The Thursday Murder Club Novels

Author: Richard Osman

Tags: Crime, Mystery

The Cozy Mystery Genre is frequently maligned, especially by me, but many people (including myself for a long time) have misunderstood its essence and, therefore, dismiss this genre as light and insubstantial. As is typical there are many different definitions of cozy but in general my view of it is that the books should be fun to read, usually set in a small town or village, and omit all the gore and nastiness of the actual crime. In my defense, I have read many cozy mysteries and found them lacking, leading me to avoid books thus classified as much as I can. However, I do make a few significant exceptions.

It is a stretch to say that most of Agatha Christie's books fall into the cozy genre but by my definition they sort of do, and I have certainly enjoyed all those over the years (although I do have a problem with Poirot who commonly goes off somewhere to find some information that we are not made party to until he announces the murderer). So that's one exception. Simon Brett's Charles Paris series of books (to be reviewed at a later date) is another exception and....drum roll please....The Monday Murder Club series is absolutely the biggest, the hugest, the most gigantic exception ever!!!!!

If you want to get in on the ground floor of a series, there is none better than this. It is a brilliant new mystery series of three so far (the fourth one is on its way) by Richard Osman. The first thing to say about it is that it is hilarious. Absolutely a laugh out loud a minute experience but, having said that, the stories are very cleverly crafted and the characters are stupendous. These are so good that the first book is already being made into a movie (not necessarily a good thing but I can always not see it). My enthusiasm for these books knows no bounds. This could be the best series I have ever read (where have I heard that before?).

The four main members of the Thursday Murder Club all live in Cooper's Chase, an upscale retirement village in Kent in the south east of England. Ron is a retired union leader and champion of the working class, Ibrahim is a retired psychiatrist, Joyce is a retired nurse, and Elizabeth is a retired something-or-other in the government, the nature of which slowly reveals itself throughout the books and is part of the fun. They formed the murder club to give them something interesting and unusual to occupy themselves during their retirement but little did they know that they would find themselves solving real-life murders.

Being retirees and of a mature nature, the murder club members are sometimes limited in what the can do, so they are ably assisted by Bogdan, the enigmatic builder-cum-maintenance manager of Cooper's Chase who has a somewhat checkered past and is always game to help the group, even if it is out of his comfort zone or marginally illegal. They are also assisted, mostly unwittingly but sometimes by design, by the local police force in the form of Constable Donna De Freitas and her superior officer Chris (whose last name I have forgotten).

Richard Osman uses an interesting technique to keep the plot and action clear to the readers. Joyce, is the newest member of the club and is replacing someone who has taken a turn for the worse. She keeps a diary and every few chapters or so, she creates an entry that describes what has been going on and what she thinks of it all. This is a very clever technique that keeps things moving at a fast pace, keeps the reader from straying, and allows Osman to take a few short cuts as necessary. It works really well. It not only gives us an insight into how Joyce's mind works but also reveals her perceptions of how the other club members minds are working.

This is definitely a must-read series. I'm waiting patiently for the fourth book and hope there are many more to come.

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