Benjamin Stevenson had brought back Ernest Cunningham to solve another mystery in this sequel to Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. In this scenario, Ernie has been invited by the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society to be a party of their crime writing festival aboard the Ghan, a train that travels between Darwin and Adelaide. Ernie is hoping for inspiration for his next novel and he certainly gets it as what was supposed to be train ride full of spectacular views and literary fun, becomes a horror express! A popular but licentious and egocentric mystery author is murdered. Another person is killed with a pen that a publishing house gifts to their writers. With a train full of mystery writers, agents, editors, and fans, just about everyone is a suspect!
The beginning of the book meandered with Ernie’s musings; it felt like it wasn’t going anywhere. Ernie’s personality was one dimensional and annoyingly flippant; there wasn’t much emotional depth to his character. Once the first murder occurred, the story kicked into high gear and found its groove. Ernie starting displaying a sense of pathos, and the reader got a better sense of the many layers of his personality. Ernie felt very insecure being around the more established mystery writers. With his first book, the events just happened; he wrote about the real events that were occurring around him. Having to write a fictional mystery was quite difficult for him. I also liked the dynamics between Ernest and his girlfriend Juliette when he started questioning her which made her feel like a suspect.
Instead of the Orient Express traveling through its exotic locations, we have the Ghan which takes the reader through the Australian landscape. The author excels with his description of the Coober Pedy opal mines, and Ernie’s almost tragic encounter with these environmental curiosities. Some other appealing aspects of this novel include the concept of mystery writers knowing how to get away with committing a murder. The author also has great fun satirizing the publishing industry. The author proves once again that punctuation makes a difference. In his previous book, it was a period that helped solve the mystery; this time it’s a comma that is the key. If you can make it to the first murder, you’ll find plenty of enjoyment in this mystery that starts out slow, but gains momentum and accelerates into an exciting conclusion.
Reviewed by Christina Crocker
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