The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman- Book Review

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman- Book Review

Title: The Thursday Murder Club 

Author: Richard Osman

Publisher: Penguin Books

Publish Date: September 3, 2020

Rating: 4/5

Summary(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?

**This book review may contain spoilers**

Never underestimate four innocent-looking septuagenarians in a retirement village with questionable backgrounds, surprising connections, and boredom on their hands-- they might get tangled up in a murder case, which might becomes two cases, which might become three. That's what happens in this classic murder mystery-- the tangling part, not the underestimating part.

The septuagenarians are four friends named Elizabeth, Ron, Joyce, and Ibrahim, collectively called the Thursday Murder Club. They try to solve old unsolved murder cases on Thursdays, but then one day they suddenly get news of a very real murder happening on practically their doorstep. The amateur sleuths begin their investigations, communicating with the police officers assigned to the case (Donna de Freitas and Chris Hudson) intermittently. The very real murder case turns into two very very real murder cases after another man is mysteriously murdered before their very eyes, then an uncovered skeleton makes it three. After many twists and turns of speculation, evidence, law-breaking, and brillance, the mystery finally gets solved, but it's quite complicated-- the last few chapters had me rereading quite a few times to understand exactly who did what to whom. I enjoyed the book's dry humor and wittiness-- which never fails to make me smile-- but nothing made me laugh out loud (unlike the cover quotes suggested). 

The premise of old people doing funny antics, messing with young people's lives (and usually fate) and getting away with a laugh at the world because of their age is not new-- it's found in books like The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg and The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson, among others. But I still liked the idea of septuagenarians with fun on their minds investigating a murder case, and add a bit of wry British humor, and this book was quite interesting. I liked the characters, they were believable and fit the story well-- Elizabeth was particularly mysterious, with her suspicious background allowing her to call in apparently numerous favors from anyone, as well as find information in a matter of days what seven detectives could not in a week. Amazing resourcefulness aside, Elizabeth has great powers of persuasion and deduction, never taking no for an answer and always getting the answer that she seeks. Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron-- the rest of the Thursday Murder Club-- are equally quirky and likeable. Their affinity made me like the book as much as I did-- for some reason, all the oldies in such books are innocent and stupid in some ways but immensely smart in other ways. Quirky. I wonder of not having anything to do makes you quirky; it's usually the boredom and free spirit that leads to such misadventures. 

Anyways, I loved the characters, and the plot was easy to read as well, if not as easy to follow. I was kept guessing until the last moment, and when everything was revealed I had to go back a few times to fully comprehend the culprit and motive behind each murder. There wasn't much to criticize about the book, but not much to exceptionally praise as well. Dry, witty humor and quirky old people in a book always make me smile, and I enjoyed the book thanks to those elements. 

All in all, The Thursday Murder club was a fun read that brought together four septuagenarians, dry English humor, and not one but three murders to create a brilliant mystery. I would recommend this book for any reader old enough to understand the vocabulary-- I didn't really see anything to censor, and the book is written for entertainment rather than to convey deep hidden meaning. 

Rating: I would give this a 4/5, as I personally quite liked the book and there really wasn't much to criticize, but at the same time there wasn't much to extensively praise as well.