Everyone on This Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

October 28, 2025

Everyone on This Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

When the Australian Mystery Writers Association invites him to speak on a panel at their annual conference, Ernest Cunningham and his girlfriend find themselves on the Ghan, the famous historic train that runs from Darwin to Adelaide. Almost all of the other conference participants appear to hold some sort of grudge against each other. What could possibly go wrong?

Set shortly after the events of the first Ernest Cunningham book, this is another fun and clever mystery. Like the first book, it's a locked-room mystery with a lot of characters. I sort of guessed who the murderer was, if not the why. The writers and publishing people weren't as endearing as Ernest's family in the first book - I would have been okay with a few more of them being killed off. I recommend the audiobook - make sure you listen or read the epilogue. And Juliet says yes the second time.

The opal mines at Cooper Peady that play a part in the last section

A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz

December 6, 2022

A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz

Hawthorne and Horowitz return for another case, this time at a small literary festival on one of the Channel Islands. Horowitz is invited to be a guest speaker and Hawthorne decides to go along. But when one of the festival sponsors is found dead, Hawthorne is enlisted to assist the local police. As they investigate the conference attendees and the island residents, they discover a lot more than literary rivalries.

Horowitz appears as a character in his own mystery, playing Watson to Hawthorne's Holmes. Not a good as The Magpie Murders but still has some good twists. Like most mysteries, it's one of the less likely characters who done it. I find Hawthorne to be an unlikeable character, who has his own sense of justice (not sure if other readers feel the same way). I enjoyed listening to the audio version.

One of the Channel Islands