When one is relatively new to a genre or subject, there is always a book that is unlike anything you’ve read so far. I just finished reading my latest encounter with clever mysteries, this one from Down Under.

Everyone on This Train is a Suspect (2024) by Benjamin Stevenson is a modern take on—or at least a big hat tip to—the classic Agatha Christie novel that is a (mostly) clever and always fun murder mystery. The set-up gives you a hint as to both the cleverness and devilishness that Stevenson has in mind: six authors are invited by the Australian Mystery Writers Society to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train through the vast Australian desert. One of the six is murdered in this locked room (train) mystery, and the other five writers all turn into detectives. Because, as Ernest Cunningham—the debut writer and hero of the series—writes, “together we should know how to solve a crime. Or commit one.”

The program—as described by Cunningham—is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:

the debut writer (me!)

the forensic science writer

the blockbuster writer

the legal thriller writer

the literary writer

the psychological suspense writer

Readers who love mysteries and like to figure out the structure and intricacies of each book will probably find this fascinating. It certainly is unlike any murder mystery I’ve read. But to this relative novice in the field, I suspect that once is enough in this series. I enjoyed Stevenson’s writing, intelligence, and humor, but I don’t really need to read books about how everyone . . . in his family has killed someone (book #1), . . . this Christmas has a secret (book #3), and . . . in this bank is a thief (book #4).

Everyone on This Train is very clever, and the full outcome is in doubt to the very last pages, but it is best read as a spoof of the mystery genre with an understanding that some aspects will get a bit tiresome in the telling.

More to come . . .

DJB

Ghan Train photo from Journey Beyond.