Another excellent instalment in the Ernest Cunningham series, Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret is a wonderful, short, festive romp which introduces us to another spectacular Australian vista, and another kooky cast of suspects.

As with the last two books in this series, Stevenson contrasts unusual and humorous exchanges, with clever plotting, and expertly penned description, passages of poignant emotion face-off with quick, well-written action. As with the previous book in the series, this largely deals with people outside of Ernest's circle, committing crimes that have been brilliantly conceived. Unlike the previous book, I did guess the culprit pre-reveal, but that is always a risk with the Christmas special! This one reminded me of Jonathan Creek, with the magic elements, and I think fans of that iconic British series, would really love this contemporary Australian Christmas novella.

I will say, whilst I enjoyed this, and Everyone On This Train is a Suspect, I am missing the tense, grounded drama and grit of the first in the series. I hope Stevenson's next instalment gives a little more hard-boiled, and a little less sunny side up, but that isn't really a criticism! As with any iconic detective, their must be moments of levity.

4 stars!

Ernest’s ex wife calls him after being arrested for murdering her partner .
She wants Ernest to get the bottom of what happened to her partner , however it seems she is bang to rights for the murder after being covered in his blood and stating she can’t remember anything and doesn’t know how he has been murdered.
I love all the Ernest Cunningham books and this one doesn’t disappoint.
The writing is very clever with humour and red herrings peppered throughout .
An Australian Christmas certainly makes a nice change read instead of the usual snowy scenes in Christmas mysteries .
A must read for Benjamin Stevenson fans!
A quick and enjoyable read !
Thanks to NetGalley and Michael Joseph , Penguin Random House .

I read the first two Ernest Cunningham books (EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE and EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN IS A SUSPECT) over the summer, back-to-back. I’d been slow to pick them up because I sure the all the hype around them would lead to a disappointing read. I was totally wrong though and really loved them both!
The series hits a really nice tone for a mystery: not a cozy, but not a thriller either. I enjoy “Ernest’s” voice – he’s a bit of a smart-ass – as well as the way the books play around with how blatantly to drop or hide clues.
EVERYONE THIS CHRISTMAS HAS A SECRET is (unsurprisingly) a Christmas-themed novella. (As Ernest tells us: book 2.5.) Because it’s basically a ‘holiday episode’ and about half the length of the other books, I knew not to expect as complex a story, but I did think that the motives for the suspects (and eventual killer) weren’t quite as strong as the past books or as convincing as I was expecting.
The story we do get though is, once again, really well done. Ernest is full or wry comments, there’s some great red herrings, a couple of memorably dramatic scenes, and the whole mystery unravels around some small details. Because EVERYONE THIS CHRISTMAS HAS A SECRET is shorter, it’s a bit pacier than the other books too, so it would be a great read over the holiday period to dip in and out of when you’re short on time.
Looking forward to more in the series, but EVERYONE THIS CHRISTMAS HAS A SECRET is a really nice little appetite teaser.

I absolutely loved the last two books from this author so when I saw a Christmas special release, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. I'm not usually a fan of shorter, seasonal themed books within a series as they can sometimes feel a bit gimmicky and dare I say; cash grabby. However as I am such a fan of this series and Ernest Cunningham as a character, I thoroughly enjoyed this third book in the series.

It was quite nice to have a bite sized mystery to attempt to solve. The story was short and snappy but still full of misdirections and sleight of hand (as I have come to expect from this author). I didn't get the opportunity to get to know the characters in great detail, but I was ok with that. The fun was in the mystery.

Ernest is such a great narrator. His dry humour and blunt approach to anything and everything really tickles me and I find myself laughing out loud whilst simultaneously, hanging on every word. If you know this character at all, you know that everything said has a purpose. Everything and anything can be a clue.

This was a marvellous short mystery that was funny but also had a clever and thrilling crime plot to follow along.

First off, go and read Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone and Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect. You won’t regret it.

You’re back? Excellent. This is sort-of book three in the series, but Ernest bills it as a Christmas special, hence a reduction of recurring characters and a very Christmassy theme. I do hope the Advent Calendar idea works in the finished ebook properly – each chapter (out of twenty-four) ends with a clue being revealed behind a door – because in the advanced version, it was just a graphical mess. This isn’t an essential part of the story – it’s a nice touch – but let’s address the Christmas special idea.

Last year, there was a Christmas special from Janice Hallett, a short sequel to The Appeal that I really didn’t think much of. I do wonder – is that why I didn’t get approved for The Examiner? Who knows? I did worry that when a similar shorter Christmas sequel for a couple of books that I loved even more than The Appeal was announced…

I needn’t have worried though. This is a wonderful read. Cunningham’s knowing narration, dropping hints of things to come and with a seeming knowledge that he is in a Christmas special – you can square this with the fact that he is writing the story up after the case has ended, but it does get a bit Deadpool-y at times. His voice is very entertaining, dropping in bits and pieces about classic crime fiction along the way.

