Whilst browsing the shelves of the local charity shop I spotted this book and picked it up immediately as I had been told several times that I would like it and the various people who recommended it were quite correct as I read the 377 pages over the space of two evenings. I probably would have read it in one go but there is a natural break point at page 172 and I decided to follow the structure of the book and reflect on what we had been told so far and the latest surprise murder that had just occurred.

Richard Osman himself helpfully summarised the four members of The Thursday Murder Club and what the club is all about in his notes for American reading clubs:

I am writing to you from England, home of Agatha Christie, Hugh Grant, and books about being murdered in quaint country villages.
Welcome to ‘The Thursday Murder Club,’ a group of very unlikely friends in their mid 70s. There is Joyce, a quiet but formidable former nurse; Ron, a retired Labour activist, still on the look out for trouble; Ibrahim, a psychiatrist and peacemaker, and Elizabeth, a . . . well no one is quite sure what Elizabeth used to do, but she seems to have contacts in very high places.
Once a week our four unlikely friends, all residents in a luxury retirement community, meet up to investigate old unsolved police cases—usually accompanied by friendly arguments and many bottles of wine.
One day the peace of their community is shattered by a real-life killing, and ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ decide they are just the people to solve the case.

For a murder mystery it’s quite funny with the interaction between the various characters being beautifully written as an example there is one murder where the victim was injected with Fentanyl whilst in close proximity to sixty odd residents of the retirement village and Joyce says ‘It would have to be someone with access to needles and drugs’ only to be told ‘That’s everyone here’ by Elizabeth, simply pointing out that due to age a lot of the residents are self medicating for diabetes amongst other conditions and what would normally be seen as a clue in this case definitely isn’t. But there is a lot of wisdom and experience in our team of self appointed detectives and with Elizabeth’s range of contacts all over the place they can do things the Police can’t either because they would be too obviously looking into things or because it would be either illegal or nearly so. Chris and Donna, the police officers assigned to the original murder gradually come to respect the Thursday Murder Club and their effective, if unorthodox, methods of getting information. The clues range from decades old gangland killings to links with Cypriot criminal families and always the club members are at least one step ahead of the police. I don’t want to say more in case I accidentally say too much but I heartily recommend The Thursday Murder Club and I suspect that recommendation would also apply to the subsequent novels that Osman has written about them.

This was Osman’s first novel, which he wrote over ten months whilst keeping the fact he was writing it a secret from most of the people who know him. But when he revealed its existence to publishers there was such a bidding war that he had a seven figure advance from Penguin Random House to get the book for their Viking imprint. Until the smash hit of his Thursday Murder Club series of books Osman was better known as a television producer, initially for Hat Trick Productions and then as Creative Director of Endemol. During which time he created the TV quiz Pointless for which he ended up the other side of the camera for the first time as the co-presenter after taking the role in the demonstration version for the B.B.C. and then worked with Alexander Armstrong on the programme for twenty seven series before quitting to concentrate on writing.