Tag Archives: humorous

Amy Caudill’s Reviews : Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief

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Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson

Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief (Ernest Cunningham, #4) by Benjamin Stevenson (Goodreads Author)

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Amy Caudill‘s review

Aug 22, 2026

This fourth installment of the series by author Benjamin Stevenson has our intrepid detective in the most ridiculous scenarios yet as he becomes a hostage during a bank robbery. Ernest Cunningham wants to get a loan to open a detective agency with his fiancée Juliette. However, no bank will lend to him, because he has nearly died on every case to date!


This last chance offer from a desperate bank president is his incentive to take on a missing person case, which leads to the discovery of multiple robberies on the same day, by multiple suspects inside the bank during the staged “heist.” True to form, Ernest uses his expertise as a how-to-write-a-mystery writer to attempt to resolve issues that only get more complicated when the bank robber dies in front of him after muttering that “she” cannot leave the bank without dying.


Unsure who “she” is, Ernest is not willing to take a chance on anyone, especially Juliette, becoming a murder victim. So Ernest takes the bank robber’s costume, and assumes his identity, hoping to prevent the pending crime. In a caper that will include people being locked in a safe and in a bank vault, spontaneous combustion as a murder weapon, and various and sundry minor crimes, will Ernest live long enough to solve the mystery, or will this be his last case?


As always, author Stevenson presents his mystery with a humorous homage to “golden age detective stories,” i.e. Agatha Christie, etc. His stories, delivered in the first person from the point of view of the “detective” contain matter of fact details with promises of no hidden clues or unconventional plot twists, but still manage to intrigue readers with quirky characters and simply good storytelling.


The narrator successfully withheld to nearly the end his own fate, which gave the story a dramatic but still-within-the-rules finish. I have enjoyed this series very much and give this latest volume five stars.

Amy Caudill’s Reviews : Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone

Book Reviews, , ,

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone (Ernest Cunningham, #1) by Benjamin Stevenson (Goodreads Author)

Amy Caudill‘s review

Not your usual cozy murder mystery, this novel is actually a satire of so many of the typical tropes.  Let’s start with the narrator- Ernest Cunningham, an author of books on how to write books, currently on the outs with most of his family because he testified, honestly, in a murder trial against his own brother.

The extended clan has gathered in an isolated ski lodge for a family reunion, and to welcome the aforementioned brother home from his prison sentence.  Of course, no family reunion is ever perfect, but most do not include a  slew of murders, some of strangers and others familial, in a setting where the year’s biggest blizzard is underway and only one local cop is able to get through the weather?!

Ernest spends much of the book trying to reconcile with his brother, who gave him a large bag of money to hold for him before he went away, his mother who won’t speak to him because he testified, his estranged wife who has been seeing his brother in prison, and an assortment of other relatives who are not entirely what they appear.

When he’s not trying to improve his family relations, Ernest is talking to the fourth wall; the reader.  He tells us exactly which chapters contain a murder, in a completely  matter of fact way.  (I chose to not skip ahead and let myself be surprised.)   He let slips out exactly who has smoked their last cigarette, but not exactly why, until the very second he tells you, see I told you this was about to happen.  

Ernest’s tone, which is deeply honest, and a little depreciating, also contains just enough humor to keep the reader engaged, as if the reveal of twenty-five year old family mysteries, the appearance of a dead brother who is actually not dead but a famous serial killer and the details of a tortured romance are not enough to do the job.

I admit, I was tickled by just the premise of this book; because I love cozy mysteries I just couldn’t resist a spoof of the same.  This book actually does contain several mysteries wrapped up into one, with a lot of humor poking fun at the genre.  I think it’s very cleverly done and can’t wait to read more from author Benjamin Stevenson.  I give this book five stars.