The Thursday Murder Club: A Novel

The Thursday Murder Club is set in a seniors community and features a cast of likable pensioners as detectives. They originally get together as a club to look into cold cases but shift into high gear when an actual murder occurs nearby. The author maintains the suspense with lots of red herrings, plots and suspects. I was engaged in the mystery until the very end. The book has laugh out loud funny moments as the club needs to catch up on current technology (ex: a Fitbit used to identify time of death and various texting abbreviations) and cope with the indignities of old age. They are also positively joyous about the occurrence of a crime to investigate. It also includes some very poignant scenes as the club members, all in their twilight years, worry about potential cognitive loss and cope with the loss of friends and partners. Osman richly develops the characters. He's created an impressive heroine in Elizabeth, a former intelligence operative with a wide network of useful connections and who is always a step ahead of everyone else. There are morally ambiguous and sympathetic supporting characters whose motivations are understandable. The local detectives are likable, well meaning and smart - even if they are always a step behind the crew of seniors.

Fun read, well-crafted mystery; the writing has some beautiful moments, and the respect and love for the elderly protagonists are unique and inspiring. The ending unveiled some clues and tidbits that weren't apparent until that moment, which is the only thing that kept me from giving a perfect score. Also, I didn't get the emotional catharsis that I'd hoped for - maybe that was me? Highly recommend as a read for those who love character-driven mysteries!

The dialog of the characters stuck me first as the most charming and entertaining I have as yet been able to find in any novel I have ever read. The writing itself is so good, and the characters are extremely well defined. I didn't want the story to end. It was just that good! I am a huge Agatha Christie fan, so my mysteries are usually of the cozy style. The Richard Osman style is similar but different at the same time. I absolutely LOVED his style of writing. So many times I laughed out loud while his four main characters and his two detectives spoke. I believe Mr Osman must have a really great sense of humor. I do, though, have one very little negative comment, but probably more my fault than Mr Islam fault. There were a few too many suspects than my brain could handle. Some of Agatha Christie's books began with a list of characters along with their parts in the story which is what I really would have liked to have for The Thursday Murder Club. But other than that, I thought this was a perfect read and have told many other murder mystery lovers about this book. It really is a MUST READ!!!

I have to agree with other reviewers about this book. The quirky characters are the best part and whole concept to hook a reader in-a group of retirees who like to investigate cold case murders and try to solve them...until an actual murder takes place at their retirement home community. I had high hopes for this book as this is not a genre I read very often, I prefer historical fiction. So, I probably won't be reading the other books in this series. If not for my bookclub, I would never have picked this up and that's just what "The Thursday Murder Club" is-a bookclub-type of read. "Well, let's start with Elizabeth, shall we?" any good writer worth their salt knows the first line of your novel is critical. This is how you pull in your reader and keep them hooked. This is one of the best opening lines I've come across in a long time, unfortunately by the time I got to the end and the murder was solved, I was still confused over who had actually "dunnit" (kinda important if you're writing a whodunnit novel!) and not really caring what the motive of the killer was. Neither were ever fully explained. Elizabeth is the unofficial leader of this motley crew of septuagenarians who like to meet every Thursday to discuss cold case murders thanks to one of Elizabeth's friends who used to work as a police officer here in England, where this story takes place. The opening line is being told from the point of view of Joyce and it might have been nice if our author had picked just one or maybe two or three but no more POVs to use in telling the story because every chapter (some were only a page or two long) jumped from one character's head to another. Other reviewers have commented on how distracting this was. I agree. Then there were the dead bodies that kept popping up left and right. We also interrupt this plot many times so one of the characters can tell a story and info dump about one of the dead bodies the Murder Club keeps discovering: the tragic love story of a priest and a nun, a young man murdered just because he knew too much, one of Joyce's male friends here at the retirement community who just couldn't go on without his beloved wife who passed away several years ago. All of these stories are supposed to trick the reader into thinking, "NOW the killer can finally be revealed!" Wrong. The story keeps going until the very end, a very anticlimactic reveal of the actual killer. Then everyone went home. The End I don't think I gave away anything important back there but I do recommend reading this book. It really was an entertaining and enjoyable read. There is very little swearing (gotta love the British and their cuss words vs American!) no graphic descriptions of any of the murders that occur. It is easy to root for Joyce and Elizabeth, their two male friends who make up the club and the two British police officers doing their best to investigate the murders while the Club keeps breathing down their necks but do we have to hear the story from every single one of them, every other chapter? A great pick for your bookclub but that's about it.

