Review #4: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Source: Penguin Random House
Rating this one 7/10 for hilarious characters, some wonderful wisdom about aging sprinkled throughout, and an entertaining murder mystery. The Thursday Murder Club is a group of quirky retired men and women who try to solve unsolved mysteries from the comfort of their retirement community in the countryside. Then a wealthy real estate developer turns up dead and the quirky Thursday Murder Club meddles. They get themselves involved in places they shouldn’t be. They work (or interfere) alongside the police to solve the mystery as additional bodies start to pop up. It is a British novel and it is super British. I will say that as an American, some specific references went over my head or I only understood them because I had been to London. A quick Google search would help, but wanted to warn you. This book truly takes to heart that after a certain age, most people feel that they can truly do whatever they please. It is a refreshing, hilarious novel, with a few poignant moments that make you think.
Vibe: Funny – but not funny Ha Ha, funny, weird. The juxtaposition of darkness, murder, cemetery, crime, and a sweet group of retired adults in a community in the countryside makes for a funny setting. Some chapters have you laughing and others have you totally creeped out.
Describe the book in three words: Funny, Poignant, Dark
Plot: This is the first book in a while that I have read that I have been motivated to keep reading to find out what the heck was going to happen. It is a complicated murder mystery with good stories woven in throughout. I was definitely hooked after 40 pages and the last 150 pages flew by.
Characters: The characters in this novel are hilarious. I love that the author set a dark murder mystery in a retirement community. As people get older, their personalities usually get magnified and they rarely give a f***. This is definitely the case. The reader is acutely aware that each of the Murder Club members have had robust former lives and are now away in the country side to live out the rest of their lives. It is evident that the characters are aware of this too. There are many characters in the book and while the characters are complex and have a lot of emotions, we don’t get to learn about each of them in a lot of depth. I think that Osman wants the reader to fill in the blanks.
Prose: The book is well written and the writing is witty. I enjoyed the short chapters. Sometimes they felt too short, but they kept you hanging on as they changed which characters we were focused on at that exact moment.
You’ll like this if you like… Cute old people, murder mysteries, the British countryside, Agatha Christie
