Everyone on This Train is a Suspect

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This was an excellent story. The pacing was good, the plot exciting, and the structure was sound. I don't usually read Whodunits because I can never figure out who the murderer is and I'm too lazy to work at it so I just follow and enjoy the story. I figure the protagonist can do the heavy lifting. On the other hand, while I don't try to figure out who the victims and murderer are, I generally know who I would like them to be. In this case the first victim was obvious from the beginning so I could dismiss that one; however, I had hopes for who the second victim or at least the murderer would be but the author had other ideas.

This book is more than a whodunit. It's also a combination of farce and satire within the umbrella of the Mystery genre. I don't know the literary world well enough to be able to identify actual individuals being lampooned, and of course the author specifically says there aren't any but he'd have to do that anyway to keep his butt legally covered; nevertheless there are certain archetypes I enjoyed watching him skewer. In fact I met one of his characters in real life at at writers' group but as he says, MOST writers are very nice people.

If you have the text version you'll have no difficulty as you'll be able to jump to where you want but if you listen to the audio version - and I did - you may find yourself blindsided. There is a PILE of garbage at the beginning of the book. I came close to DNFing it before Chapter 1, before, in fact, even reaching the Prologue. It would have been a great pity had I done so because the story itself is excellent. Therefore if you have the audio version I recommend jumping right to Chapter 1. If you like prologues, this one is okay, but merely okay. It contributes next to nothing to the story. It is, however, useful for those who treat whodunits as puzzles and want to solve them. Likewise, the epilogue may be skipped. It's told from the POV of the love interest and could easily relate to an entirely different book. There's nothing really wrong with it but I thought it was unnecessary and overdone. While I loved the story, I did DNF the book at the end of the epilogue. The author states he plans to acknowledge everyone who contributed to the book with no one left out. There were still nine minutes left and I saw no need to listen to him rattle off names from the telephone book for so long a time.

I fully intend to listen to the first and third volume of this series but I will follow my own advice skipping to chapter 1 and stopping after or perhaps before the epilogue if one exists.



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