And yes, there are clues here – twenty-four allegedly – along with a misdirection straight out of the classic crime playbook. I had a solution in mind, and that was clearly what Stevenson wanted me to think, as it ends up being a false solution. The whole thing is clever, and the pacing works well – the impossible decapitation method isn’t left too long without being explained, but long enough to give the reader time to ponder.

It may be October, but thanks to this book, I’m feeling Christmassy already. I’ve even learned the true meaning of Christmas…

How utterly delightful to finally have a Christmas novel that’s set in the blazing heat of an Aussie summer! With all the wit and clever plotting of Stevenson’s novels, Ernest’s ‘holiday special’ was like a festive box of chocolates devoured in one sitting despite all good intentions – although its 24 chapters could make the perfect bookish advent calendar if you’re more able to resist temptation than me.

Stevenson’s meta writing style is always engaging and compulsively readable, Everyone This Christmas is no different. It’s the perfect taster to Stevenson’s style if you’ve not read the other two books in the series, or a festive bon bon if you’ve enjoyed them already!

Ernest Cunningham returns in his third instalment - this time a shorter (240 pages in hardback is going to be one of the slimmer books on your shelf), festive version (albeit a non snowy, log fire, style Christmas given the Australian setting)
Told with a Christmas Calendar motif I'll take the publisher's word for given the formatting issues in this netgalley version which I'm sure will be ironed out in the final published version, Ernest is called by his ex-wife who is sitting in a jail cell having woken covered in blood with her partner dead and accused of his murder.
Ernest sets out to find out what really happened, encountering a string of suspects and a second murder along the way, all in the jokey, meta way we've seen in the previous novels, this time pushing the challenge to the reader to solve the murder more than ever (again, this device may be easier/ cleaner in the final version of the work if the illustrations/ layout have any effect in the process)
Fans of the first two books, of which there are clearly many, will enjoy this one.

The countdown to Christmas begins at the start of Everyone this Christmas has a secret. There is an Advent Calendar of 24 chapters and each chapter contains a clue to who the murderer is. This is definitely not your typical Christmas murder mystery where all of the suspects are snowed in as it takes place in Australia where it is Summer and we are transported to the Blue Mountains.
As in the author’s previous books, this is very much a tongue in cheek murder mystery with the main character frequently pausing the story to address the reader to make sure that we don’t miss any of the clues he has helpfully dropped into his narrative.
I enjoyed the mystery and the way that it gradually unravelled. The supporting characters weren’t as detailed in the previous two novels which meant that I cared less about who actually committed the crime but I still loved all of the red herrings and mis-direction. The climax of the story was excellent and a complete change from the typical Golden Age method of getting everyone into a room to reveal all.
My only minor gripe was that I hadn’t realised that this was so much shorter than the other two, it’s only 208 pages, and so I felt that the resolution arrived rather abruptly.
This was an entertaining read and a refreshing take on the traditional Christmas murder mystery. My thanks to Net Galley and the publishers, Michael Joseph for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Benjamin Stevenson published Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone two years ago with Everyone on This Train is a Suspect appearing early this year. And now, just in time for Christmas, we get the seasonal Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone was very well received indeed by the most fastidious critics of detection fiction. It fulfilled all criteria about “fair play” mysteries, where the reader is told everything that the narrator (Ernest Cunningham) sees and can, therefore, deduce the murderer’s identity. Of course, there are red herrings scattered liberally throughout the text but they can be discounted by thinking hard enough.

Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret is written with the same intention: anyone paying enough attention – and believe me, you are expected to pay careful attention if you want to work out whodunnit – can identify the murderer by a process of elimination. I can smugly state that I identified the murderer but I made one error about what they did that night.

Ernest’s ex-wife, Erin, has a new partner: Lyle Pearse, the head of a charitable foundation dedicated to helping addicts and offenders to start again. Pearse is rich and – as we find out in Chapter 2 – dead. Unfortunately, Erin woke up with her face and hands covered in blood before finding Lyle’s body and contacting Ernest to solve the crime and prove her innocent.

I enjoyed the book as much as the previous two in the Ernest Cunningham series. Ernest states that the book is like an advent calendar, with twenty-four chapters instead of twenty-four windows: twenty-three with a clue and the last with an unmasked killer. I think there are meant to be illustrations that are reminiscent of advent calendar windows, but they didn’t appear correctly in the electronic review copy I was given. For those of us in the global north, remember that Australian Decembers are hot: really, really hot. That always gives a different feel to Christmas stories set in the Outback.

