English language
Published Nov. 8, 2022 by Penguin Publishing Group.
Bestseller Osman’s diverting third Thursday Murder Club mystery (after 2021’s The Man Who Lived Twice) delivers laughs along with a nicely woven plot involving fraud, murder, and life in the Kent retirement village of Coopers Chase. At the club’s regular meeting in the Jigsaw Room, the four members—Elizabeth, a retired but still well-connected British spy; Ibrahim, a well-meaning psychiatrist; Ron, a still-feisty activist for workers’ rights; and the unexpectedly shrewd Joyce, whose diary entries enliven the narrative—decide to tackle the cold case of Bethany Waites, a journalist for the local TV station whose wrecked car was found at the bottom of a cliff 10 years earlier. The police declared it a murder, surmising that Bethany’s body had been washed out to sea. The group’s investigation stirs up a hornet’s nest and leads to another death, a kidnapping, and blackmail. The pace is breezy, the characters are intelligent and varied in …
Bestseller Osman’s diverting third Thursday Murder Club mystery (after 2021’s The Man Who Lived Twice) delivers laughs along with a nicely woven plot involving fraud, murder, and life in the Kent retirement village of Coopers Chase. At the club’s regular meeting in the Jigsaw Room, the four members—Elizabeth, a retired but still well-connected British spy; Ibrahim, a well-meaning psychiatrist; Ron, a still-feisty activist for workers’ rights; and the unexpectedly shrewd Joyce, whose diary entries enliven the narrative—decide to tackle the cold case of Bethany Waites, a journalist for the local TV station whose wrecked car was found at the bottom of a cliff 10 years earlier. The police declared it a murder, surmising that Bethany’s body had been washed out to sea. The group’s investigation stirs up a hornet’s nest and leads to another death, a kidnapping, and blackmail. The pace is breezy, the characters are intelligent and varied in their interests and backgrounds, and the humor is often pitched to readers who understand the vagaries of getting older. Osman reliably entertains. Agent: Jenny Bent, Bent Agency. (Sept.)
This one took a little longer to get going than the previous volume, but all the pieces were lined up to fall neatly into place at the end.
An absolute delight from start to finish. I want to be best friends with all the members of the Thursday Murder Club.
Content warning aging characters
I did not read the large print version, pictured here--I picked this one to link to because the cover is correct and only saw the badge after I'd started writing (obviously I need large print lol?). I read on Kindle so I can make it as big as I like without having to carry around a heavy book.
But I digress.
This one is as delightful as the first two, and I hate like heck that it will be September of '23 before we get another. As a 70-year-old woman, I love reading about mature characters with active minds and interesting lives. We are so often stereotyped, invisible, or--worse--actively dying in popular fiction. It's a bit sad, though, so I wouldn't advise reading it if your head is not in a good place on the whole subject of aging.
Fun, but with some sad bits.
Caution: book discusses old age, senility, mortality, loss of loved ones, so if you are going through something right now, feeling sensitive on the subject of loosing an elder in your life, perhaps put off this read until you are feeling a bit steadier.
Ok, to the review:
Bizzare, tender, funny, melancholy by turns, the Thursday Murder club is a delight. A septugenarian murder club investigates crime with macabre cheer and shamelessly takes advantage of people's assumptions about the elderly. Written from a variety of perspectives and in different styles, the story stays fresh and keeps the reader entertained as we follow along in the battle against murder, ambition, and new-fangled technology.
