Jessica Woodbury's Reviews > Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone

2.5 stars. I am not opposed to a meta mystery, a clever winking story that nods to all the tropes of the genre. I was willing to give this a try, even though it seemed to be a bit too clever. Ultimately it didn't work for me at all, there are only so many times a narrator can withhold details from you before you start to feel jerked around and in this book it happens about a third of the way through.

Besides being too clever for its own good, the thing that really kills this book is its devotion to golden age murder mystery rules while not being in even the same universe as a golden age murder mystery. Yes, it has some of the structural trappings, but they never feel real. For example, the setting at a snowed-in ski resort is filled with other people, and even though it's suggested several times that no one can leave because of a big storm, everyone else manages to conveniently leave with relative ease. Details like this occur over and over again.

There were many things I thought didn't make any sense at all. I attributed them to the author. A lack of research, perhaps, not paying enough attention to detail. But then in the third act all these details that don't make sense are given not-very-tidy explanations, which once again only irked me. The author seemed to think these had passed unnoticed and was displaying for them now as essential clues. In fact I had noticed every single one and they just felt like lazy writing because otherwise they didn't make any sense. Much of this does not make any sense. And the third act reveals only make it more nonsensical.

A lot of golden age murders are rather nonsensical. But it has been a hundred years or so since then. This book clearly knows all of that, but it's far too elaborate to be enjoyable. At least for me.

I suspect a lot of people will like this a lot. I am often a naysayer in books like this. (I also deeply dislike the Anthony Horowitz series and the Richard Osman series that feel somewhat related to this in tone and style.) If you liked those, you will probably like this. But if you didn't like those, you won't like this, either.