I’m delighted to participate in the launch celebrations for The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman by sharing my review today. My Thanks to Ellie Hudson at Penguin for inviting me to participate.

The Thursday Murder Club will be published tomorrow, 3rd September 2020 by Penguin imprint Viking and is available for purchase through the links here.

The Thursday Murder Club

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?

My Review of The Thursday Murder Club

The retirement village Thursday Murder Club has a new case to solve.

Now, I confess I’m not usually attracted to ‘celebrity’ authors, but I am so glad I made an exception in Richard Osman’s case. The Thursday Murder Club is an absolute gem of a book, written with wit, wry and dry humour as well as outright comedic moments so that few pages passed without me laughing. However, there’s also some lovely insight into the human condition, especially love and loneliness so that I confess I found a tear in my eye on more than one occasion too.

The plot is cleverly constructed so that Richard Osman withholds and reveals just enough detail to tantalise the reader and keep them hooked. Short chapters keep the pace snappy and fast, but also give an episodic approach that would work brilliantly in television. The Thursday Murder Club seems to blend disparate elements of every crime of police series there’s ever been into a coherent, thoroughly satisfying whole that a diverting and fun read.

There’s quite a cast of characters both in the literal and metaphorical sense. Elizabeth is absolutely brilliant in undermining the little old lady stereotype of older women, so that I finished reading The Thursday Murder Club rather wishing I could meet her or that I’ll be like her when I reach her age. Contrasting perfectly with the dynamic, and probably quite overpowering, Elizabeth I found Joyce’s gentler, first person, sections worked extremely well in giving the reader time to pause and restock, whilst adding to the pathos that threads between the humour. Her voice is clear and illustrates just how much those frequently overlooked have to offer. 

In fact, much as I enjoyed the romp of a plot, the smashing humour and the vivid characters, I think what appealed to me most about Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club was the exploration of theme. The author has such a crystal clear insight into human nature and such a witty style that he presents weighty themes of crime and retribution, suicide and murder, relationships and stereotyping in such a way as to challenge reader expectations whilst entertaining them brilliantly. 

I thought The Thursday Murder Club was a cracking read. I hope the team have another case to solve very soon.

About Richard Osman

Richard Osman is an author, producer and television presenter. The Thursday Murder Club is his first novel. He is well known for TV shows including Pointless and Richard Osman’s House of Games. As the creative director of Endemol UK, Richard has worked as an executive producer on numerous shows including Deal Or No Deal and 8 Out of 10 Cats. He is also a regular on panel and game shows such as Have I Got News For You, Would I Lie To You and Taskmaster.

You can follow Richard on Twitter @richardosman and there’s more with these other bloggers: