was most excited for this year. Everyone on This Train is a Suspect did not disappoint. It's Hercules Poirot meets Sherlock Holmes in this fun whodunit.

Ernest Cunningham boards a train across Australia with a handful of other mystery writers and one of them ends up dead. Ernest, writing the story down after the action takes place, tells the reader from the beginning certain things for which to be on the lookout. He then lays the story out in such a way that makes the detailed mystery solvable for the reader without being incredibly obvious or worse, a pet peeve of mine, an obscure one line sentence or phrase being the only clue to the killer.

I enjoyed Everyone on This Train is a Suspect just as much as I did the first Ernest Cunningham novel and hope Stevenson continues writing about Ernest and his murder mystery rules.

I think this one was better than the first book. The first-person narrator's insertion of commentary throughout the story was entertaining.

The "twist" at the end was unexpected. While it did take me some time to fully get into the book (like.. months), once I passed the halfway mark, I found myself unable to put it down.

I appreciated the author's commitment to the "fair play mystery" genre, as the narrator proved to be reliable, making the resolution satisfying and believable. The tally of the murderer's name mentions, added an interactive element that I found clever and enjoyable.

Although I read the previous book, "Everyone is My Family has Killed Someone," I believe this novel stands well on its own, making it accessible to new readers. However, I would advise double-checking the trigger warnings, as some sensitive topics are subtly woven into the narrative.

This book is a gripping closed-door mystery that kept me guessing until the very end, and I highly recommend it to fans of the genre.

Thanks NetGalley for the eARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an arc!

I think it’s important to note that this is the second book in a series. In my opinion, one could read this book as a standalone mystery without having *too* much confusion, but it probably is best to start off with “Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone.”

That being said, I actually enjoyed this book more than I did the first one. In this second novel, Ernest Cunningham is on board a train for a writer’s conference with other mystery/crime authors. While Ernest is a newer author, the other writers have been in the game much longer and some have complicated histories with each other.

When one of the authors suddenly dies, Ernest is once again thrust into the role of detective. Many people on the train had motive to kill the author, including Ernest. As the writers dig deeper and secrets come out, Ernest is determined to get to the bottom of what really happened.

This author’s writing style is unique in the way that the reader is directly referred to. Stevenson gives us direct clues about what is to happen, referencing events that will occur in certain chapters or letting us know that the killer’s name is said a certain amount of times throughout the book. While the writing style can take some getting used to, it is unique and does give some more believability that we are reading about events that actually happened in Ernest Cunningham’s life. After all, the titles of these fictional works by Benjamin Stevenson are the titles of the same non-fiction books by Ernest Cunningham.

Even though Stevenson leaves us a trail of clues, I did not see this plot playing out how it did. This novel is filled with twists and surprises, and while I don’t wish for Ernest Cunningham to have to keep dealing with all of this death, I do hope his story isn’t over yet. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys mysteries. While this may be cliche, I did sometimes find myself reminded of the Hercules Poirot series, which was part of why I enjoyed this book. Read “Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone” first, and then hop on over to this one!