Many thanks to Mariner Books and NetGalley for the eARC of this book. All opinions expressed in this review are my own! The book is due for release (U.S.) on January 17, 2023.

3.5⭐

Our narrator Ernest “Ern” Cunningham is a self-published author who writes books on “how to write books”. A fan of Golden Age detective novels, he tries to adhere to Ronald Knox’s 10 Commandments of Detective Fiction (1929). He isn’t too fond of new age tropes such as the “unreliable narrator” and therefore makes his intentions of being a “reliable narrator” clear as writes his book based on the events that occurred during a family reunion held in a ski resort in winter. The discovery of a body of a local man on the grounds of the resort and Ern's brother Michael’s release from prison after serving a three year sentence (Ern’s testimony was instrumental in sending Michael to jail) sets the tone for an eventful (to put it mildly) and tension fraught family reunion. What follows is a complex web of multiple suspects including a serial killer who could be someone among them, a hefty sum of cash that Ern’s brother left his him before being jailed the origins of which remain questionable, twists and turns and red herrings, a bumbling police officer, loads of family drama and the unraveling of secrets of the infamous Cunningham family including a mystery that has a connection to the narrator's father who was killed while committing a crime years ago.

Oh, and as our narrator claims,
“Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once.”

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson is an entertaining read. I really liked the premise of this novel and the structure of the plot. I loved the easy-flowing narrative and the conversational (and occasionally satirical) tone of storytelling in which the author breaks the fourth wall in his efforts to engage the reader and establish his “reliability”. I enjoyed the narrator’s references to the “Rules” throughout the narrative and his efforts to stick to them, not without bending them a bit, make for some amusing moments. There are multiple threads to this story and the author skillfully weaves it all together as the narrative progresses . The dark humor, the cast of interesting characters and the solid mystery at the core make for an engaging read. However, I felt that the book was a bit too long and does become a tad convoluted toward the end. The repetitiveness and the uneven pace did cause my mind to wander at times. There are a few OTT moments but those did not detract from the overall reading experience. There is a lot about this book that is praiseworthy and I did find it to be a fun read.

This was such a fun novel! As an avid thriller/ suspense reader, I loved the unique storytelling devices used in this book it's unlike any other mysteries I've read. More than just a mystery, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone weaves family drama and complexities into the story, making it a book I could not put down. Can't wait for this one to be out in the world!

I am sure we will get this book for the library but I found the way it was written hard to get into. I like the idea of the ‘chatting to the reader’ but I didn’t think it worked here.
By the time I gave up about half way through I still didn’t care about any of the characters or whodunnit.
I know other people will enjoy the book though.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone will be available on January 17th.

How can you see a title like this and not be immediately intrigued? The book blurb hinted at intrigue and some wacky secrets waiting to be revealed, and the book more than delivered. The story starts with a murder and the body count piles up as the pages turn. The twists had twists and the narration was a delight.

Ernie is on his way to the most awkward family reunion he’s ever attended and that’s saying something. He prefers to avoid them, but this one is different: his brother, just released from prison, will be there. And that’s the awkward part. Ernie is the one who cemented his brother’s conviction. Ernie expects a long, uncomfortable weekend. He just didn’t expect the dead body. As far as family drama goes, the drama in this book is a doozy.

Ernie’s narration guides the reader through a morass of secrets and mysterious happenings. He isn’t an unreliable narrator (as he mentions multiple times), but he manipulates the information he gives, leaving you guessing. Okay, maybe he is a bit unreliable. He was a fantastic character. Oh- and he happens to be a writer. Can you guess what he writes? Books on how to write mysteries! He talks to the readers, even guiding us through the hows and whats of mystery writing. I loved when he admitted that something happening was stereotypical of a murder mystery (he had a lot to say about phone batteries). He was fully aware that he wasn’t any less guilty of deception than any of the other characters in the book, he just felt a little bit worse about it.

His tone was wry and more than a little snarky. And the chapter titles cracked me up! There was one chapter that consisted solely of an “I don’t want to talk about that” moment. Genius.

