Title- The Thursday Murder Club
Author- Richard Osman
Series- The Thursday Murder Club series
Published- 2020
Page Count- 396 pages (UK paperback)
Publishing House- Penguin
Genre- murder mystery, cosy crime, crime
Rating- 3/5 stars
About the Author
Richard Thomas Osman (born 28 November 1970) is an English comedian, producer, television presenter, writer, and the creator and co-presenter of the BBC One television quiz show Pointless. He has also presented the BBC Two quiz shows Two Tribes and Richard Osman's House of Games and has been a team captain on the comedy panel shows Insert Name Here and The Fake News Show. He has gained recognition for his appearances on many British panel shows.
Osman worked at Hat Trick Productions alongside Ben Smith before becoming creative director of the television production company Endemol UK, producing shows including Prize Island for ITV and Deal or No Deal for Channel 4. He is the writer of the 2020 novel The Thursday Murder Club.
Taken from Wikipedia
Plot
THE FIRST BOOK IN THE #1 BESTSELLING THURSDAY MURDER CLUB SERIES BY TV PRESENTER RICHARD OSMAN
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case.
Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?
Taken from Goodreads
Opinions
Prior to me reading this book for my second pick of the Spoopathon, I had listened to members of my book group talking about their feelings on it. I think I was the only person who hadn't read it and there were some mixed feelings. Some liked it, others didn't and there was one individual who passionately didn't like it. It just so happened that I was about to start reading it that evening. I was interested to see where I would fall on the wide spectrum of readers.
I'll start with the positives. I found this book very easy to read. I read it in three days. Despite the problems I had, which I'll discuss later in this post, there was a part of me that wanted to find out what happened next. It moved at quite a natural progression and I didn't mind moving between the characters. I'm glad that it was an easy read as that's one of the things I gave it stars for.
Another positive is that I didn't mind the characters. Let's talk about the main four. They were an odd bunch, but they seemed to work well. I have seen a few comments that said Ibrahim was only included to have a more diverse cast and to some extent I have to agree. Elizabeth was the most interesting out of them as she had the most layers to her characters. Joyce was okay, as was Ron. I felt that in some of the side characters, the hairdresser in particular, there was a very fine line when it came to stereotypes. The hairdresser being gay and loving gossip just felt a bit cliche. I realised quite early on that I was not the target audience for this book, but I thought the characters were okay.
Let's get into my main problem with this book. I personally felt the writing was bad. I think this is a case of a celebrity getting to write a book as the quality of the writing wasn't great. It made it hard for me to follow the plot of what should have been a quite simple book. Things kept on being revealed that weren't linked to the two main crimes of the story, which has left me confused as to who committed which murder and why. Going back to my point about the characters, PC Donna was a great character, but one I only realised was a person of colour after reading about her for a while when someone specifically said it. It felt like it was just a throw away comment. I know this is a fiction book, but some of the things that happened were unbelievable even for a murder mystery. The police wouldn't just give away information the way these characters did. It just frustrated me to no end.
It probably won't come as a surprise, but I won't be reading the sequels to this series. I can see why people like it as it's a unique premise and certain parts of it remind me of my own relatives, who live in a residential home. Sadly, it's just not for me. I am planning on giving my copy to my grandma as I think she'll like it.
What did you think of The Thursday Murder Club??
