Title: The Thursday Murder Club
Author: Richard Osman
Date of Publication: 2021
Publisher: Penguin Books
INTRODUCTION:
The set-up is a social club at a retirement village that meets on Thursdays at the community center to discuss unsolved murders. Thursday was the only day available. The club consisted of four members, all senior citizens, but when one member dies, they invite a new recruit. She tells most of the story in first person. Some of the story is revealed from the other club members’ perspectives.
As expected, while undertaking a cold case, a new murder occurs. We meet the green detective constable and the cozy murder mystery is off and running.
GENRE:
Cozy Mystery set in England. First in a series.
CHARACTERS:
The four main characters include the new recruit who is a nurse. The woman who recruits her has espionage credentials revealed throughout the novel. A psychiatrist with Arab ethnicity provides his views. And the foursome is rounded out with a retired professional labor organizer and protester. Each character is intelligent and curious. Each has quirks. Each has a personality that comes out on the page and the plot lets each specialty take a turn on the dance floor.
The author renders the background characters in the village and senior center with vivid colors, bringing the world to life. But the role given to the detective constable is unbelievable. He is less professional and more prop than even a cozy mystery would usually have.
PLOT:
Here’s where the novel weakens. Many of the book reviews tout the humor in the novel. There is some, but humor also depends on the reader’s personal involvement. I found the book amusing at first, but the humor didn’t hold up.
There were also moments of real grief that were touching and evocative of our most poignant emotion. Yet there were other large swaths that dragged; that pushed the central story aside and took detours into less interesting areas.
We lose sight of the plot in the middle of the book as we enjoy each character’s personalities and quirks. Complications are added at an alarming rate, and feel like they’re there only to confuse and keep the main murder and the cold case from being resolved.
THE RESOLUTION:
The book takes a further dive as it moves toward the climax and resolution. It is so much a cozy murder mystery, with interesting characters. And it’s essentially well-written. But it goes dark, into suicide. This is a betrayal of the cozy mystery genre (although Agatha Christie sometimes ventured there in her traditional mysteries.)
More problematic is that there is no justice. No murderer caught or prosecuted or exposed (although we are informed who it is). Almost as if the characters suddenly love vigilantes and if they like the person, they will excuse them murdering another human being…or two…or three. It’s more that they accept an individual as prosecutor, judge, and jury, without so much as a nod to a judicial system with due process and reasonable doubt and carefully tailored roles.
Star rating:
2 out of 5 stars.
