Book Review with Spoilers | Lethal Bayou Beauty by Jana DeLeon
February 10, 2024
Random Musings on a Monday
February 12, 2024
Everyone on This Train is a Suspect
Book Publishing Date: October 2023
My Rating:
For fans of Richard Osman and Anthony Horowitz, a fiendishly fun locked room murder mystery from the author of the indie darling Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone —this time set on a train full of mystery writers, agents, editors, and fans.
Ernest Cunningham returns in a deliciously witty locked room (train) mystery.
When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.
The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:
- the debut writer (me!)
- the forensic science writer
- the blockbuster writer
- the legal thriller writer
- the literary writer
- the psychological suspense writer
But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.
Of course, we should also know how to commit one.
How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?
Trigger Warnings:
Major (large part of the plot): Murder
Minor (small mentions): Death of children, death of partner, car accident
Characters
- the debut writer – Ernest
- the forensic science writer – Alan Royce
- the blockbuster writer – Henry McTavish
- the legal thriller writer – Lisa Fulton
- the literary writer – Wolfang
- the psychological suspense writer – SF Majors
- Brooke – a super fan of McTavish
- The book club ladies
- Juliette – Ernast’s girlfriend
- Simone – Ernest’s agent
- Wyatt Lloyd – Henry’s publisher
- Jasper and Harriet Murdoch – attendee of the conference
- Douglas – attendee of the conference
My Review
I think this one was better than the first book. The first-person narrator’s insertion of commentary throughout the story was entertaining.
The “twist” at the end was unexpected. While it did take me some time to fully get into the book (like.. months), once I passed the halfway mark, I found myself unable to put it down.
I appreciated the author’s commitment to the “fair play mystery” genre, as the narrator proved to be reliable, making the resolution satisfying and believable. The tally of the murderer’s name mentions, added an interactive element that I found clever and enjoyable.
Although I read the previous book, “Everyone is My Family has Killed Someone,” I believe this novel stands well on its own, making it accessible to new readers. However, I would advise double-checking the trigger warnings, as some sensitive topics are subtly woven into the narrative.
This book is a gripping closed-door mystery that kept me guessing until the very end, and I highly recommend it to fans of the genre.
Thanks NetGalley for the eARC.
Spoilers/Summary
Simone was the one who went onto Goodreads and posted all of the reviews – she did it in an order that spelled out GHOST. She knew that he liked to do puzzles and would take it seriously that she would spill he had a ghostwriter.
Lisa Fulton was raped by McTavish and ended up pregnant. Her daughter is Brooke. McTavish and Wyatt decided to hurt her more with the blurb on her book. Lisa ended up with an NDA and a little bit of money to not go public with it since the DNA was tampered with and excluded. Turns out that Alan Royce had tampered with it to get his book published by Wyatt.
Wolfgang used AI to write an entire romance book under a different name and sell it to Wyatt without him knowing.
SF Majors had her plot stolen from her the same night that McTavish raped Lisa. It was a true story of a bus driver that had taken advantage of a student. He was going to get in trouble because a teacher found out, so he parked on the train tracks and was hit and killed 4 kids and the teacher and himself. Lisa’s best friend was one of the kids on the bus. Lisa was supposed to be on the bus but was sick that day.
Douglas’s partner was the teacher that died in the crash. He thought that McTavish was somehow the bus driver that didn’t die.. he came to the train to get revenge.
Jasper was the ghost writer for McTavish. He was happy writing under his name as long as his stories got out, however, he wanted to post literary fiction. Harriet was the one responsible for the deaths. She killed McTavish because she was so angry he didn’t even know who was ghost writing for him. She used opium poppies in his tea. She ended up killing Wyatt when she went to talk to him about the general fiction book that Jasper had written. Wyatt realized it would be worth more now that McTavish was dead so signed the manuscript as McTavish so Harriet stabbed him.
Jasper sacrificed himself to try to bring Harriet down off the top of the train, which killed him immediately. It turns out it didn’t kill Harriet so she tried to kill Ernest later on in his hotel room. Luckily Juliette got there just in time and saved him. Juliette accepted his proposal and also wrote the epilogue in his book.