Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret (2024) by Benjamin Stevenson

Benjamin Stevenson, an Australian stand-up comedian and mystery author, delivered two highlights of the current Golden Age revival, Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (2022) and Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023), but had to wait with third Ernest Cunningham novel on account of it being a "Christmas Special" – springtime was too early (or too late) to read/review a Christmas mystery. I was tempted to put up a review of Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret (2024) during the summer, but decided to wait until the days started to shorten.

Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret is also a bit shorter in length than the previous two novels. Practically a novella padded with decorated pages and others as white as every Christmas Day should be, but fair's fair, it makes the hardcover edition a very wraptable present to give over the holidays. More importantly, it's as good as the first two despite being much smaller in scope and introduced a completely new, seasonally-themed gimmick. There are twenty-four chapters and twenty-three end with an illustration of a small, opened door or window revealing the clue from that chapter. So like an advent calendar of clues!

Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret begins a week before Christmas and Ernest is busy with Juliette planning their wedding when Ernest receives a plea for help from his ex-wife, Erin, who's been arrested on suspicion of murdering her new partner, Lyle Pearse – an ex-Hollywood actor turned philanthropist. Erin had woken up that morning to discover she was covered in blood, a bloody knife at the top of the stairs and Pearse lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. A dying message, "CHRISTMAS," scrawled on the floor with a bloody finger. So, having solved two murder sprees, Ernest travels to Katoomba to try prove Erin's innocence, but that's not as easy as she "stuck with the worst version of the story." That version involves first, of two, impossible situations Ernest encounters on his third case. Erin listens to white noise to fall asleep, "Tokyo Railway in the Rain," but she remains a very light sleeper. So, if the murder was a frame job, how could the murderer have dumped blood on Erin without waking her up? Admittedly, the impossibility is not as self apparent as described, kept wondering why Ernest called it an impossible murder, but the ending made it very apparent it can be counted as an impossible crime. And not a bad one, either! Just not as clearly stated as it could have been, however, the best is yet to come.

Lyle Pearse's abandoned his acting career and returned to Australia following the death of his brother, overdosed on bad drugs, which drove him to create a foundation to help ex-addicts get back on their feet – creating "long-lasting reform" by igniting passion. So many of the foundation's graduates of the program ended up working in theaters build by the foundation like The Pearse Theater in Katoomba. Every year, they have a tour with all of their success stories ending with a black-tie Christmas finale in Katoomba.

This year, the tour finale, now memorial, is headlined by the victim's friend and stage magician, Rylan Blaze. The big illusion of the night is a combination of the guillotine and bullet-catch trick. But by that time, Ernest has picked up enough bits and pieces of what could be clues that he believes the wax bullet had been swapped for a real bullet. And rushes the stage causing absolute pandemonium. Blaze is effectively trapped inside the guillotine, because the gun with presumably a live round has a laser trigger activated by movement. When the timer hits zero and the blade drops, Blaze's head rolled over the stage! Something that should be impossible, because the dangerous looking blade is nothing more than "flimsy paper." Ernest has his work cutout with two murders, two impossible crimes, a bloody dying messages, stockings worth of clues and a cast of suspects comprising of the magician's assistant, a stagehand, a hypnotist, twins and even a dead guy.

Now this probably doesn't sound a whole lot smaller in scope, or shorter, than the previous two novels, but it really is about the half shorter. Stevenson simply spun a great deal of complexity out of an ultimately simple case with skill and humor. Not just depending on the two impossible situation to give weight and bulk to the plot.

Firstly, there are the everyone and secrets from the book title. A festive, tinseled web of secrets complicating everything and beautifully making use of Christmas traditions, old and new. Secondly, gimmicky as it sounds, the advent calendar guarantees a richly-clued, fair play detective story with the clues forming, as John Dickson Carr described it, a pattern of evidence that, when put together, reveals the whole design – which is the hallmark of great detective fiction. So the advent calendar gimmick made the clueing even better. Not to mention Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret fulfills its obligation to actually do something with the story's holiday theme and found a way to use some Christmas traditions, old and new, to tell a detective story. And, yes, the solution to the impossible decapitation on stage is grand. Not terribly complicated or disappointingly simple and fairly original when it comes to inexplicable beheadings topped off with a memorable denouement when Ernest begins to eliminate his suspects, until the murderer remains. Where and how it happens is what makes it memorable. That poor guy is starting to look like a battered warhorse!

