Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone - Benjamin Stevenson

Mystery

Rating: 9/10

“Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, it’s just the truth.”

Sometimes it only takes a single sentence, like this one, well placed, in this case as the first line, for a book to grab you hook, line and sinker!

Our narrator is also our author, telling his story directly to the reader. But you will be left to wonder whether he is the Sherlock or is he the Watson. I mean let’s face it, in every crime novel you only see the motives of the suspects through the eyes of their inquisitor.

The book teases out the backstory of an ensemble of potential reprobates, locks them in an inaccessible location, and then presents a body that can be linked to each and every one of them.

Our writer is toying with us in the most delicious way, and this is without question, a metafiction lover’s dream!

Footnote(s): as written by the author of this book and repeated here for your reference. But be reminded; rules are made to be broken.

10 Commandments of Detective Fiction

1) The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.

2) All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.

3) Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.

4) No yet undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any implement that will require a long scientific explanation.

5) Culturally outdated and possibly inappropriate rule redacted.

6) No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.

7) The detective himself must not have committed the crime.

8) The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.

9) The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly below that of the average reader.

10) Twin brothers, and doubles in general, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

Book Pairing(s): Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi, Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson, A Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz