Everyone on this Train is a Suspect by Stevenson

EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN IS A SUSPECT by Benjamin Stevenson (Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone) takes place while several writers, including narrator Ernest Cunningham, travel by train (called the Ghan) from Darwin to Adelaide, Australia. With varied expertise and styles (literary, legal, forensic, thriller), they form a panel discussing mystery writing for several devoted fans. It is a luxurious adventure until one of them is killed and the others transform into “wannabe detectives.” The writing is often humorous: “besides, there are too many clues in this chapter to skip over even the seemingly innocuous dialogue.” And Stevenson succeeds in maintaining suspense, once again alerting readers to some mystery writing rules (including a second death) and managing to use the killer’s name, as promised, exactly 106 times. EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN IS A SUSPECT was a LibraryReads Selection in January and received starred reviews from Kirkus (“punctuated by snarky dialogue, murder, and a zillion inventive misdirections”) and Publishers Weekly (“brilliant and creative”). Enjoy this puzzling whodunit; after all, “a book isn’t a book until it’s read.”