There is humour involving Josh Felman, a journalist who tracks Ernest in the hope of an exclusive story:
“How did you get those [photos]?”
“Crime scene photographer’s off to Bali for the holidays. I know a guy at the airline, bumped him up to business class…”

However, despite the humour that did make me laugh out loud a couple of times, this is not a funny book – it’s about spotting clues – physical, spoken or behavioural – and about logical deduction. If you fancy yourself as a Miss Marple or Sherlock Holmes, buy this book and have a go.

#EveryoneThisChristmasHasASecret #NetGalley

Anyone expecting this to be a 'snow and roaring fires' kind of Christmas mystery forgets that Christmas in Australia is smack bang in the middle of summer (for a snowy vibe, this author's first novel in the series - Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone - is the book to go for).

Everyone This Christmas Has A Secret finds our erstwhile accidental detective drawn to the Blue Mountains after a desperate phone call from ex-wife Erin. After waking up covered in blood, she has been arrested for the murder of her wealthy partner, and needs Ernest to help get her out of jail.

And so begins another fast-paced mystery with plenty of post-modern nods to the tradition of the 'Christmas special' and Golden Age authors. The pace does mean we don't necessarily get to know any characters other than Ernest in any depth, but it's highly entertaining and with it's festive cover, will make the perfect stocking filler.

This a very clever, witty and exciting Christmas advent-calendar of a whodunit. Where the main character goes out of his way to lay everything out for you and gives you clues, all the necessary information needed to work out the murderer. So lots of clues, a cast of possibilities, and guess what - I still didn’t work it out! But I definitely enjoyed the whole book, and the reveal. I hadn’t read the previous books in the series, but that proved to be no problem at all. Thank you to Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine freely given.

I’m a huge fan of this series and the writers style.

The story starts when Ernest gets a call from his ex-wife Erin, who we met in the first books of the series Everyone in this Family is a Murderer. She’s been arrested on suspicion of murder and we follow Ern as he heads off to help her, and ends up witnessing a second murder. The group of suspects in this case are a lot more challenging to pin point, as the person Erin is accused of murdering is a philanthropist who built theatres and employed ex-offenders helping them to change their life and start a more positive path.

What I love most with this series is how Ernest doesn’t shy away from acknowledging he’s in the middle of a murder mystery. He playfully tells you how the plot will unfold, when key events will happen, and—of course—they unfold exactly on time. Plus, he’s constantly dropping clues to help you figure it out alongside him. The humour and wit with which Ernest narrates make this feel like a fresh take on the classic mystery novel, blending meta-commentary with gripping suspense.

If you’re a fan of whodunits with a self-aware twist, this book is an absolute treat. It’s funny, smart, and keeps you guessing till the end. Highly recommend!

Christmas and murder go together like tea and biscuits (as I’m sure everyone who has spent extended time with their loved ones would agree). And Ernest (via the creative genius of Benjamin Stevenson) has done it again.

This is Ernest’s holiday special murder mystery which plays by all the rules. This time the (first) murder he’s drawn in to is his ex-wife’s new boyfriend and his ex-wife is the prime suspect. She’s enlisted him like a proper detective to uncover the truth, which ironically leads to the shady world of performing magicians. In 24 chapters Ernest is inviting us to open the advent doors and help him solve the whodunnit.

I love these books. They’re just pure joy. Really funny and also just dead good mysteries. I love Stevenson’s love of detective fiction and the audience’s role to play along. Ironically, I haven’t caught one of his killers. (Actually I have guessed a couple but it’s the supporting evidence not guessing that matters). These are totally up there with the Thursday Murder club for a shot of gruesome joy.

I’m normally not a fan of Christmas books but for this I will make a big exception. I flew through it and couldn’t stop smiling.

Im already looking forward to book 4!

Thank you to #netgalley and @michaeljbooks for my #arc

An easy to read, hard to put down Christmas murder mystery to read. I enjoyed reading this book based in baking hot Australia a couple of days prior to Christmas. The reader is given a number of clues a bit like an advent calendar counting the days down to Christmas. Although a suspected murderer is in custody her ex husband has the task of finding out whodunnit.
There are lots of twists and turns in the plot. With one clue I thought I had solved the murder until the next was given!
Thanks for the free read from Net Galley.

Third book in this series, that introduced Ernest Cunningham, accidental sleuth, to the reading world, and once again there are murders, and numerous red herrings for the armchair detective to guess at.
There are twenty four chapters, each with a clue, so it’s a murderous Advent Calendar, full of magic, and mystery. It’s great fun to read, jolly asides to the reading audience, and all is wrapped up by Christmas Eve. Out of 24 clues, I scored 3 correct, so each book has increased my score by one.
The story is set in Australia, and as Ernest remarks, the difference is, in this location, there is less snow down under, but more murders.
The book tells the reader, there is ; a suspect covered in blood and no idea why,
A victim decapitated by a piece of paper,
A murder committed without a hand being laid.
A most intriguing start to this well paced and slightly frantic story. The Xmas rules are, there must be no hidden clues or unreliable narrators.
Unfortunately, despite downloading this book twice, in both cases, poor formatting meant that chapters, 11, 12, 14,15 and 16 were missing.
I realise this is an uncorrected proof, but that does mean, it’s a helluva detective story to figure out with so many clues missing. Who knows what score I would have achieved if all the chapters read correctly?
What I could read, I enjoyed greatly. It’s a wonderful format and Ernest is really good company to be with. There are likeable characters throughout,
I read the denouement and thought it tidied up all the loose ends nicely, despite my frustrations with the missing chapters.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers. Penguin Michael Joseph for my ARC, freely given in exchange for my honest opinion. I have rated it as a three star read due to the issues described.
I will leave reviews to Goodreads and Amazon UK upon publication.

Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret is Benjamin Stevenson's newest book, offering his engaging blend of suspense and humour. Set in the blue mountains, against the backdrop of Christmas festivities, the story follows a group of characters, each harbouring their own secrets that gradually unravel as the narrative progresses. The plot expertly balances tension with humour, creating a web of intrigue that keeps you guessing until the last page.
This is a short but delightful mystery, making it a must-read for fans of Benjamin Stevenson. The festive setting enhances the story, making it a perfect read for the holiday season.
I loved both Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone and Everyone on this Train is a Suspect. Highly recommended and I can't wait to read the next one.
Thank you to NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for an advanced copy in exchange for my review.

I didn't realise this was part of a series. So I hadn't read the previous books but that didn't matter. I was still able to get to grips with the characters quickly and become invested in the story too.

I loved the way it followed a advent calendar format as this added to the Christmas vibe. I also really enjoyed the tropes that we used to poke fun at the genre whilst being a exciting caper.

Ernest is a great character and I'll be sure to read more of the series now I've had this taster.

This is the third book in this most excellent, and indeed quirky, series so you really ought to follow series rules and start from book one and read in order. You know it makes sense...
So, in this, his third outing, Ernest Cunningham is once again front and centre of a murder. A Christmas themed one to boot. This is reflected in the setup of the book, the 24 chapters being akin to an advent calendar. We also have six suspects, including an identical twin. I know but it's allowed as long as introduced at the start, and 7 secret Santa presents under the tree. Oh and one dead body...
Ernest really shouldn't be getting involved, being as he is about to tie the knot and his attention really should be focused on the happy day and not crime, but coincidence lands him where he is and it'd be rude not to, especially as it is his ex-wife who is currently in jail accused of her own, currently unconnected murder which was one of the things that brought him to the area in the first place... Yup... we are going two for the price of one here folks!
Anyway... long story short. Well, actually it isn't that long of a book, but definitely long enough to fully introduce and develop the characters, and complete the story being told, and size doesn't matter as long as that is done, waffle and padding begone! Anyway... as you have already read the previous books, you'll expect the same madness and mayhem, and you won't be disappointed. You'll also love the "larger than life" characters that you get to know herein and those you reconnect with from previous books. And the plot, as expected, is a doozy. Well crafted and executed with aplomb. And an ending that delivered complete satisfaction... All in keeping with the rules of the Golden Age mysteries... Until next time Mr Cunningham, until next time...
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

‘Everyone This Christmas Has A Secret’ by Benjamin Stevenson is an absolute CRACKER of a festive crime caper, starring the one and only Ernest Cunningham - reliable narrator extraordinaire and enthusiastic sleuth. As he keeps reminding the reader, this time the tale follows the rules of fair play for murder mysteries AND conforms to the time honoured tropes of Holiday Specials, providing laughs and brain-teasing plot points along the way.

I really enjoyed the cleverness of the eventual solution, and the way all of the clues fit together so elegantly. The literal and figurative significance of advent calendars was entertaining, and the characters were all well-developed for a short novel. I enjoyed Ernest’s interactions with his ex-wife Erin and his fiancée Juliette - and can’t wait for the next full instalment in which I hypothesise and fear that wedding bells may be ringing in a death or two…

This was 100% a five star read for me and I would absolutely recommend… if you loved ‘Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone’ and ‘Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect’, you will ADORE this! I think it works as a standalone novella as well as the plot doesn’t rely on knowledge of previous events or the broader cast of characters.

I received an advance Digital Review Copy of this book from the publisher Penguin Michael Joseph via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

ernest Cunningham is heading up to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains in answer to a distress call form his ex-wife Erin. She is being accused of murdering her boyfriend, wealthy philanthropist Lyle. He also needs to have a look at a magician performing at the theatre built by Lyle. At that performance there is another gruesome murder in front of the audience. With the local police bumbling around and convinced that Erin is behind it all, it's down to Ern to solve the mystery. There are a lot of suspects, who after just a cursory glance, appear to have a lot of motive.
Another fun read.