In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case.
Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.
Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it’s too late?
When celebrities start writing books it can often a feel a bit out of place, another thing they are trying their hand at because they have the connections. However Richard Osman seems to have found his calling here. As much as I enjoy watching his TV appearances and shows, I’d very much like it if he spent more time writing books.
The Thursday Murder Club was funny, touching, twisty, intriguing, full of red herrings and heart and simply put a proper delight to read. There were moments when I was laughing out loud and others where I had tears in my eyes.
Here is a great old fashioned style murder mystery that somehow manages to not be old fashioned at all. There are multiple suspects, multiple murders and a brilliant set up between the police and our gang of amateur detectives.
Where novels like this can fall down is in the set up of the relationship between the police service and the amateurs. Osman managed this brilliantly and I fully believed that Donna would have fallen under the spell of The Thursday Murder Club. She trod exactly the right line of not giving up too much sensitive information while working with our intrepid Club.
Setting the novel in a retirement home was a brilliant idea – it gave scope for all sorts of interesting ideas and for pensioners with personality and a ‘not give a damn’ attitude. I fell in love with every single one of them. The way we discovered more about each of them throughout the novel, their lives and loves and ambitions. What they still wanted from life. It was so nice to read a book where the main protagonists were in an older age group and not in a token way.
This is easily one of my favourite reads of the year so far and I very much hope we will get to visit the Thursday Murder Club again.
With thanks to Viking Books and Netgalley for a copy in exchange for honest review.
The Thursday Murder Club will be published 3 September 2020
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