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The Thursday Murder Club
The Thursday Murder Club · Book 1 · 2020
Audiobook available · 12 hr 26 min
At Coopers Chase retirement village, Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron meet weekly to examine unsolved killings. A murder nearby gives their club an active case and a chance to test its members’ different skills against the police investigation.
From the publisher’s blurb
“In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.”Read the full description at Penguin
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What makes it funny?
Joyce’s account of a conversation about a stabbing keeps returning to lunch and a familiar department-store kitchen knife. Elizabeth shows her a corpse photograph with the social ease someone else might reserve for a grandchild’s graduation picture.
The comedy at work
Joyce’s digressions bring domestic concerns into crime analysis. Elizabeth keeps impeccable social manners while asking about fatal injuries, making the lunch-table conversation as awkward as it is purposeful.
Try this if…
Older investigators and dry British wit make this a companionable mystery. Their differing backgrounds give each club member a way into the case, with the police drawn into the competition.
Good to know
Serious illness accompanies the humor: Penny, the former officer whose files helped start the club, lies comatose in the nursing home. The opening also discusses a young woman’s fatal stabbing.
A few distinguishing details
- Retirement-village friends take their cold-case club into a live investigation
More funny amateur sleuth
Sources & further reading
- The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman on Apple Books
Book information
- The Thursday Murder Club: A Novel (Unabridged) by Richard Osman on Apple Books
Book information
- Publisher first chapter
Reading sample
- Publisher
Publisher
- Kirkus review
Review
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