A book like this relies on strong characters to keep it interesting. If the characters are boring, then the mystery becomes stagnant. Ernie’s family members were all shifty and dishonest, with their own agendas. It was awesome. They were more than just caricatures, instead being fully developed, shady people. Relationships and alliances shifted throughout, adding an extra layer to this already complex story.

Some of the twists were overly convoluted, but the majority landed and added fogginess and fun. I did call the final “whodunnit” (I have a knack for that in books, for some reason), but I missed a million other things and I had the motive way wrong. Going back through, the clues were all there. Mysteries like that are the best.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone is smart, bloody, and darkly funny. This is my first book by Benjamin Stevenson, but I guarantee it won’t be my last. I loved it.

First of all, what an amazing title! I was all in on this book from the second I read it.

This book follows Ernest (Ern) who is a writer of how-to guides for mystery/detective novels. He’s begrudgingly traveling to a ski resort for a family reunion - a family where he has been mostly disowned. When bodies start turning up murdered at the resort, he becomes suspicious of his own family, given most of them are carrying some dark secrets. Including Ern himself. Ern delves into the history of him family members and their complicated dynamics to help solve the murders.

The dark humor and wittiness of this book definitely had me laughing out loud at some parts. I enjoyed Ern’s commitment to being reliable and honest, as he has been taught to do in how-to guides.

I don’t want to ruin the ending, but it was definitely a twist I didn’t see coming. Even though Ern drops so many clues, I can’t believe I missed it!

Overall, a super fun, engaging read that’s perfect for anyone who loves a good detective novel with killer humor.

Publish date: January 17, 2023

Thanks to @netgalley, @marinerbooks and the author for access to this ARC.

This first person narrated mystery has it all. An extended family gathers at an isolated ski resort to await the arrival of their son/brother after being release from jail. Soon there is a dead body and the unraveling of mysteries both past and present. A funny, unique story.
A thanks to Benjamin Stevenson for this entertaining book and to the publisher and Netgalley for a copy of "Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone". in exchange for an unbiased review.

This mystery was witty, unique, and full of moments where the narrator broke the fourth wall to explain things directly to the reader, and I loved it!

Ernest is the outcast of the family after turning his brother in for a crime several years prior, but he is coerced into attending the family reunion at a lodge far from civilization. The book cleverly details the fact that every family member has caused a death at some point in their life, and each member gets a section explaining their situation. Ernest is the sole narrator, and he is full of snark and dry wit. He explains the rules of detective fiction and refers back to them throughout the story, reminding the reader that he is telling the truth as he knows it at the time.

The crime everyone is investigating during the reunion weekend is full of twists and turns, and I definitely did not figure out the ending on this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone was a clever mystery, a little bit Agatha Christie, a little bit Anthony Horowitz, with a drily funny narrator. Ernest lays out the rules in the first few pages, and sticks to them while telling the story of how we got to the family reunion at a snowy ski resort in Australia. Overall, this was a fun mystery.

Absolutely loved this.
Mystery was complex, but still possible to follow.

Very voice-y and I enjoyed the meta elements where the narrator talks directly to the audience about the story.

A very interesting read. I was expecting it to be told differently but enjoyable nonetheless. I really like the uniqueness of the idea.

“Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once.” How can you not be completely intrigued by a novel that starts with those two sentences?! This was an incredibly fun and entertaining read, and one that I’ll be recommending to all of the mystery-lovers in my life!

Ern Cunningham is a self-published author of how-to guides for writing crime novels. He’s super snarky, clever, and self-aware, and he’s here to tell us about his family of killers (intentional or unintentional), without holding anything back. When the novel begins, we learn that Ern has been ostracized by most of his family for years, but ends up reluctantly attending a family reunion at a snowy resort in the mountains for reasons we learn as the story progresses. It doesn’t take long for the dysfunctional Cunningham family to find themselves snowed-in in a locked room-type plot, and before long the body count starts rising and the story takes off.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone is such a unique gem of a story within the mystery genre, and I absolutely loved it! Ern was a perfect narrator - he honestly and reliably (as he makes it a point to tell us) smashes the fourth wall and shares his internal commentary along the way, but at the same time leaves you yearning to know more about him and what he’s thinking next. The unpredictable plot kept me guessing, and the dark sense of humor kept me laughing out loud more than once. I will admit that I did get just a teensy bit confused by the large-ish cast of characters mid-way through, but a few quick flips back and forth easily got me back on track. The misdirection throughout the story was perfect, and I was completely satisfied at the end.

