Blurb:

I knew our family reunion wouldn’t end well. But I didn’t expect murder.

Maybe I should have known better. After all, everyone in my family is a killer. My parents, my siblings, my in-laws . . . even me. The deaths weren’t all deliberate, of course. Accidents happen.

So when a body is found in the snow, it’s clear it’s the work of a Cunningham. But which one? And why?

I’ll give you one clue: it wasn’t me.

But a piece of advice? Never trust a Cunningham . . .

Review:

I’ll happily admit that it was the title that drew me to Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone but in no way did it disappoint. It’s narrated by Ernest Cunningham, who writes books about how to write crime books. He follows ten rules, that were first devised in 1929, and he promises that he doesn’t break any of them and that he is a perfectly reliable narrator. I loved the way he spoke directly to the reader, with wonderful observation and humour. He’s very different to any other characters in crime novels I’ve read before. I was quickly drawn into his story and wondered the whole way through if he really was as reliable as he wanted us to believe.

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone is set during a family reunion at a holiday resort in the Australian mountains. The Cunningham family makes my own family look quite functional, and there is also a stepfather, stepsister and a few ex-wives so there’s plenty of scope for tension between them and they could all be suspects. It’s fascinating to discover how they all fit into the story and Benjamin Stevenson has developed the characters really well so that we can really get into their minds and understand both their individual and collective motivations. I loved being part of their lives as I was reading and I found their story incredibly compelling.

Benjamin Stevenson is such an intelligent writer and Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone has so many threads, which I really enjoyed following. He even plants clues for us at the very beginning, and I definitely failed to pick up on some of them! Alongside the cerebral parts of the novel, there are also some gripping moments and I was hooked the whole way through.

I’m looking forward to reading the next instalment in the series.

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone is available from Amazon.