So as a modern, retro-GAD detective novel, Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret is a treat for the holidays with nothing to complain or nitpick about. Beside the story and an excellent plot, the main attraction of the series remains Ernest Cunningham as the narrator ("reliable narrator here"). Well, that and the return to the plotting standards of the Golden Age, but have taken a real liking to Ernest's narrative style. Like giving spoilers of what's ahead in the story, but his spoilers have all the quality of a wish granted by a monkey's paw. There's always a catch or twist. So to say I enjoyed Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret would be an understatement and had I read it last year, it would have easily made "The Naughty List: Top 12 Favorite Christmas Mystery Novels & Short Stories." If reading Christmas mysteries is one of your December traditions, Stevenson's Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret is as good as they come. I very much look forward to Everyone in This Bank is a Thief (2026).

Last One to Leave (2022) by Benjamin Stevenson

Benjamin Stevenson's first two Ernest Cunningham novels, Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (2022) and Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2024), are not only the two highlights of 2025, but represent another step towards a Second Golden Age for the detective story – only the holiday theme kept from dipping into the third novel. I realize it has been a newly established tradition for Christmas to come earlier, and earlier, each year, but figured a review of Everyone this Christmas has a Secret (2024) would still be on early side.

So decided to hold off on Everyone this Christmas has a Secret, until at least the leaves start to turn brownish. Fortunately, the Ernest Cunningham series is not Stevenson's first stab at the detective story. Stevenson wrote two novels about disgraced TV producer Jack Quick, She Lies in the Vines (2019) and Either Side of Midnight (2020), of which the second is an impossible crime novel concerning a shooting on live television ("One million witnesses... One impossible murder"). That one is currently on the big pile, but there are also two short novels, Find Us (2021) and Last One to Leave (2022), collected under the title Fool Me Twice (2024). Last One to Leave sounded like an intriguing take on the classically-styled detective story with a modern framing. Or, to be more precise, the premise struck me as specifically tailored for playing the Grandest Game in the World.

Ryan Jaegan is a widowed father of a 12-year-old daughter, Lydia, who entered his name for competition thrown by a notorious Youtube channel, CashSmashers. A channel with millions of subscribers, hundreds of millions of views and a major sponsorship from a gambling company, providing them with ample resources to pull some outrageous stunts – like dropping parachutes with sacks of money from a helicopter ("they were chasing clicks and views, after all"). They also do competitions with big money prizes. Such "Last One to Leave" contests where a group holds on to a luxury car with the person who holds on to it the longest gets to keep it. Ryan has little money and has debts with the wrong kind of people. So reluctantly agrees to participate and finds himself competing with six other people for a clifftop mansion worth four million dollars.

This contest is similar to the car contest, but much more involved with more room and opportunities for shenanigans. The rules are deceivingly simple: each contestant places one of their hands on a wall and, from there, they're free to roam and move around as much as they like as long as their hand continues to touch the house. Last person to let go wins the four million dollar mansion. Ryan is not the only one there to win the game and the CashSmashers team aren't above manipulating the contest, because "they need high drama, big twists, to make things viral."

So two days and several eliminations later, sleep deprivation, muscle cramp and lack of food begin to take toll, but Ryan and the remaining participants get really tested when one of them turns up apparently dead – lying next to the bag of money with a knife sticking out of him. Is it really a real murder or simply the CashSmashers stepping of their game now that the remaining contestants are vulnerable? They told them over the speakers to keep playing, but what if the body is real? But how can "you commit a murder unseen in a house full of cameras" where everyone's movement is restricted to the length of their arms?

The solution to the impossible stabbing does not disappoint. Not merely as a clever new wrinkle on the "invisible assailant" impossibility, but the cleverly-hidden, fairly clued and foreshadowed murderer complete with a very fitting motive. That's impressive considering Last One to Leave is basically short, tightly packed novella/short novel playing out like a tale of suspense, but framing the story and plot as a closely controlled, constantly surveillanced contest allowed Stevenson to play up/exploit both the suspense and puzzle elements simultaneously. A good example is how the characters refuse to take their hand off the wall when faced with emergencies and even a possible murder, which also helps to enforce the impossibility of their situation. And makes for one hell of an ending when Ryan exposes the murderer!

