"I’ve spent the last few years solving murders. But a bank heist is a new one, even for me. I’ve never been a hostage before. The doors are chained shut. No one in or out. Which means that when someone in the bank is murdered, everyone is a suspect.
The Bank Robber. The Manager. The Security Guard. The Kid. The Film Producer. The Priest. The Receptionist. The Patient. The Caregiver. Me.
Turns out, more than one person planned to rob the bank today. You can steal more from a bank than just money."
What Worked For Me:
This is the fourth installment in the Ernest Cunningham series and it was a great entry. If you liked any of the previous books in this series and Stevenson's style of storytelling where Ernest speaks directly to the reader, then you'll like this one too. I had a brief thought, before starting this read, that maybe the 'gimmick' of Ernest would start to get old going on 4 books. However, Stevenson did a really great job of using the heist setting to give a twist on the standard mystery format we've grown to love watching Ernest follow. It really walked that fine line of being familiar and hit every part of what I've come to expect from an Ernest Cunningham mystery but also new enough to not feel stale or overly formulaic.
The cast of characters in this are absolutely fantastic and I think we get a really good feel for everyone since they are trapped in such close quarters. Similar to the 2nd book in the series where they were all stuck on a train together, the tight location helps amplify interpersonal tensions and really adds another level of intrigue. The variety of characters also helped the mystery investigation because they all came from such different backgrounds and just happened to be in the bank at the right (or wrong) time.
The mystery investigation, as usual with these Cunningham mysteries, was great. I never actually sit down with pen and paper and try to solve the mystery first, but I did try to pay more attention and pause every so often to try and remember some of the different clues or conversations. There was one reveal where I immediately had the though of "oh, that must mean XYZ" and in the next sentence Ernest calls out that theory and immediately dismisses it which I chuckled at. I loved the actual reveal and how, once again, more things were connected than I was expecting which is always great in these mysteries.
What Didn't Work for Me:
There's one specific plot point of the book that I didn't quite buy, even though we get some on-page explanation of why that character made the choice they did. But it just felt a little too 'out-there' of a choice to make. I had a hard time suspending my disbelief for a moment but ended up just shrugging and continuing reading. It sort of felt like Stevenson wrote himself into a bit of a corner and this was the least-worst option of how to fix it. It didn't bother me enough to stop reading and I think the downstream impact of the decision was handled well but it still took me out of the book for a bit.
Overall, this was another great entry in the series and I'll continue to read as many of these as Stevenson would like to write.
Thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the ARC. Publication date was March 17, 2026
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