The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club #1) by Richard Osman

Book Review Jan 06, 2024

My review

3/5 stars

I don't normally read crime, but I like Richard Osman well enough that I decided to get this from the library and give it a shot (yes, I'm aware that I'm a bit behind the times, but, like I said, crime isn't my bag).

The premise of the story is what appealed to me the most - a retirement village past-time becomes a murder investigation. I enjoyed the idea of old dears solving a murder and a crossword in the same day, and for the most part I enjoyed the execution of that premise.

The characters in the book were well-written - just enough was given to feel an emotional connection of some sort, but enough was held back so that everyone remained a suspect. Particular favourites were Chris and Elizabeth. There were two elements of the character element of the story that I struggled with. The first is that there were so many characters to keep a track of, and so many of them had complex backstories that merged in my mind at times. The second was that I didn't understand why Joyce was the only member of the Thursday Murder Club that spoke in the first person - I got the inference that she was keeping a diary, but why her voice instead of any of the others; maybe the later books in the series answer that question.

The plot contained just the right level of crime for me. It was intriguing and compelling without verging into gory or scary. There were the expected twists and turns, and a few unexpected ones too. It's a soft introduction to the genre and I'm more than ok with that. My only niggle here is that the ending felt somewhat anti-climactic. While I understand that it was unexpected, and that's the whole point of a crime novel, but after so many leads were followed during the story, I was disappointed that a few of them didn't come to anything; it felt like an awful lot of red herrings to throw into a story.

It was a nice enough read, but it's a not a series that I'll be rushing to get back into immediately. Lightly entertaining, but didn't convince me that crime is the right genre for me.

Book blurb

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?