Rating: 5 stars
CBR17 Bingo: White (a book with a white cover)
In a charming retirement village somewhere in the south of England, four elderly individuals solve cold cases for fun. Retired nurse, Joyce, is the last to be inducted into "The Thursday Murder Club", as they are in need of some of her medical expertise in trying to solve their most recent case. Led by the formidable Elizabeth, who used to be a spy, aided and abetted by Ibrahim, a retired psychologist and Ron, a former trade union leader, the club used to have a fourth member, who co-founded the group with Elizabeth. Penny, a former Detective Inspector, is now in a coma, but is watched over daily by her husband and visited frequently by Elizabeth with updates about all their investigations. Joyce, who wasn't really sure she was going to settle in at Coopers Chase, happily shares her medical knowledge, and while she is clearly a very different woman from Penny, her cheerful demeanour, her excellent baking skills, and her wits make her a valuable new member of the group.
Investigating cold cases takes a back seat to investigating an actual murder when Tony Curran, one of the developers who built Coopers Chase, is found bludgeoned to death in his home, with a photograph of some pretty shady characters left next to him. Now that he's dead, the other developer, Ian Ventham, has no one to oppose his plans to sell the retirement village and turn everything into luxury flats. He also wants to dig up the local graveyard and move all the bodies, to the horror of many of the long-time residents, whose family and friends are buried there.
Having previously befriended Police Constable Donna de Freitas, recently transferred from London and is clearly rather bored with the routine tasks she's being given in the quiet country town. Thanks to some trickery from Elizabeth and Joyce, Donna is invited to join the murder investigation, shadowing the head investigator, DCI Chris Hudson.
As the case progresses, it turns out that there is more than one individual with a motive to kill Tony Curran, and as often happens in these sorts of stories, his is not the only murder in need of solving by the end.
By now, The Thursday Murder Club, published in 2020, has become a series of five novels and was recently turned into a Netflix movie with a very stacked cast. Because I didn't start reading the book until after the movie was announced, and I'd seen several trailers, my mental images of a lot of the characters matched up with their movie counterparts. For the most part, I think they cast the characters really well, with the notable exception of Pierce Brosnan, who is a very handsome man, but not even a little bit convincing as a former working-class labour rights champion. As my BFF Lydia says, Sean Bean was right there!
Having now seen the film, I would strongly advise anyone who has read and likes (or loves) the book to skip it, because they had to cut so many corners, including several engaging subplots and change a bunch of stuff to cram it into a family-friendly Netflix film, and while it was well-acted, I was disappointed at the choices the filmmakers made. However, I suspect it's going to result in even bigger sales for Richard Osman, something I can't be disappointed about; he seems like a very clever and delightful man.
I don't know exactly why it took me so long to read this, but I guess I should be grateful for the adaptation to finally make me pick the book up. I was pretty sure I was going to like it once I got around to it. I even gifted this and several of the sequels to my Dad some Christmases ago, based on other people's reviews, because he likes a good mystery novel. For the record, he was also disappointed by the second half of the movie.
Despite featuring several rather grisly murders and a bunch of interconnecting mysteries, some of which go decades back, it's a very funny book, and I absolutely adore the characters. Not just our central four protagonists, either; there are so many minor supporting characters who give the story life and make it so very entertaining to read. Once I started reading, I could barely put the book down, and I also proceeded to read all the sequels over the course of a week in late August. I can't remember the last time I binge-read four books that fast. I just love hanging out with the characters and got genuinely emotional several times while reading the books. I'm very happy Osman has said he has many more adventures in store for Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron (not to forget Donna, Chris, Bogdan and importing supporting players).
Judging a book by its cover: By now, it feels like every third mystery novel you see looks like this book, but this was the book that started the trend. So many other books with simple covers and similar fonts, just because Osman's book is so awesome.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read.
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