Review

DNF – I didn’t finish this book. I read about a quarter of it.

Ernest Cunningham is in a regional bank hoping to get a loan to set up a detective agency when he suddenly finds himself a hostage in a bank robbery. But one of the bank owners has gone awol with the password for the vault, so there’s more than one mystery to solve.

*

I’ve really enjoyed the other books in this series. Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone was a fun and refreshing take on the detective novel and #2, Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect was even better. Book #3, the Christmas novella Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret, wasn’t as good, but still fun and enjoyably short. (I get sleepy on Christmas afternoons.)

So, I like the writer, his style and the series. But I just could not get into this one. All the usual elements were there, but they just either seemed a little strained or lay exhausted on the page. A shame, but there you go. They can’t all be bangers.

Props as usual to the Penguin marketing team for their awesome line – “What if an Agatha Christie style murder mystery happened inside OCEAN’S ELEVEN…” – which absolutely made me want to read it.

But good readers quit books they’re not enjoying. So I quit and promptly read two much more enjoyable (for me) books in two days.

Content info: swearing, brief references to suicide, robbery, guns.

*

Stevenson, B. (2025). Everyone in this bank is a thief. Penguin.

Images are used on this blog post under the “Fair dealing for criticism or review” provision of the Commonwealth Copyright Act, 1968.

I read this novel for free thanks to a school library — support your school library by visiting & borrowing. It’s especially pleasing to have borrowed a book when you realise you don’t like it – at least you didn’t buy it!