Cover Image taken from Publisher's Website: Penguin Australia
Release Date: March, 2022
Pages: 384
Should you read it: Absolutely!
Sometimes, it seems to me, we come across books which take us so deeply into the story, that we find whenever we walk away from the characters, that they just seem to call us back. Sometimes, we find these stories linger, and whenever we bump into someone – we seem compelled to give them an update of how the novel is coming along. ‘Everyone in my family has killed someone’ is one of those tales.
It's situated in the Australian crime fiction genre – and, it is certainly a book cover that is appearing in shop windows with tags like ‘best-seller’ sprawled across it. And, I’ll be frank. It deserves the title.
The novel was only published this year – already it has been translated into 16 languages and HBO has paid up the big bucks to buy the rights to turn it into a television series! I guess what I’m saying is, this book has some buzz – and, because you’ll probably end up watching it on the box, or reading it, I don’t want to give too much away in this post. Limited spoiling will be my motto!
How does it engage?
The novel is written in first person, and the speaker introduces himself and establishes that he’s recounting true events. While I know I’m engaging with fiction, I couldn’t help but get drawn into the recount of events, which was pitched as true.
The speaker opens by establishing real life author, Ronald Knox’s ‘Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction’ – and evokes detective writers of old like Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It helped give the book an authenticity and the speaker spoke directly to me – breaking the flow of the novel to tell me he’d play fair, and abide by the rules. This was a technique he used throughout the novel, breaking from the story to make comments to draw the reader in. At times, he’d encourage us to pay attention to clues, to point something out in the plot, to tell us that he’d thrown us a deliberate red herring. There is very much a metatextual element to the novel also, as he offers what chapters deaths will occur in and where there will be a locking of lips! (And, in doing so, deliberately seeks to deceive – reinforcing how assumptions are wrong. The locking of lips turns out to be CPR, not a love-interest kiss!) The point was, he was trying to keep the reader on their toes. It is so easy to engage with a detective story and to forget about trying to solve the crime – here, we’re actively reminded that it is our job!
Plot overview (being careful not to spoil).
The novel opens with the speaker’s brother Michael arriving at his home with a body in the backseat of his car. Yep – the first murder in the first pages. We find out he’d been shot, and then Michael ran him over – and of course, there’s $263,000 in the car! In these opening pages, we learn Michael has been to jail – and he’s getting released.
The release coincides with the Cunningham family reunion – the bringing together of a seemingly normal family, who have all at different times killed someone. Sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose, and some not yet – but the entire family find themselves at a ski resort. The story is set up with humour – making fun of Aunt Katherine who is organising everything meticulously with her excel spreadsheets, the bingo cards which are given out with quirks like the sister in law trying to draw you into her pyramid selling scheme.
But then, in the humour and in the snow – a murdered body is found by the resort. From there, the entire family, now including Michael who’d been released from jail – are stranded. The police officer identifies they cannot go anywhere, and a significant snow storm blocks their access off the mountain. In the days that follow, the speaker must solve the crime – and he takes as around the lodge and we start to ‘explore’ the family. Everyone is a suspect, and the hidden lives of people come out, motives are hinted at – and, by virtue of their last name, Cunningham, it seems anyone is capable of the crimes. Then another body is found, murdered in the same manner as a serial killer had done so years earlier. It was certainly getting interesting, as family histories are dived into – and revelations are brought to light.
At different times in the reading I found myself sure I knew whodunnit, and I was quite determined in my accusations, at times I even found myself accusing partners of being involved! All my assumptions of course amounted to nothing, as the careful writing (which, as promised, did play by the rules) lured me into conclusions and new conclusions and then had my second guessing myself all amounted to nothing – when the answers, and indeed, there were a lot of parts of this puzzle – had been hanging right in front of my face all along, shown to me in moments where I was misdirected and not paying close enough attention. Indeed, one of the clues that I did pick and was sure it revealed the killer – turns out, was an important clue, but meant something completely different!
Rating: 9.9/10
I don’t give out full marks easily, and this one won’t get the full 10 either. It probably deserves it, as it was a faultless read – but my own stubbornness won’t let this one go higher. It truly was one of the best books I’ve engaged with in a very, very, very long time. It was entertaining, thought provoking and thoroughly gripping. It was one of those, ‘I need to finish my story’ kind of reads that are quite rare to find, and the ending left me satisfied. It wasn’t a dumb ending where an implausible solution is put to you – it all made perfect sense. Ronald Knox’s Ten Commandments weren’t broken, and the best part – when the TV series comes out, I already know who the killer (or killers – there are no spoilers here!) are!