Everyone this Christmas has a secret
by Benjamin Stevenson
Penguin Books, Australia, October 2024
Age group: late teens – adult
Format: 244 page hardcover
A secret, a mystery and Christmas – that makes for a good start for a book in my eyes!
The story
Our hero, Ernest Cunningham, gets a phone from his ex-wife asking for help. She is accused of murdering her boyfriend during the night. Without an alibi and convincing evidence against her, things don’t look good for his ex. With magic shows, performers and a second murder, Ern has a complex mystery to solve in the Blue Mountains in the days before Christmas.
My review of Everyone this Christmas has a secret
This book is unusual in that Ernest is openly narrating his story; that is, he tells you he is writing the story of what happened a few days ago and discusses writing techniques along the way. For example, he creates cliff hangers and then refers to it as a cliff hanger and why he used it! Ernest tells us he is an honest author and will avoid any nasty mystery tricks.
It is the third book in the Ernest Cunningham mysteries, but the first I have read. First was Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone (currently being produced as a TV series) and second was Everyone on this Train is a Suspect. All three are set in Australia and are crime parodies written with warmth and humour.
Stevenson introduces the book as an advent calendar – an idea I instantly fell in love with! In that spirit, each chapter provides a clue and maybe a red herring or two, so you can read a chapter a night to get it solved by Christmas. I didn’t feel the tug to read it a chapter at a time so finished it well before Christmas Eve! As the book progresses, there are pages showing the chapters read so far and a hint for their clue.
Ernest visits a rehabilitation charity run by the victim as they prepare for a Christmas show of magic and entertainment. He meets an array of staff and ex addicts in the chaos of preparing for their show around an investigation of their producer’s death.
Using crime writing conventions, Stevenson involves us in the process of following clues and making deductions. At times this felt a little overdone but the characters went along with it. Eliminating suspects along they way, Stevenson takes us with Ernest through the steps, right up to the Agatha Christie style revelation scene with all remaining characters wondering who is the killer.
Cast as a Christmas special, this book is shorter than others in the series, avoids much character development and doesn’t show many characters from the other books. Kris Kringle presents under a tree, references to the date, and the lead up to a Christmas performance rank this as a Christmas book.
I felt that there were a lot of characters in this story and they were not perhaps given as much attention and development as would have been ideal. This could also detract from the final reveal as they are quite superficial (some of them at least).
A few times things were a little disjointed but it was still a nice read.
The books ends with a solution, some outcomes for a few characters, and Ernest’s commandments of a holiday special.
Would I recommend Everyone this Christmas has a secret? Yes, this is a fun book about a writer using his investigative skills to save his ex-wife’s name – it has magic, mystery, laughter and a clear resolution for all.
