Book Review: Five Found Dead by Sulari Gentill

I don’t think I know a writer doing smarter things with crime books at the moment than Sulari Gentill. Her crime ‘meta fiction’ titles are so mind-bending, and I am absolutely loving her clever takes on the genre. Sulari’s latest literary offering, Five Found Dead, gives us her spin on one of our most loved classic crime stories – Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (with nods also to other much-loved murder train novels like Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train). I’ve had the pleasure recently of not just reading Five Found Dead but also hearing Sulari speak about it at events – check out my thoughts below the publisher’s synopsis.

What is Sulari Gentill’s Five Found Dead about?

On a train, there are only so many places to hide…

Crime fiction author Joe Penvale has won the most brutal battle of his life. Now that he has finished his intense medical treatment, he and his twin sister, Meredith, are boarding the glorious Orient Express in Paris, hoping for some much-needed rest and rejuvenation. Meredith also hopes that the literary ghosts on the train will nudge Joe’s muse awake, and he’ll be inspired to write again. And he is; after their first evening spent getting to know some of their fellow travelers, Joe pulls out his laptop and opens a new document. Seems like this trip is just what the doctor ordered…

And then some. The next morning, Joe and Meredith are shocked to witness that the cabin next door has become a crime scene, bathed in blood but with no body in sight. The pair soon find themselves caught up in an Agatha Christie-esque murder investigation. Without any help from the authorities, and with the victim still not found, Joe and Meredith are asked to join a group of fellow passengers with law enforcement backgrounds to look into the mysterious disappearance of the man in Cabin 16G. But when the steward guarding the crime scene is murdered, it marks the beginning of a killing spree which leaves five found dead―and one still missing. Now Joe and Meredith must fight once again to preserve their newfound future and to catch a cunning killer before they reach the end of the line.

My review of Five Found Dead by Sulari Gentill

The locked room mystery of the murder on a train story is such a perfect and well-loved trope in literature that you might wonder how anyone could possibly tell it in a new way. Enter Sulari and protagonists Meredith and Joe Penvale with their meta-leaning trip on the Orient Express. I’m not even sure what to say to explain how clever I thought this was without giving spoilers! I loved the way that Sulari puts us up close with Joe – but not right into his mind – as we see his author-brain ticking through how he might tell the story unfolding around him, through his sister’s eyes. For me the result was a brilliant combination of almost a scientific dissection of the events with enough emotion and connection that I was still invested in how the story would unfold.

Again, it’s difficult to say too much, for risk of spoiling anything that it’s better for the reader to discover on their own journey with this one, but I think the way Sulari plays with the beats and details of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express was really fun to look at – you certainly don’t need to be familiar with Christie’s novel to enjoy this one, but I feel like knowing it added a bit more to the enjoyment of the story. I remain completely intrigued by the different angles Sulari Gentill is looking at crime fiction from – I loved this and can’t wait to see what she has in store for us next!

I want to give a quick plug here for the ANU Meet the Author series – these are free ‘in conversation’ events held regularly at the ANU. I’ve been to quite a few this year and every time I think about how lucky we are in Canberra to have access to events like this where we see incredible authors from across the country (and sometimes world) speaking about their work, often hosted in the conversation by our wonderful local writers. You can keep an eye on the schedule for upcoming sessions here.

xo Bron

***

Five Found Dead by Sulari Gentill
Out now from Ultimo Press (and Poisoned Pen Press in the US).
Source: I received an ecopy for review from Poisoned Pen Press via NetGalley, and purchased my own physical copy.

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