This book was twisty, smart, creative and just brilliantly executed! It was just so much darn fun to read, and certainly one that I’ll be recommending to many different types of readers for the sheer entertainment value it brings.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Benjamin Stevenson and Mariner Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book is a great "classic" mystery! I completely enjoyed Ernest and how he would break the fourth wall. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys classic mysteries. If you enjoyed The Appeal or Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap you will love this one. It will be on my book club's reading list.

Please excuse me as I recommend this book to everyone I meet for the rest of my life !

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone is smart, witty, and wickedly fun. Ern absolutely shatters the fourth wall and makes the reader his confidante as he navigates a family reunion turned deadly. This mystery is elaborate in all the best ways, with the perfect amount of rewarding "aha!" moments as the puzzle pieces come together. Stevenson combines classic Golden Age Mystery elements with a darkly humorous and unique take on murder mysteries to create what may very well be my favorite read of 2022. AND as an added bonus, this book has so many complex clues leading up to the end that I think it will have great reread value, which is not often how I feel about whodunnits.

HUGE thank you to Mariner Books and Netgalley for providing a digital copy of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone in exchange for an honest review. This book will hit shelves January 17 2023, and I know I'll be scooping up a copy for myself 😁

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

What can I say? I loved it! Normally I struggle to rate murder mysteries high unless they keep me really intrigued. This one though -- this was hilarious. Mind you, I don't find murder hilarious normally. It's just -- this whole book was something else. It has dark humor to it but it works well with this book. This book is full of murder and twists and turns. The story plays out over a weekend during a family reunion at a ski resort in Australia. Ern, the main character and narrator of this book informs us that everyone in his family has killed someone. Sort of. It's complicated as he says.

What's great about this book is that the past murder(s) Ernest relates to us via knowledge he has gained over the years and the weekend. Or when he was involved. As he says, he is following the rules for solving a murder.

The pace of the book was excellent, it kept me engaged and I did not want to put the book down at all. I love being invested in a story and I was VERY invested in how this was going to turn out. I loved the family dynamic in this book, and I felt that it helped add tension to the story; especially because family was the main focus of this book. To add, the plot and the way it was woven through the book was entertaining, I never knew what was going to happen next (except that there was going to be a bunch of murders, that was made clear from the start.)

I will say not as many people ended up dying as I thought.

The way everything came together in the end worked for me, and I felt the pay off was excellent. But I also wonder if that is because we knew what was going to happen.

Overall, absolutely adored this book!

I feel in love with the cover and was really looking forward to reading this book. I felt that the author had an interesting concept but I also was unable to properly execute it. It felt clunky and the characters were underdeveloped. I really struggled to get through this book unfortunately and it was really difficult for me to finish.

I loved this book from start to finish. I primarily read mysteries and sometimes they can get so heavy. This book kept things light and made me laugh. I wasn't familiar with the author before reading this book but I will be keeping my eye out for more from him in the future. I appreciate the characters and how Stevenson describes them. This book was great. I will be recommending it for our mystery book club at my library.

I wasn't sure about this book. That quickly changed as I read! The family is written all well with individual identities and personalities. Told by different characters nothing ever gets lost our confused. I'm excited to see what the author brings us next
Thank you to NetGalley for the advance read.

Holy Agatha Christie meets James Conan Doyle meets Knives Out meets Clue meets a snarky unreliable, (but is he reliable if he tells you he is?) but laughable, likable narrator in this laugh out loud mystery thriller!

Let me set a stage (maybe not THE stage as you’re just going to have to read this for the whole stage!)

You have the typical, mandatory, family reunion - complete with those oh so loved spreadsheets to fill in- that is being hosted in a way out of the way, and very high, snowy mountain ski resort. Ernie, your fabulous narrator, is late to everything, including the reunion, causing much uproar in the family, but the reunion is not set to start until the next day when Ernie’s brother Michael will be arriving… from being released from prison. Why was he in prison? Just ask Ernie! But wouldn’t you know, on the snowy slopes a dead body is found with blackened face and tongue but no burning in or around the snow. Do we sense a bit of a mystery here? Who is sent to respond to the murder is no other than an officer the family is convinced is brand new and doesn’t know how to even be an officer. Now this is where things really start to take off.

