Halloween 2022 Read #20

"Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence, or Act of God?"

Witty, clever, entertaining, and quirky. Cheeky, snarky, irreverent, and snappy. An instant classic in the whodunit humor section.

The Cunningham's are having a reunion and, you guessed it, there's a mysterious murder. Gasp. The narrator is part of the fam as well as a how-to-write-mysteries author. He sets out to solve the case but . . . everyone in his family is a suspect. They've all killed before. Not to mention, despite his many claims to being honest and reliable, he's neither.

A must read!

I was first interested in this book because of the title. I have to say I really enjoyed Ernst as the narrator and his sense of humor through the pages. I thought I knew who the murder was but I was so wrong.

This is one messed up family but that is part of what made it such a brilliant read. You are never really sure who to trust and believe.

Then the ending was just so fitting as things come full circle at the end. I just loved this book so much. It was mystery and thriller and so entertaining. Ernst ends up solving the mystery of who the murder is. This is one reunion that got out of hand.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone was an absolutely delightful and paced mystery. Ernest Cunnningham’s family is having a reunion in an about-to-be snowed in hotel when a stranger is murdered. Ernest, a how to write mystery book author, sets out to solve this murder, and the ones that follow. The problem? Everyone in his family, married or born in, has killed someone, so everyone is a suspect. Somehow hilarious while dealing with some very tragic situations. Also keeps you guessing as to who the murderer is, but the end makes sense rather than pulling an answer out of left field. Highly recommend this cozy mystery for those who like Agatha Christie and Knives Out vibes!

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, from Mariner Books and #NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity to preview and review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Dark and twisted. If you’re a fan of the genre you’ll love this one.

Get ready for an incredibly meta murder mystery solving experience! Meet Ernest Cunningham, he and his family have gathered at a ski resort to welcome his brother home for a short stay in jail -jail that Ernest himself put him in by testifying and reporting him.

Before the very uncomfortable reunion begins, a death is detected on the slopes - a very unusual death matching a few other unusual deaths that have cropped up here and there in the news. Our intrepid Ernest - our hero, for as he reports, he IS the one telling the story, leads us through an exciting weekend of murder and mayhem while revealing along the way who has killed, who will be killed and who might kill again.

It's a fast moving, expertly paced, complex mystery of a murder...or two. I dare you to solve it before the end!

If you are a fan of murder mysteries, who done its, and unusual heros, this is a book for you!
#MarinerBooks

Dark and delightful - this is a perfect read for fans of How to Kill Your Family. A recommended purchase for collections where crime fic is popular.

Ern(est) and his shady family have a lot to answer for.

This was meta, irreverent, snarky. I liked that Ern was the MC as well as the author of the book we were reading, as he made for a delightful unreliable narrator who tried to claim otherwise. His cheeky comments to the reader kept the story moving at a fast pace and was very amusing.

I think I was too overwhelmed by the general storyline and the many, many characters. But this is a fun read, especially for those very familiar with the mystery genre and all the ways it can make you crazy trying to figure out just whodunit.

"I thought: what if I spoiled the entire book on the first page, can I build a crime novel out of it?" "Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once."
-Benjamin Stevenson

Ernest Cunningham was telling his truth as a self-appointed sleuth. Applying Roland Knox's "Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction",1929,he was bound and determined to solve this whodunnit at a family weekend get together at a ski lodge. A heavy snowstorm...a frozen corpse with face covered in ash...an inept policeman...the lethal leanings of the Cunningham clan. Ernest was a self-published writer of how-to-guides. "I write books about how to write books". Did he possess any crime solving chops? Was he both a reliable narrator and a pseudo-criminologist?

I digress. The mandatory family reunion, orchestrated in an attempt to mend fences. Michael Cunningham was newly released after a three year stint in prison for the unnecessary murder of a dying man. Ernest was complicit, a witness to Michael's matter-of-fact attitude of killing The man was breathing and then he just was not! Ernest's testimony both nailed and jailed Michael. He was still guardian of a bag of ill-gotten cash. Would Michael and the Cunningham clan forgive Ernest's disloyalty to his brother?

Ernest's chatty, conversational style allowed the reader to learn the backstory of each member of the dysfunctional family. As the body count increased, Ernest generously provided a recap of actions taken. There was plenty of suspense....the harrowing slide of a truck careening toward the frozen lake and the mention of a serial killer nicknamed "The Black Tongue" based upon his use of an ancient technique to overpower and snuff out his victims. Balancing out the elements of suspense were doses of dark humor. "We haven't met properly...People call me Ern." "As in cremated?"

Author Stevenson has delivered a unique, Golden Age infused crime mystery told in a playful, twisting and turning style, and chock full of teasers meant to stump even the best armchair detectives. Highly recommended.

Thank you Mariner Books and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for a review copy.

tl;dr
A deeply self-aware tribute to the golden age of murder mysteries with plenty of twists and a satisfying conclusion. Mostly funny, but also incredibly melancholy.

About
Ernest Cunningham knows plenty about a good murder, or at least fictional ones. He spends most of his time writing books on how to write books, and staying away from his extremely complicated family. But when a mandatory family reunion at a distant ski lodge leads to several real life deaths, our hapless writer will have to unravel the murders and his own family's very messy history.

Thoughts
Snappy writing and dark humor are the order of the day, with the fictional author POV deeply self-aware that this adventure is falling into some of the classic murder mystery tropes. As a fan of murder mysteries from all eras, I enjoyed the genre breakdowns, and definitely laughed at some of his incredibly dry commentary. The writer Ernest promises that true to his name, he will tell no lies. But despite being honest, he is not terribly earnest. Through all the referential jokes, I began to sense an emotional wall in the MC akin to a kid on the playground who is all-too-eager to point out their own flaws so that no one else can mention them first. By the time I got to the end of the book, I couldn't help but feel like the entire thing was a story told by a sad person who is working very hard to insist they are not sad.

Like the MC, the book has a strict adherence to the rules - namely Ronald Knox's Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction, and it does its best to be a fair play mystery, with regular reminders of all the clues currently available. Overall the mystery is really solidly built, with twists in all the right places and a strong reveal at the end. One of the earlier clues felt really out of place to me, and it still feels like a slight coincidence that we even got it. Everything else fits together really well, and although I expected the ending, it still came as a great shock when it actually happened. A fairy easy read for fans of the murder mystery genre with a lot of irreverent narration and a good reveal.

I wanted to enjoy this one but felt the overall mystery, plot and characters hard to relate to. I can totally see the potential here though, I might just not be the target audience.

This book is greatest cure for my soul with its darkest sense of smartest humor! I howled! I guffawed! I didn’t imagine I could have so much fun when I read a dark thriller but I did! It was extremely entertaining!

The tribute to Robert Knox’s 10 commandments and the way each commandment’s blending into this story was extra intelligent! It was so much fun to be inside reliable ( wink) narrator Ernest Cunningham’s mind! Ernest tells a story about a dysfunctional family: his own family consisted of murderers including him! Don’t get this wrong! But this book is not Manson family biography! Those guys are not bunch of the sociopaths who plan to attract their next prey! Let’s say: they were in the wrong place at the wrong time ( jury is still out)

Ernest finds himself at a family gathering in ski resort. They get trapped at this place during the snowstorm ( here comes Christiesque vibes meets The Clue) Unfortunately not every one of them will stay alive during the storm! Tension is building, knives are sharpening, killers are everywhere!

I’m holding myself not to give much away! But I have to admit Stevenson’s brilliant intelligence wooed me and I cannot wait to read another book of him sooner.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.