What I liked even more than the superb blending of suspense with an excellently played out impossible crime, is to get another fine example of a good, old-fashioned detective story with a gritty, contemporary setting, characters and motivation – fitted together as naturally as a dagger, stingy patriarch and a locked library. Last One to Leave was very reminiscent of A. Carver's The Dry Diver Drownings (2024) in that regard, in which a bunch of YouTubers chase clicks, but, instead of a crazy contest, it's about shooting a creepypasta video interrupted by several locked room murders. So glad to finally see these type of (locked room) mysteries appear in the West, because it's something I have come to associate with Japanese shin honkaku mystery writers and anime-and manga mysteries over the years. Yes, whether you like suspense and thrillers or the puzzle-oriented detective story and locked room puzzles, Stevenson's Last One to Leave has it all in a compact, well-paced story. One for the 2025 best-of list!

Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023) by Benjamin Stevenson

I recently read Benjamin Stevenson's genre debut, Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (2022), which perfectly blended the contemporary, character-driven crime novel with the plot complexity and fair play principles of the Golden Age detective story – starring crime fiction expert Ernest Cunningham. A reliable narrator, if there ever was one! This time, the promise to "modernize" the great detective stories of yesteryear without brutally butchering them was fully delivered on to the point where the book read like a modern continuation of the Golden Age traditions. So far from the usual pale, unfunny and cliche-ridden imitations of the Agatha Christie-style country house mysteries of the past. But neither is it a cutesy, sugary sweet cozy, or cozy adjacent, mystery as the book title and cover might suggest. It's as much a modern crime novel as it's a classically-styled detective story. I was incredibly pleased.

I was so pleased with Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone, I ordered, received and read Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023) post-haste. And it's even better than the first one!

Ernest Cunningham is back from his disastrous, deadly family reunion at the Sky Lodge Mountain Retreat and has gone on to write a modestly successful book about his experience, but the experience left him with the lingering symptoms of survivor's guilt and impostor syndrome. He also signed a lucrative publishing contract to write a second, fictional book and took a large advance, but Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone was a firsthand account of his personal experiences – not complete fiction. Just a little. So without inspiration, Ernest accepts an invitation from the Australian Mystery Writers' Society to attend a crime writing festival aboard the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, the Ghan. A four day tour cutting through the Australian desert with panels, Q&As and sight seeing stops.

The guest of honor and "major drawcard" is the international bestselling author of the Detective Morbund series, Henry McTavish, who's famous creation "is as close to a modern-day Holmes or Poirot as they come" with a dedicated fandom – calling themselves "Morbund's Mongrels." Scottish phenomenon is not the only writer on the card. Alan Royce is a forensic mystery writer who has written eleven books in the Dr. Jane Black series, SF Majors writes psychological thrillers, Jane Fulton wrote a widely acclaimed legal thriller twenty years ago and has been working on the sequel ever since. Wolfgang is a representative of the Australian literary crowd, "shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize," who's only link to the crime genre is "his rhyming verse novel retelling of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood." He reminded me of the characters populating Arthur W. Upfield's An Author Bites the Dust (1948) and enjoyed his confrontation with Ernest during the first panel ("...all you did was copy Capote"). Ernest represents both the debuting and non-fiction categories, because his book is a true-crime memoir, but he brought along his girlfriend Juliette Henderson. The former owner of the Sky Lodge Mountain Retreat who had also written a book about the murders that took place there ("her book had sold better than mine"). Naturally, there are some ill-feelings, bruised egos and buried secrets to be shared among the authors eventually leading to a dramatic murder.

Sounds conventional enough, so far, but Ernest takes a hands-on approach to the job of a reliable narrator with a lot of foreshadowing, fourth wall breaking and a bit of teasing. That's why Ernest is "a bit chattier than your usual detective" to ensure no "obvious truths" are concealed from the reader. For example, Ernest tells the reader that he uses the killer's name ("in all its forms") 106 times and gives a tally throughout the story of the name count. And, of course, it not even remotely close to being that easy to find the well-hidden murderer! Stevenson clearly understands that the ability to gracefully lie through your teeth without saying an untrue word is an invaluable tool when it comes to writing and plotting detective stories. It not only makes for an incredibly fun, fairly clued meta-whodunit with a bit of comedy and self-parody, but an engaging cat-and-mouse between armchair detective/reader and narrator. I appreciated the early heads up ("if you're hoping for a locked-room mystery, this isn't it").