You have murders. You have copy cat murders to the infamous Black Tongue Killer (oooohhhh boy now we’re getting twisted!) You have family feuds and snarky remarks abound (sounds right for a family reunion) and of course you have Ernie trying to figure out “who dunnit” which causes an avalanche of giggles, accusations, crazy hijinks and the best murder investigations ever.

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE a book that contains a narrator that talks to you, the reader, all the way through!

Once you start into this gem of a novel, you will barrel ahead faster than a run away ski down a black diamond slope. Divided into chapters highlighting each member of the family and their … highly unfortunate killing circumstances… makes this book fly by. I read this in one sitting, staying up all night and equally bouncing to see the ending and cringing at thinking my time at this reunion was coming to a close. I will say the chapter on his wife was my favorite. He simply tells you “I don’t want to talk about that.” Oh boy. This Aussie crime fiction is to die for!

I can’t recommend this highly enough and suggest you go ahead and pre-order this treat for release day of Jan. 17, 2023. Do yourself a favor and start your new year, new reading books off with a bang!

Thank you so much to #NetGalley, the publishers and author for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

My full review will be posted on all my social media sites, blogs and retail sites upon publication day!

Ernest Cunningham is an author who helps other authors. Much like his admired predecessor, Ronald Knox, Ern writes "rules" for other authors to follow when they are writing detective and other types of fiction. His books are available for download on online platforms. He begins his book with Knox's "10 Commandments of Detective Fiction" from 1929 and informs us that he is planning to follow these rules as he outlines how everyone in his family is a killer.

The various members of the Cunningham family have been gathered at a ski resort in order to welcome home brother Michael, who has just been released from prison. Michael was sent to prison after Ern called the police and testified that Michael showed up with a dead body and asked Ern for help in disposing of it. Their mother, Audrey, has never forgiven Ern for siding with the police over his own brother (as she sees it). It is an especially painful betrayal, as the father of the family, Robert, was killed by a police officer in an apparent robbery gone bad. Not long after everyone arrives, a dead body is discovered outside the resort, but no one recognizes the dead man. It soon appears that he is either the latest victim of the dreaded serial killer The Black Tongue -- or a determined copycat. Either way, the remote location of the resort and the impending "bad weather' mean that the family is likely trapped with a killer.

The book is divided into chapters named for various family members (My Mother, My Stepfather, My Aunt, etc.) as Ern details how each person fits the title of the book and is responsible for killing (or at least attempting to kill). He often steps outside the story to point out various foreshadowing, hints that the reader should take note of, and other ways he's following Knox's detective fiction rules.

That idea that the reader can solve the story because all the clues have been given throughout the story is an interesting idea, but just impossible with this book. The various threads are brought together and explained at the end of the story, but before that, the "clues" are so convoluted and odd that it's nearly impossible to follow. The story all goes back to the death of the father in the story and what he was involved in (back when the boys were small), but it involves criminal gangs, police double crosses, ransoms, "pictures of the crime" and other outlandish plot points that don't make any sense and are beyond confusing. Yes, everything makes sense at the end, but I wonder how many people will stick through all the mess to get there. I am not sure how the book is meant to work as an ebook -- there are hyperlinks when the author mentions things he said back in chapter 4 (for example) that take you back to the relevant point when clicked, but he also references "page numbers" quite frequently, and there are no page numbers in an ebook (at least my ereader doesn't display them).

I really enjoyed "Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone" by Benjamin Stevenson, who is a new author to me. That title & the first couple of sentences - oh my!! Great MC (a reliable or not, narrator) in Ernest, a mystery writer who loves the "Golden Age" and his very "unlucky" family. The novel is a bit over the top and very, very entertaining, especially if you enjoy dark humor - highly recommend, especially for mystery fans. My sincere thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for the complimentary DRC - rating & opinions are my own.