I didn’t expect this murder mystery to make me laugh, lift my mood, and keep me reading until the early hours, but it did. The subject of the novel is a murder club that solves a murder involving their retirement community. Cooper’s Chase is a British retirement village that hosts many clubs within their communal meeting rooms. The Thursday Murder Club is a group of pensioners who get together to discuss cold murder cases. Each of the club members has a distinct personality and specialty. There’s Elizabeth, who keeps what she used to do private but organizes with military precision. Penny, a co-founder of the Club, has just been moved to a nursing home, which has left an opening. Newcomer Joyce, filling the space, is a former nurse. She’s useful in determining which knife wounds would be fatal and how long it would take for a person to bleed out from such injuries. She can also make a mean lemon drizzle cake and is looking for male companionship. Ibrahim is a psychiatrist, and Ron, a former labor organizer. The Club investigates a murder that hits close to home when a local builder, Tony Curran, is found dead from a blunt force injury to the back of his head. Besides being a legitimate builder, Tony has been involved in running drug operations on the side. He was a rough character who had many unsavory connections. He was partners with Ian Ventham, the developer who built Cooper’s Chase. They were planning to expand the retirement community, which would involve removing an old convent graveyard and a peaceful gathering spot for quiet contemplation. The Cooper’s Chase community was adamantly opposed to the destruction of their private place. Tony’s murder has plenty of suspects from those opposed to his building to others in the drug world. Ian was also planning to cut Tony out of the development plans, making him a suspect too. Police Constable Donna De Freitas is called to work the investigation with Chief Inspector Chris Hudson. For De Freitas, a liaison officer working on a murder investigation is a huge step. Formerly holding meetings with Cooper’s Chase on safety topics, she is thought to have the community’s trust. Unknown to her, while extracting information about Tony’s murder from residents, the Murder Club is busily mining information from her. Chief Inspector Hudson has no idea that the Murder Club has launched their own parallel investigation. The murder mystery is a complicated one, giving the reader lots of false leads. What makes the book so much fun to read are the uncommonly wise and hysterically funny characters. My favorite scene is when De Freitas is sitting in the squad room as Hudson hands out assignments. She gets a text message from the Murder Club to tell her they are on their way to interview a suspect. The ending contains more than a few surprises. I hope Richard Osman continues to write about these people. Whether you’re a murder mystery fan or not, you’ll love the sharp dialogue and delightful personalities.

Richard Osman’s THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB, the first in The Thursday Murder Club series, centers around four elderly residents of a fashionable retirement center who meet on Thursdays to solve unsolved murders. A founding member, Penny Gray, who was a retired police inspector, brought files on unsolved murders for the foursome to study. Poor Penny is now in a coma. Her replacement in the group, Joyce (who shares her diary entries with readers) was a nurse. The unofficial leader of the group is Elizabeth, who has a knack of acquiring information by calling in favors people owe her. Ibraham and Ron are the two men in the group. After an actual murder occurs, the group jumps in to solve it. The police are involved, too, of course (I like Donna De Freitas), and they do an admirable job; but as you probably can guess, they are no match for (drum roll) THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB. Being an acute observer of human behavior myself, I easily fingered the murderer even before the actual murder. To my chagrin, the obvious murderer instead became the first victim. (In the story we learn of three or four murders and two suicides, some fifty years apart.) Reviewers call the book “clever” and “laugh out loud funny.” I personally enjoy clever, but don’t like silly (Monty Python excepted). I found some parts clever, but too many silly in the first half of the book. The only time I laughed out loud was when I said to myself, “You paid good money for this?” To be fair, I have long heard the English idea of laughing out loud is to say “Jolly good show.” But wait – That sounds too critical. Here’s the deal: Early on there are many parallel storylines. The chapters are very short and they hop around the various storylines. I could not latch onto any characters or care about all the plots for the first 200 pages. I definitely didn’t laugh out loud (though I did say Good Show a few times). Many of the side stories came into focus around page 200, and I understood the characters better. About that time, the plot thickened, as mystery writers like to say, and before I knew it, I was enjoying the book. The Oddest thing: As I read the final 150 pages, I’d recall snippets from the first 200 pages and suddenly they seemed more relevant than when I initially read them. I even thought of reading the first 200 pages again to see if they made more sense now that I knew the whole story (but then the Super Bowl started). The author, Richard Osman, is better known in England for creating, writing and sometimes appearing in TV shows. In the U.S., you might be familiar with two of his shows - Suvivor and Deal or No Deal. (Neither of which, I regret, I’ve ever seen.) My rating: 4 stars. It might be 5 stars except for the offputting first 200 pages.

