The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Richard Osman is a very clever man and he has managed to create a murder mystery that initially seems very light weight, but is actually quite complex. I ended up reading this book twice, because by the time I got to the end, I knew I hadn't paid anywhere near enough attention to the detail, and I didn't have all the threads neatly tied away. Every chapter contains important details that help the reader understand the outcome, and to get the most out of the book you really have to read it carefully.

The Thursday Murder Club is a small group of people who live in a retirement home, and as two of the members had previously been employed in detective work, they spent time going back over old unsolved cases trying to find the answers. Over time more people got involved and the club pretty much formed itself.

The members were happy enough with their old case files until they found themselves in the midst of an on-going police investigation into the murder of a local builder. Days later, another man is murdered right outside the retirement home, and as the second victim was the prime suspect for the first murder, the plot begins to thicken.

Richard Osman deftly portrays a collection of elderly people that is amusing but not a send-up, and he clearly has a good understanding of how people deal with the indignities of getting old. Once people retire, it is easy to forget that they once had useful careers and interesting lives, and everyone tends to get lumped into one bracket of dotty old folk who can't keep up. Richard reminds us that the spark is often still there, and although bodies can become frail, there is still a desire to be taken seriously and be useful.

The plot is far too complicated to go into here, but as the story moves along, the cases to solve increase and all the different threads weave together to show that nothing ever really happens in isolation. This is an excellent book and I'm sorry it has taken me so long to get around to reading it, but I shall look out for the next one and this time I will really pay attention as I read it.

Comments

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