The Thursday Murder Club
Typically I am not very up to date with new books that are coming out. There are only a few authors/series that I will consume as soon as possible, and that list seems to dwindle as I age. There is nothing really to blame for this other than the madness that is the online book promo community. Every book release sees dozens on YT and TikTok videos claiming that they are the best books ever written in what is an obvious paid advertisement for the new millennium.
Most of my reading comes from recommendations from friends, or books that I come across whilst specifically looking for something. So back in the pandemic while I was embarking on my Plague Reading List, The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman was released along with a few sequels and I had no clue. Nor did I know of the hype that has surrounded these books until they were introduced to me. I was made aware in late 2023 by my good Aussie friend Tristan, a lover of British mysteries himself, and decided to add it to my list. I'd seen Mr. Osman on panel shows over the years and he always struck me as being exceptionally erudite and intelligent, so the idea that he was writing a mystery series intrigued me. It went on the list, it's a long list.
On February 3rd of this year I finally got to it. I read the first, The Thursday Murder Club in a day. The setup is a classic in the genre, that of the elderly investigator, but in this case there are four elderly investigators and I was immediately reminded of Jason Cordova's relatively recent RPG, Brindlewood Bay. In hindsight, it's obvious that TTMC was in Jason's mind when he wrote his game along with Miss Marple, Jessica Fletcher, and countless others.
The main setup is this, four elderly pensioners live in a luxury retirement community in Kent called Cooper's Chase and every Thursday they meet to discuss murders, going so far as to get police files on cold cases from the area to see if they can solve them. And then right in there midst an actual murder happens and these four retirees (Elizabeth Best, Ron Ritchie, Joyce Meadowcroft, and Ibrahim Arif) switch from cold cases to very hot ones.
Osman's plot in this book in very good, and the writing is top-notch. Truly the dynamic between the four main characters and how they develop over the course of the series is very satisfying and is almost as fun to watch as the solving of the murders.
Needless to say, I read the next book (The Man Who Died Twice) and then the third (The Bullet that Missed) and fourth (The Last Devil to Die) in quick succession. Each is as good as the last, if not better. Typically series will wax and wane for a myriad of reason,the author attempts to close and open new overarching plot points, his publisher rushed him, whatever. This isn't the case with TTMC and Mr. Osman. They are phenomenal and will likely live on as prime examples of the genre for all time.
So, if you are so inclined (and you are one of those that tends to ignore the newer releases for whatever reason like me) do yourself a favor and dive into this series, you won't be disappointed. Until you finish book four that is, and realize that book five won't be out until 2025. Mr. Osman is releasing a new series later this year, however, and that is another new book that I will be reading as soon as I can get a hold of it.