A review of “The Thursday Murder Club” by Richard Osman
I know that crime is an immensely popular literary genre but I generally avoid it. However, I made an exception for Osman’s first book because it has been such an incredible success and I wanted to be part of the zeitgeist. By the time I read the novel, it had achieved sales of over a million, been the subject of a film deal, and announced to be the first of a series of four.
The eponymous organisation consists of four characters in their mid or late 70s (only a little older than me!): Elizabeth an ex-intelligence officer (apparently); Ron who was once a trade union leader; Joyce, a former nurse; and Ibrahim who used to be a psychiatrist. They are all residents of an upmarket retirement village called Coopers Chase and they meet each Thursday in the Jigsaw Room to review cold murder cases until one day they encounter a new murder in their locality.
It has to be said that this is a very readable work, facilitated by the 377 pages being divided into no less than 115 short chapters. The language is plain, the characterisation is weak, and the plotting is very contrived but, unlike other crime novels, the approach is gentle and the style is humorous (is this how crime novels are supposed to be?).
I don’t want to spoil it for you (well, why not?) but, by the end, the bodies are piling up – some murders, some suicides, some historical, some recent – so fast that I found it all rather ridiculous.