Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson **

 Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson. Matriarch Audrey Cunningham had three sons (Ernest, Michael, Jeremy) with her first husband before the police shot him in a botched burglary. Michael later shot a police officer and was brilliantly defended by Marcelo Garcia (three-year sentence), who subsequently married Audrey. Audrey has organized a family reunion to mark Michael’s release. Michael attends with Erin, Ernest’s wife. Lucy, Michael’s ex-wife, also attends. That’s just some of the setup.

The author, through narrator Ernest, regularly interrupts the story to brag about how clever he is and how ingeniously the story is written. In my opinion, the story is overly complex, as indicated by the several long chapters required to unravel the mystery. I didn’t believe or care about the ultimate resolution.

Another indication of the complexity is when the author reviews the clues for the reader. “Here are the clues I used to put it together: Mary Westmacott; fifty-thousand dollars; my jaw; my hand; Sky Lodge’s snow cams; Sofia’s malpractice suit; a Brisbane PO box; Lucy cocking an imaginary gun against her head; a double-occupancy coffin; vomit; a speeding fine; a handbrake; a loupe; physiotherapy; an unsolved assault; a chivalrous and shivering husband; “the boss”; a jacket; footprints; Lucy’s nervous wait; a pyramid scheme; sore toes; my chalet’s phone; my dreams of choking; Michael’s newfound pacifism; and F-287: a dead pigeon with a medal for bravery.” This must be a record for the number of mystery clues.

The author regularly breaks into the narrative to make clever comments.

“So I’ll strive to do the opposite. Call me a reliable narrator. Everything I tell you will be the truth, or, at least, the truth as I knew it to be at the time that I thought I knew it. Hold me to that.”

“It’s pretty much the whole How-To-Write-A-Mystery checklist at this point. If it’s any consolation, no one’s phone runs out of battery until Chapter 33. So the reception and the battery thing is a cliché. I don’t know what to tell you—we’re in the mountains. What do you expect?”

“Crime novels always look at the motives of a list of suspects, but only from the perspective of the inspired inquirer. Am I really the detective just because it’s my voice you have to listen to? I guess this whole story would be different if someone else wrote it. Maybe I’m only the Watson after all.”

The mysteries included multiple murders over the previous thirty-five years, kidnappings, $267,000 in cash, missing evidence, and so many family secrets. Certainly another record for complexity.

While the author deserves credit for putting this all together (or was the plot constructed by an AI?), it is not a satisfying book to read.

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