 

 

Just like the first book, Everyone on this Train is a Suspect might still strike some as somewhat cozy adjacent, when summarily described, but another thing this series does very well is striking a balance between the classical and modern schools of the genre – which include a few sordid elements you would never come across in a Golden Age mystery. However, it's not merely the more sordid criminal elements making this series a perfect blend of the traditional and modern style, but how the world of today is incorporated into this whodunit. Particularly the plot-thread concerning (SPOILER/ROT13) Jbystnat'f vagrenpgvir neg cebwrpg Gur Qrngu bs Yvgrengher naq ubj vg'f yvaxrq gb nabgure cybg-guernq to reveal something that could only happen in today's world.

I noted in the past how the argument that advancements in technology and forensic science during the second-half of the previous century made the traditional detective story, popular during its first-half, obsolete was demolished by Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel (1953/54) decades before it was put forward. It simply depends on who's doing the writing and plotting. Stevenson's Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone and Everyone on this Train is a Suspect are exactly what I imagined the Grandest Game in the World could have evolved into had it been allowed to co-exist alongside the post-WWII psychological thrillers, crime novels and police procedurals. So was even more pleased than with the first book in the series and only the potential of spoilers prevents me from raving rambling on about this richly-plotted gem of a retro-Golden Age mystery, but you probably get the idea by now.

So I don't know what's more appropriate to close out this shoddy review, we're so back or nature is healing? Either way, I'm slightly pissed the third in the series is titled Everyone this Christmas has a Secret (2024) and we're not even halfway through April! I guess Christmas is coming early this year as that one is going to be cleared off the list long before December rolls around.

Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (2022) by Benjamin Stevenson

The traditional, Golden Age-style detective story has seen a tremendous resurgence over the past ten years spurred on by the fortunate concurrence of the reprint renaissance gaining full momentum with the outbreak of the translation wave – which occurred a decade ago this year. A confluence of discovery, and rediscovery, leading to a rebirth of the classically-styled, fair play detective novel. Not to mention a locked room revival that came as a byproduct of the reprint renaissance and translation wave. Happy little accidents, indeed!

So times have definitely changed over the past twenty years, particularly the last ten, which even gave rise to a strong, independent scene of traditional and borderline experimental impossible crime experts. After all, a rising tide lifts up all ships.

I'm still flinchy when it comes to modern detective fiction presented as clever, hilarious send-ups of the Golden Age country house whodunit or clever, hilarious modern reinterpretations of the classic British mysteries. More often that not, they aren't clever (e.g. Catherine Aird's The Stately Home Murder, 1969) nor hilarious (e.g. Gilbert Adair's The Act of Roger Murgatroyd, 2006). At their worst, they trot out old, dusty tropes and cliches presented as clever, subversive takes on the "surprise" solution (the butler did it by way of a secret passage). Like I said on a previous review, I've been tricked too many times with false promises of contemporary, Golden Age-style mysteries not to be flinchy – hence why I was skeptical about today's subject. Nearly everyone raved about Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (2022) by Australian stand-up comedian Benjamin Stevenson upon its release, but the packaging and presentation was cause for hesitation.

I honestly forgot it existed until John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, returned from hiatus in January and recommended Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone as "the best one" with "a couple of impossible crimes." Yeah, it's embarrassing how easy it really is to reel me in. The promise of a couple of impossible crimes usually does the trick.

Stevenson's Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone is the first entry in the Ernest Cunningham series, which currently counts three novels comprising of Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023) and Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret (2024). The titles in combination with their covers immediately pushes them in the cozy corner of the genre, but John Norris turned out to be correct when he called them puzzling, engaging meta-mysteries – both honoring and spoofing the fair play principles of the traditional detective story ("Knox would have me drawn and quartered..."). That still sounds a bit cozy adjacent. Regardless of its traditional trappings and narrative, Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone is a dark, gritty crime novel with all the plot-complexity of a classic mystery. There are, however, no impossible crimes or locked room murders.

