When the Australian Mystery Writers' Society invites Ernest Cunningham to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, he is hoping for some inspiration for his second book. Fiction, this time: he needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn't pan out. But when one of the authors is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, they should know how to solve a crime. Of course, they should also know how to commit one. How can one find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?