I wrote a lovely review of this series after reading the first four published books about the Thursday Mystery Club and was in the midst of an old lady's fizzy Thursday afternoon when my son in law didn't pick up my granddaughter from school, and as she is an only child of an only child, the heaven rained fire and brimstone of magnificent proportions, and i, on my royal throne in the bathroom, lost my review, my stellar review, and will have to settle for 1) some prosaic quality gallery yatta yatta blah and throwing it in front of the first book so that it may sway other dear readers to buying and of course, reading the series. PLEASE BUY AND READ THIS SERIES SO I DON'T LOOK A TOTAL SCREAMING OLD LADY ASS EVEN THOUGH I PROBABLY AM and certainly will!! These books are terrific arcane purplely prosedly poetically joyous English mysteries that defy all categories except good, fun, intense, and where have you been all my life, Richard Osman. Well, of course, he has spent much of it not being, as I am old and he is young. Then wasting his time in school, growing up, and all those Q silly things people are inclined to do, when free to go about their own business or obedient to parental authority. That simply doesn't matter. He is here; he is now and these books are just too good not to be inhaled by my fellow mystery community in vast dosages, down to the cups, t-shirts, and home tours. I haven't been this tiresome since the Beatles when I was 13, and now I'm exhausted and in desperate need of Tea. Any suggestions? Meanwhile, for the sake of all that's holy. For the Agathas: Raisin and Christie and all the rest of the saints, for some reason seem to be female: there are beautiful men mystery writers you know. . .

This novel is well written, amusing, and has excellent character development. I highly recommend it to lovers of British mysteries.

There is a good mix of mistery solving and daily strugles of our elders. Definitely a light read and a page à page turner

Excellent condition! I don't know whether there's an American spelling edition or not but I was looking for the British one and I got it :) very happy! Purchased from South Mexico.

A great read.