Ernest Cunningham is a writer who writes books on how to write a book and something of an expert on crime-and detective fiction. Cunningham is also the narrator who promises the reader to be a reliable narrator, contrary to the customary reliable narrator, but "not competent." Everything he tells is the truth or what he believed the truth to be at the time. Cunningham regularly addresses the reader or foreshadow what's to come like referring in the opening to the chapters where the readers can expect the "gory details" or acknowledging "there is only one plot-hole you could drive a truck through." There are layers and double meanings to everything. Cunningham's narrative recounting the events gives this otherwise dark, modern crime tale its classical whodunit structure festooned with clues and red herrings.

Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone takes place during the Cunningham family reunion at the remote Sky Lodge Mountain Retreat, which sounds conventional enough, but everyone in Cunningham's family has killed someone. Some of his relatives, "the high achievers," killed more than once. So the family is well-known to the police and media, especially after the murder Ernest's brother is serving time for. Three years previously, Michael turned up at Ernest's doorstep with a bag of money and a dying man in the backseat. Michael asks him to help bury the man and Ernest complies at first, but witnesses something wishing he hadn't and turned him to the police – even testifying against him. That betrayal turned their mother, Audrey, against Ernest. Her current husband and their stepfather, Marcelo Garcia, who's a lawyer and defended Michael in court. It only got him a three year sentence.

So the family comes back together for a reunion and greet Michael back a free man at the Sky Lodge, which honestly would have been enough to fuel the entire as the unraveling of the family's backstory demonstrates. Not only the various, individual backstories giving the book its title, but the overarching backstory in how the killing three years ago is connected to the death of Ernest and Michael's father. A small-time criminal who died in a shootout with the police decades ago. Neither the murder three years ago nor the shootout are quite what they seem as everything obfuscated by layers of lies, misunderstanding and misconceptions. All wrapped up as meta-mystery penned by someone who understands how to gracefully lie through your teeth without uttering a single untrue word. A talent that separated the likes of John Dickson Carr, Agatha Christie and Christianna Brand from their contemporaries.

Normally, a crime novel or even a more traditionally-styled detective story focusing entirely on backstories is a huge red flag, as it rarely bodes well for the quality of the plot, but Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone simply turned the collection of backstories into the various, interconnected pieces of an intricately-designed, fairly clued puzzle plot. Impressively, it recreated the traditional whodunit without dragging out bodies-in-libraries or subversively secret passages, but the sordid, downright reprehensible crimes not often associated with the good, old-fashioned whodunit. So peeling away the layers surrounding the Cunningham family secrets alone would have been a compelling modern take on the classic mystery novel, but it's not just the past throwing up questions and mysteries. The reunion is interrupted when the unidentified body of a man, an outsider, is found under mysterious circumstances. A death that could be the handiwork of an active serial killer, "The Black Tongue," who already made three victims by employing a very unusual, terrifying murder method.

This only touches a fraction of the deeply rooted, widely branched family plot buried at the core of Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone streaked through with thrills and a couple of close calls. There was, in fact, so much going on I became skeptical how Stevenson intended to pull all the twisted, intertwined plot-threads together in such a way that had my fellow detective aficionados raving. Well, I suppose my fears were put aside when Ernest turned to the reader to give a list of all the clues, "to keep Ronald Knox happy," he used to put every piece in place. So everyone still alive gathers in the library where Ernest explains everything. Admittedly, there's a lot to explain and unpack, technically and emotionally, which slows down the pace a little. But absolutely necessary to digest everything properly. One, or two, things stretched things a little (ROT13: gur zvpebqbgf nxn “fcl fuvg”), but nothing detrimental to the plot, story or characters. I rather have a plot that's a little over indulgent in some places than threadbare. I really liked who the murderer turned out to be. I certainly had my suspicions against that person, but not that. Very, very cheeky!

So it can be said Stevenson succeeded Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone in creating a genuine, character-driven modernization of the plot-oriented Golden Age detective story, but I like to see it as a long overdue continuation of the traditional, fair play detective story. There have been glimpses over the decades of what the Golden Age detective story could have turned into had it not been slowly snuffed out during the post-WWII decades, which were often short-lived or somewhat hidden, but it looks like its time has finally come. Stevenson's Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone comes recommended as not only a superb detective novel, but as another step towards that Second Golden Age. I very much look forward to Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023), which is going to be short-tracked to the top of the big pile.