*spoiler-free*
Osman’s first novel, The Thursday Murder Club, introduces Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim as the exclusive members of this club at their Coopers Chase Retirement Village, ready to solve the mystery of their local murder. We join them along on their adventures, reading Joyce’s diary entries every so often to get a first-person point of view. There are many chapters in TTMC, some often only a page long, and so this in combination with lots of speech, complimented the pace of the book, making it easy to read a lot in one go.
TTMC is faced with the first murder of Tony Curran, and from there on the action unfolds. The main group are very witty and intelligent, and instantly you can see how they work together to get what they want. I loved the dynamic between police officers Donna and Chris and for me, this is what made a lot of the plot ‘real’ as the two parties often worked in unity. I enjoyed the chapters focusing on Donna and Chris as I enjoyed the banter between the two. I wished more of the book focused on them, but with a large number of characters in this book, it was difficult for them all to have equal attention.
Aside from the main group, there were a lot of minor characters mentioned throughout that I struggled to remember as they were not always referred to. I don’t feel as if this distracted from the main plot, but due to the nature of this book, as a murder mystery, the go-to culprit is usually a character that blends into the background. That being said, I was pleased to read that my theory was debunked towards the end of the book and that the answers that were given were explained in a lot of context.
TTMC is filled with wit and satire, using a lot of British humour which was entertaining. However, this classic whodunnit story I found was a little over-complicated at times and as a result, I was rather slow getting through the story. Whilst I would often read a lot in one go when I was reading the book, I struggled to find the motivation to pick it up regularly. Upon reflection, I do not see any major faults with TTMC but there were not much gripping my attention as much as I wanted to. This is a relatively light crime book, although there are some surprisingly quite sad moments and dark themes throughout. This book took me a long time to get through, however, this could be well due to the fact that this is the second pensioner book I have read recently. I previously read The Switch and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I cannot deny that this was probably not the best order to read them in!
I am impressed that this is Osman’s first book as on the whole the plot is clever and intertwines very well. I don’t think I will be rushing to read the next one in the series, but I would like to at some point compare the storylines. From the short snippet I read in this book, it does look interesting, and I would like to see which book I prefer more.
3/5 stars
Soph's Library 
Leave a comment