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Ernest Cunningham (call him Ern or Ernie) is a fan of novels from the Golden Age of mysteries: the detective stories by Agatha Christie, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers. He even writes how-to books to help aspiring mystery writers craft good stories. And he lives by the classic rules written by Ronald Knox back in 1929, “The Ten Rules of (Golden Age) Detective Fiction.” Those include “No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right. The detective must not himself commit the crime. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.”
And Ern asserts at the beginning of this story, which he is writing about experiences he actually had: “Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once.”
Ern is writing primarily about a weekend family reunion at a ski resort. There’s plenty of family drama, lots of snow —and death. Ern is the sleuth who experiences, collects, and shares the story and relevant clues. (And then solves the murders at the end.) He also is a chatty guy. We definitely know what he is thinking. Because this book is essentially us reading all that he writes down to capture his thoughts as well as the facts. It’s almost stream of consciousness, but he’s still trying to put it in a clear, readable format to get it published. (He refers often to his editor and what they’ll say about what and how he’s writing.)
All of that said, though this novel is a fun twist on a standard murder mystery, with lots of humor and wry observations from our narrator, it’s still an excellent mystery book. It would work really well, with its requisite big reveals at the end, even without the added elements I’ve just described. There’s a lot going on, with plenty of layers in the plot, and it all comes together fantastically. It’s great entertainment and I’m looking forward to more!
Rated: High. Profanity includes 7 uses of strong language, about 35 instances of moderate profanity, about 40 uses of mild language, and about 15 instances of the name of Deity in vain. There are also several uses of British profanity (bl-). Violence is fairly frequent, either happening in the present or talked about from the past. It just occasionally gets moderately gory and/or detailed. There are no sex scenes, but the fact or possibility of someone having or having had sex is referenced a few times.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
