The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is listed under the categories Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense. Which it is, of course, but what I love most about it is that the book is much more than that.
Yes, there’s a well-developed murder mystery with a plot line full of twists and turns and red herrings, but it’s the characters, the people in the book, who make the story come alive and help readers really care about what’s happening.
There are the major characters, a group of friends, ages 70s and 80s, who reside in a lovely senior citizen community called Cooper’s Chase Retirement Village. We learn early on that they have created a club to investigate unsolved murder cases, and they meet on Thursdays in the jigsaw puzzle room to discuss those cases.
There are middle-aged characters too, one of whom is a police detective named Chris, whose actual job is to solve murder cases.
And there is a younger police officer, Donna, who questions her recent move from London to this more rural area.
As all these characters interact with their peer groups and across generational groups, they become real people to readers.
We watch Donna get to know her fellow officer Chris. We find out about her struggle with sexism in the police department. We discover the reason she left London. Donna is tough, compassionate, and likeable.
We see Chris as he shares two sides of himself with us. He’s a good policeman with years of experience, but he’s also a human being struggling with feelings of failure in his personal life. He’s overweight. He wonders if he’ll ever get a date. The author tells us, “Chris opens the Twix…he has his annual medical in two months, and every Monday he convinces himself that this is the week he’ll finally get into shape, finally shift the stone or so that holds him back…the stone or so that stops him from buying new clothes. The stone or so that stops him from dating…because who would want this?”
Donna and Chris, in their separate generations, come across as real people, but Osman seems most involved with his older characters, the members of the Thursday Murder Club.
Each of the separate club members is well developed, but Elizabeth, the unofficial leader of the group, is best defined.
We learn something about Elizabeth’s background in the foreign service when she realizes a stranger is in her home: Osmond writes, “Elizabeth circles to the fire door… and opens it…her feet make no sound…but they would have made no sound on the concrete walkway of the East German detention center…holding her key ring in the palm of her hand, she slides a different key through each of the gaps in her fist…”
We learn more about Elizabeth when we realize that her husband, Stephen, is suffering from dementia, and as she watches him begin a chess game, the narrator tells us, “Elizabeth turns back to the kitchen where neither man can see her tears.”
As in all good mysteries, things get wrapped up nicely by the end, which is good. But what is even better is that by the end of the book, we aren’t ready to let go of the characters, people who have almost become our friends. We’re checking to see if a sequel is in the works so we can get together with them again.
The Thursday Murder Club makes a great summer read.