If you love who dunning with some twits and turns, this is for you. Loved it

What a treat this book has been! The Thursday Murder Club has filled a Famous Five-shaped void in my adult life that I hadn’t realised was there. Okay, so there are only four members of this amateur crime-busting cabal … no dog (yet!) … and the ginger ale has been replaced by pricey bottles of Malbec … and the bones may be creakier than my beloved childhood gang, but the derring do, the charm, the well-meaning bickering, and the fabulous ability to outsmart the rozzers are all heartily present. In a nutshell, The Thursday Murder Club has the potential to be the single most influential piece of marketing the (luxury) retirement village sector has ever seen. It vividly creates a setting of quintessential countryside chic, with rolling hills, farm shops, small stone bridges over a meandering river … and introduces an unexpected abundance of lamas … but generally very lovely. And the retirement village itself - Coopers Chase - boasts an array of activities and outings and gatherings to rival any Club 18-30, albeit of a more age-appropriate gentility … … Apart from the Thursday Murder Club, that is. It’s something of a covert black-ops group masquerading as a Japanese Opera Discussion Group to deter nosy parkers, and those who lack the constitution for the grisly and graphic cold-case murder scene and autopsy photographs. Founded by retired police detective, Penny, and glamorous spook, Elizabeth, the group of four gather each week to scrutinise the files of unsolved murders that Penny diligently ‘liberated’ in the run up to her retirement. Sadly, when we join the Club one they’re member down, Penny; lost to the advanced stages of dementia and now bed-bound in Willows; the village’s nursing home. As Elizabeth’s old friend, it’s her visits and her one-sided monologues that drive home the inescapable and rather poignant moments of the book. Because, whilst The Thursday Murder Club is a witty and chuckle-a-minute murder mystery, it’s also a compassionate window into the future, with the young-at-heart characters coming to terms with failing health, voluminous prescriptions, widowhood, and one or two regrets. But, exactly because this is a witty novel, these slightly scary truths are portrayed with just the right amount of light-hearted teasing, before romping off to solve the next puzzle. The club has always been a group of four, so Elizabeth wastes little time in enlisting Joyce; retired nurse, chatterbox, demon cake-baker, and with a countenance that people frequently underestimate. It’s Joyce’s fabulous, no-holds-barred diary that makes up a large chunk of this book, giving voice to a character that ripples with idiosyncratic quirks, unflinching observations, and the charming but casually caustic critique that only the older generation can get away with. Her chapters felt like settling down with long-missed grandparents and listening with relish whilst they viciously demolish whoever’s rankled them that day. The vernacular and colloquialisms are so pitch-perfect it took a Herculean effort to remind myself these words are really spilling from Richard Osman’s ‘pen’ and not really from Joyce’s. Ron and Ibrahim complete the Club; two chalk-and-cheese characters. Ron is a retired and very notorious trade union leader; a tattooed and rather shouty West Ham supporter whose cringingly outspoken and argumentative nature is generously explained away as ‘well, that’s Ron’. Heart of gold … salt of the earth … bull in a china shop … and surreptitiously endearing. Ibrahim, meanwhile, is neat, precise, immaculately dressed, and with a Gatsby-esque poise and politeness that won my heart immediately. In his hey day he was a psychiatrist … perhaps Elizabeth saw in him someone who could extract truths from unwitting suspects during their armchair investigations. Left to her own devices, I have no doubt that she has a painfully effective set of skills to deploy on more reluctant individuals. Batting for the youth team are PC Donna De Freitas - a cracking character who brings a sardonic wit and hint of jaded-London cool to the rolling Kent countryside - and her boss, DCI Chris Hudson who’s not quite braced for the ambitious and sharp-tongued whirlwind that’s just joined his team. On paper, they really shouldn’t gel as well as they do … but they do, and oh so well. Nor should they forge quite such a super relationship with the subversive Murder Club crew … but the chemistry is first-rate, giving rise to sparks and clashes that elicit so many laughs. It doesn’t take long for the Murder Club’s investigations to progress from the theoretical to the practical, with the first murder implicating the owner of their retirement village. The undisguised glee amongst the plucky foursome had me laughing out loud, and when the second murder takes place even closer to home the mood escalates from giddy excitement to down-right celebratory. The victims and the suspects are as colourfully characterised as Joyce and co, and although they’re an eclectic mix of the odious and the unlucky I found myself enjoying getting to know them every bit as much as I did the good-guys. None of them are quite prepared for the determined snooping of four unassuming pensioners, whose remarkable discoveries create headaches of their own for DCI Hudson as he struggles to keep up with their underhand fact-finding. Don’t underestimate the cosy nature of The Thursday Murder Club … the main characters may be elderly, the setting may be genteel, and the humour may catch you off guard … but this is a murder mystery of the most entertaining kind, with an unpredictable plot, and a large cast giving the puzzle plenty of capacity to twist and mislead. Whilst, at first, the murder seems to be quite obvious, take a moment to remind yourself of the enormity of the mind that’s created and authored this story. I can honestly say this has been the most enjoyable read … and I want more.