I have mixed feelings about The Thursday Murder Club. Well, maybe I can recommend it. I enjoyed reading it, having been very much in the mood for something comforting and undemanding. There’s a reason cozy mysteries are a popular genre– smart and morally upright detectives (amateur or professional), justice done at the end, and none of the gore or mess or grief that actually comes with violent crime. The detectives here are charming enough that I could quite willingly suspend my disbelief as needed; they’re four septuagenarians in a high-end retirement community who routinely meet to discuss old unsolved crimes as a hobby. They are then quite excited to find themselves in the midst of a current murder investigation and, due to their lifetimes of experience, wisdom, and assorted professional skills, manage to uncover much more information than the police officers. 

So, the setting is a pleasant escape. The senior citizens are entertaining and likable characters, definitely on the twee side, but with enough complexity to be interesting. The villain here is suitably villainous in a cartoonish-ly loathsome sort of style (no complicated antihero, he’s a greedy, nasty developer). The minor characters are mainly sympathetic, with colorful backstories. None of it is remotely realistic, of course, but it works.

What didn’t work for me was really the mystery plot itself–too convoluted, too many deaths, some long ago, too many motives, too many plot lines. It was all rather messy, confusing (this is perhaps why I am not an amateur detective myself), and generally just a bit much. 

Of course, there are likely readers out there with a low tolerance for sweet retirees who solve crimes for fun but who heartily enjoy intricate and indirectly-linked converging crime stories. To each his or her own!

In any case, the story was light and sweet, and popular enough that several sequels have been published. The Man Who Died Twice is the second in the series. And I may well pick it up, if only to enjoy the company of Joyce (former nurse), Elizabeth (formerly of the secret service), Ibrahim (psychiatrist), and Ron (former union leader), and their ridiculous antics once again. (It’s rather likely that I won’t much care about who died or how often it happened.)

NOVEL: The Thursday Murder Club

AUTHOR: Richard Osman

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2020

IMAGE: Book cover, Penguin Random House