Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief (Ernest Cunningham #4)

A man and his fiancee walk into a bank … 

Is this the start to a corny joke? No. This is Ernest Cunningham finding himself smack in the middle of his biggest, most complicated mystery yet, which is saying something if you’ve followed the series!

Skip this plot summary if you don’t want spoilers:

Ernest and Juliette are at Huxley Bank to try to secure a loan to start a private detective business. While there, they - and eight others present in the bank - the owner, security guard, receptionist, a sick teen girl and her grandmother, a well-known teen gamer, a film producer, and a priest who’s taken a vow of silence are taken hostage by a fully masked and camouflaged thief who doesn’t seem very well-versed in robbery.

What begins with just ONE very unusual demand becomes a story of TEN heists and TEN suspects! Channeling his best Hercule Poirot, only with his own brand of blunt Aussie humor, Ernest goes to some extreme (and illegal, but who am I to judge?) efforts to narrow down the suspect pool.

The catch? You’ll have to read to find out where Ernest is when he finally puts the puzzle pieces of this case together, but let’s just say that he’ll certainly breathe easier when it’s solved!

My thoughts:

This was an immersion read following on my Kindle while listening to the amazing Barton Welch, who always shines as our intrepid sleuth, and I thought the mystery was so clever, even if very convoluted! There are a lot of characters and motives and a LOT of different crimes going on, so good luck armchair detecting this thing! I had one guess that was partially correct, but I wasn’t even close on the ultimate reveal. 

I’m not sure how Stevenson keeps all those moving parts straight, but he does a phenomenal job staying true to the Golden Age of Detectives rules of fair play, which Ernest reminds the reader of throughout by breaking the fourth wall. I love that! One of my favorite things about these books, though, are the scientific or historical explanations of story elements that I might not have known otherwise. I actually learned some really interesting things, which I won’t name due to spoilers, but trust me … they’re cool!

Though I’ve rated all the books in the series 4 stars either rounding up or down, I liked this one better than the last two. I’m not a huge locked mystery fan, but Ernest is the reason I keep coming back to this series. I can’t wait to see what he’s up to next!

★★★★

 

Thanks to Mariner Books, NetGalley and author Benjamin Stevenson for this digital ARC and to Harper Audio for the ALC to honestly review. This is out now.