EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE
Benjamin Stevenson
Penguin Random House
REVIEWED BY CUSHLA MCKINNEY
The narrator of Benjamin Stevenson’s sparkling satire Ernest Cunningham (author of 10 Easy Steps to Write Crime Like You Lived in the 1930s and Golden Age Your Golden Page: How to Write a Mystery) cleaves to the tenets of classic detective fiction that require the author to provide the reader with all the clues available to the investigator him/herself.
Indeed, he even provides us upfront with the page numbers on which all the deaths occur, a quick summary of key details after the first murder, and regular reminders of things to pay attention to along the way.
Despite this I was still unable to figure out who is responsible for the four deaths that disrupt the Cunningham family reunion at an isolated Australian ski resort.
Maybe it’s Ernest’s chatty, first-person narration or his constant breaking of the fourth wall to remind us that “I am aware that you’re aware I’m writing all this down” that distracted me, but I am pretty sure he slipped something sneaky past me that was within the limits but not the spirit of the rules.
Whatever it is, it is a brilliant move that ensures I will have to re-read the whodunnit to figure out howdunnit.
