Author: Richard Osman
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.5 / 5
Medium: Paperback
Length: 382 pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Synopsis
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 Thoughts (Spoiler-Free)
The Thursday Murder Club was a very easy read as a cozy mystery set around a retirement home, where four friends meet every Thursday to talk about past, unsolved murders. All seems to be fun and games until one day, they find themselves among a real murder and there is a real killer about. But turns out having an actual killer to track down is even more fun for them. They quickly launch their own investigation (alongside the police, whether they like it or not) to find the murderer. The characters are quite charming and it is a treat to watch them go about their business, as they work on uncovering new clues. There are times they know they are breaking some rules here and there, but do it anyway. And in general, they have a light, refreshing view of this murder, especially given the victims were not the nicest people.
The actual mystery was pretty straightforward with its own little twists and turns, and interesting to see unravel. That said, it is not without some shortcomings. There’s a lot of small plotlines and characters; too many perhaps. Some get introduced much later in the book, some even near the end and it can get hard to keep track of them all. Especially as the book ends up relying on them as the answer to certain mysteries. But regardless, it doesn’t take away from the entertainment value of the book. Characters like Elizabeth, the natural leader of the Club (and quite the boss-lady in her own regard), Joyce, the primary narrator, Donna, the policewoman who’d much rather be chasing killers than dealing with small town problems, along with many others make the book quite delightful.
Something else that the book does quite wonderfully is bring up certain topics such as age, dementia and grief with a combination humor and thoughtfulness. Whether it was grieving for a partner that passed away years ago, or realizing that your partner’s mind is slowly losing its edge with time, or wondering whether it is the last time you’ll do something, the author does a really nice job portraying how the different characters deal with these things in their own ways.
Overall, this was a nice, light read I enjoyed and I will probably go for the sequels too
Spoilers Ahead
The only thing I wanted to bring up again was the excessive use of additional storylines to tie up lose ends. In my opinion, the reader should be able to solve the mystery based on the events up to the point the killer is revealed. This didn’t feel true for this book. For example, unless I missed something big early in the book, the revelation about whose bones are in the cemetery felt like it came out of nowhere. Even Tony Curran’s killer reveal felt like it was a last-minute ending that had very little to do with the rest of the events in the book
Kavi Reads 
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