Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

The basics

Title: Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

Author: Benjamin Stevenson

Series: Ernest Cunningham #1

1. Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (2022)
2. Everyone on This Train is a Suspect (2023)
3. Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret (2024)

Add it: Goodreads

Goodreads Summary:

Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate.

I'm Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I'd killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it's a little more complicated than that.

Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.

Here is a spoiler summary of what happened in Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson to help refresh your memory before you read the sequel. If you need help remembering what happened in Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone then you’re in the right place.

What happened in Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone?

• Ernie receives a phone call from his brother Michael in the middle of the night. Michael shows up at Ernie’s house and tells his brother that he has a body in the boot of his car. Ernie tries to process the information while Michael elaborates. He says he hit the man with his car, but also that the man was shot before Michael hit him.
• Ernie hops into the car to help Michael. He finds a bag full of bank notes amounting to a quarter of a million dollars.
• Michael drives Ernie and the body to a forest, where he starts digging a grave for the body.
• Ernie sees the body move and tries to resuscitate the man. Unfortunately the man dies.
• Three years later, there’s a family reunion at a snowy mountain retreat. Ernie arrives late and catches up with his aunt Katherine, uncle Andy, and stepsister Sofia.
• The family are eating in the dining room and not having a particularly good time. The family don’t seem to get along very well, although the in-laws try to cheer everyone up a bit.
• Ernie recalls the trial that his mother stormed out of.
• We learn that the family have gathered because Michael is getting out of prison that day. 
• Ernie recalls his father’s funeral.
• Marcelo, his new step dad, was his father’s attorney. He started dating Ernie’s mother after the funeral. Marcelo was also Michael’s attorney, and he helped Michael get a short sentence. 
• Sofia and Ernie talk at his chalet.
• Marcelo calls to tell Ernie that his mother isn’t feeling well so won’t be attending dinner.
• Ernie has a nap, and Sofia wakes him up to ask whether he has brought the money with him.
• Ernie recalls Michael telling him to keep the quarter of a million dollars so the police wouldn’t take it. Ernie took the money and then phoned the police to report the Michael.
• Ernie plans to return the money to Michael. Sofia wonders whether Michael will ask Ernie about it, and Ernie reveals that he has spent a little of it. 
• Sofia asks for fifty grand but won’t say why she needs it.
• The phone rings and it seems to be a call from Room 2. Sofia leaves and Ernie returns the call, and finds that it’s the chalet that Sofia is staying in.
• The next morning, Ernie wakes up to find a body in the snow. The police are already there. The police ask if there’s a doctor present, and Sofia examines the body and declares the man deceased. Sofia, Andy, and Ernie help the policeman carry the body to a maintenance shed.
• The policeman suggests the dead person could be a skier from the resort or another close by. He thinks the man could have died of frostbite.
• Sofia tells Ernie the man definitely didn’t die of frostbite. The body was covered in ash so he likely died in a fire.
• The body is a hot topic of conversation at breakfast. Sofia mentions a serial killer who has a similar tell. Lucy wants to leave but Katherine wants the reunion to continue for Michael.
• Ernie learns that Sofia’s medical license has been suspended after a patient died in surgery. Sofia is being investigated and sued.
• Ernie reveals that his father was a criminal who shot a police officer when he was trying to rob a petrol station. 
• Ernie tries to get cell phone signal on the roof. He bumps into Lucy and apologises for all the arguing. Lucy is concerned that Michael is the dead man, but that’s not the case.
• Lucy looked up the name of a serial killer that Sofia mentioned at breakfast. She tells Ernie about him.
• Michael finally arrives in a massive truck that he somehow got up the mountain. Michael seems alright, really. He asks Ernie for a drink.
• Erin, Ernie’s wife, drove up the mountain with Michael. We learn that she and Michael are together.
• Erin seems to be after the money as well.
• Marcelo fills Michael and Erin in on the dead body drama. Officer Crawford comes along and arrests Michael, even though he was driving up the mountain from prison at the time the person presumably died.
• Audrey accuses the policeman of prejudice. The officer reveals that Michael was released from prison the previous day. Michael agrees to cooperate. He declares Ernie his attorney.
• Ernie confirms to the reader that he doesn’t have a law degree.
• Ernie argues with Audrey about Michael. They at least agree that Michael isn’t responsible for the man’s death this time.
• Ernie and Sofia drink at the bar. He asks why she needs the money. He suggests that she killed the man on the mountain because he was after the money as well. Sofia denies all of this, of course.
• Juliette, the owner of the resort, shows Ernie footage from the previous night. She noticed a parked car showed up, which could be the dead man’s. Ernie notices that Marcelo leaves around the time he told Ernie that he and Audrey wouldn’t be going to dinner.
• Juliette confirms all the guests are accounted for. She has also sent for the police sergeant, but there’s a storm on the way so they will probably struggle to make it up the mountain.
• Ernie asks who initially discovered the body, and because Juliette doesn’t know, Ernie thinks it was the killer.
• Ernie mentions that he has another brother called Jeremy.
• Ernie speaks to Crawford and tells him about the CCTV footage. 
• Ernie goes to speak to Michael, who has been put in a changing room.
• Michael briefly mentions Jeremy and the fact that they were all in foster care at one point. Jeremy seems to have died because there was a funeral for him.
• Michael admits that he did kill the man in the boot, Alan Holton. Michael says he trusts Ernie. 
• Ernie and Michael discuss the money and Michael insists that it was theirs. Michael admits that he knew their father knew Holton, who used to be a policeman before he turned to crime. Holton apparently asked to meet Michael because he had something he wanted to sell him.
• Michael says that the policeman their father shot was Holton’s partner. He says their father was involved with a criminal group, and turned some of his colleagues in.
• Michael says he killed Holton after finding out he killed his father.
• Michael gives Ernie the keys to the van.
• Ernie recalls his mother going to work at the bank when he and his brothers were younger. There was a robbery, and Audrey managed to shoot the robber. He didn’t die though. That morning, Audrey had left the boys in the car in the heat, and Jeremy died.
• Sofia and Ernie look in the shed. Erin is already inside. Sofia takes a look at the body and says it looks like the man was suffocated.
• Officer Crawford interrupts.
• Ernie looks inside the van and finds a casket belonging to Alan Holton’s partner. He opens it and finds two corpses inside – presumably the policeman, and also a child.
• The van starts to roll because the parking brake isn’t on. Ernie tries to get out but his hand gets trapped. The van rolls onto a frozen lake. As it sinks, Ernie is able to free his hand and swim out.
• Ernie passes out. He wakes up and finds Marcelo there. He asks Marcelo about his father, Robert. Marcelo says Robert was working undercover for the police, and possibly witnessed a murder. Ernie thinks this is related to the corpse of the child.
• Marcelo reveals there was some kind of ransom involving a little girl called Rebecca, but it went wrong. Ernie thinks this is what Alan Holton was trying to sell to Michael – info on his father.
• Ernie recalls finding Erin’s letter containing her fertility results, and also an empty packet of birth control pills. 
• Michael is found dead with his hands bound. Ernie notices that the air smells of ash. Sofia says he died of suffocation.
• Lucy accuses Erin and Ernie, but Audrey points out that Lucy padlocked Michael in there.
• Audrey questions Crawford’s decision making, as he was supposed to be guarding the room. Crawford says he had left briefly, and the room was unlocked because he was about to move Michael to another room.
• Ernie asks Katherine for painkillers, and she gives him just one pill.
• Erin stays at Ernie’s chalet so she’s not alone. They discuss the casket. Erin thought there were diamonds or something equally valuable inside. Erin thinks Michael wanted to inspect the serial numbers on the bills. 
• Erin admits that she killed her mother. It turns out her mother died giving birth to Erin. This is why Erin didn’t want children.
• Ernie inspects the money but can’t see anything wrong with it.
• Ernie breaks into Marcelo’s car to steal the GPS device.
• Lucy goes missing. Everyone goes looking in the sheds but can’t find her. They end up at a lodge on the other side of the mountain. There’s a party happening. Gavin shares the guest list and Ernie discovers there’s a couple named McAuley staying on the mountain – the same surname as Rebecca, the dead child.
• Ernie meets the McAuleys. They think Ernie is after money from them in exchange for Rebecca’s body. This seems to be Michael’s plan – to transfer money from the McAuleys to Holton.
• Ernie tells them Michael is dead. The McAuleys say he had promised them information on their daughter’s murderer. Apparently the detective handling the case was Detective Humphreys, Robert’s handler. Humphreys was murdered by the Black Tongue serial killer.
• Ernie tells them where Rebecca’s body is. They tell him Audrey visited them.
• Juliette admits that Gavin is trying to buy the resort from her.
• Lucy’s body is discovered. It seems like she jumped from the roof.
• Audrey refuses to leave the resort when Juliette tries to make everyone leave.
• Audrey admits that Robert had photos that would implicate Rebecca’s murderer. She doesn’t know where the photos are. She says the bank robbers were actually after those photos. They kidnapped Jeremy – he didn’t die in the heat after all.
• Ernie gets everyone together to explain what the hell is going on.
• Marcelo admits to being Gavin’s investor to help him buy Juliette’s resort. Ernie accuses him of pulling up the hand brake and letting the van roll into the lake to protect Michael. Marcelo admits he did make the van roll, but he didn’t know Ernie was in there.
• Katherine admits to trying to call Andy (and accidentally calling Ernie’s chalet) so she could avoid the cameras in order to steal Sofia’s pills.
• Sofia admits that she stole Marcelo’s Rolex watch, and needs 50k to pay off some debt.
• Ernie explains that the watch contained a microdot that’s only readable with a magnifying glass (like the loupe that Michael had). Ernie thinks Sofia sold the watch to Holton’s shop, and Holton realised that it was originally Robert’s watch. 
• Michael planned to sell the watch containing the information and Rebecca’s body to the McAuleys. Audrey says she knew of this.
• Ernie thinks Lucy did jump from the roof, but she was trying to escape the killer. She recognised the man’s body as a policeman, as he gave her a speeding ticket on the way up the mountain.
• Ernie announces that Officer Crawford is his brother Jeremy. Jeremy killed Crawford and stole his identity.
• Ernie thinks that when Jeremy was kidnapped from the car, Holton gave him to a foster family – the Williams. These people were killed by the Black Tongue Killer – aka Jeremy.
• Jeremy wrote to Michael when he discovered his true identity. Michael thought it was fake. Jeremy contacted Lucy to try to reunite with his family.
• Jeremy grabs a poker and sets the room on fire. He tries to escape out the window, but Katherine and Andy stop him.
• Jeremy approaches Ernie and they talk before Jeremy stops breathing.
• Ernie uses some of the ransom money to pay for Lucy’s funeral.
• Ernie uses his phone’s camera to read whatever Michael wrote on his bingo card – which turns out to be the location of the photographs that incriminate Rebecca’s killer. It turns out that her murderer was her father, Edgar McAuley. Ernie informs the police.

That’s what happened in Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone! Check out our recap list for more recaps. If you can’t find what you need, you can request a recap from us!