Allow me to introduce you to the Thursday Murder Club members who all live in Coopers Chase Retirement Village in Kent. There’s Elizabeth who has a very mysterious and intriguing past, then there’s Joyce an ex-nurse, firebrand Red Ron Richie scourge of whatever needs scourging and Ibrahim Arif a retired psychiatrist. Now if you think because they live in a retirement village they are past it, let me disillusion you here and now. They’re sharper than the sharpest tacks especially Elizabeth. They cleverly rope PC Donna De Freitas into their coterie and before you know it DCI Chris Hudson is entangled too. They are investigating the murder of Tony Curran who owned 25% of Coopers Chase, the remainder by Ian Ventham who is well named as he often does vent. So far so good, except of course it is never that simple ..... what unfolds is a tale of dark deeds some of which are well buried. The story is told from the perspectives of most of the protagonists and interspersed with Joyce’s highly entertaining journal.

Well that was far from Pointless Mr Osman. Sorry, couldn’t resist and I’ll bet he’s never heard that one before. You can tell from the TV show that the author is one smart cookie and he’s a smart cookie who can write too. Rather well. The plot is fast paced, keeps you guessing as it’s got many a twist along the way, sometimes convoluted so you have to keep up but it’s very clever. The best thing about the book is the characters. They are simply fantastic, there is never a dull moment when the club members are about and Donna and Chris are terrific characters too. I must also mention Polish builder Bogdan too - phlegmatic and enigmatic, still waters run very deep there. It’s funny, darkly droll or wry, it’s witty, the style is very lively, it intrigues from start to finish and so is a very entertaining book. I love the TV references, some of from a while ago. Juliet Bravo, that certainly takes me back!

Overall, what a wonderful amusing read and I applaud the author for making the lead characters of retirement age and proving to be such good company as the story unfolds. Highly recommended as it’s just that little bit different.

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Books UK/Viking for the ARC

This quirky, quintessentially British, crime novel was so much fun - just what many of us need right now.

Richard Osman has a unique writing style, which took a bit of getting used to particularly as some chapters are written in the third person and some from the point of view of Joyce, one of the Thursday Murder Club's member and residents of the retirement village. But, his unusual rambling style fitted the theme perfectly, particularly Joyce's chapters, reflecting the chatty, scatty manner in which elderly people often muse. This extract, from Joyce, sums up what I'm trying to say perfectly:"It is called the Jigsaw Room, by the way, because this is where the bigger jigsaw are completed, on a gently sloping wooden table in the centre of the room. When I first walked in, there was a 2,000-piecer of Whitstable harbour, missing a letterbox of a sky. I once went to Whitstable, just for the day, but I couldn't really see what the fuss was all about. Once you've done the oysters, there's no real shopping to speak of. Anyway...."

Madcap yes but Osman manages to perfectly balance the mystery with the everyday preoccupations of his elderly characters, their opinions of each other and descriptions of daily life in the retirement village daily life. Whilst not something serious murder mystery fans will probably like, I thought the other elements provided a really nice touch and made sense as murders don't typically take place in a vacuum, after all. It does mean, however, that there's a lot going on and the plot becomes quite complex with lots of intertwining stories, some which are actually relevant to the murder and others more to individual characters (everyone has a story to tell after all).

There was probably one too many strands to the story line so it didn’t always flow smoothly, was a little too convoluted and confusing at times, and somewhat far-fetched. But, I did like the way the author didn't force a tenuous link between all the different strands, even though it meant I wasn't keen on all of the motives in the end.

Osman says he based the story on a visit to a retirement home and some of the characters he meet there. However, he dreamed them up it really is the diverse characters that make this book - nothing else matters. I love stories featuring young at heart older people and felt real affection for the eccentric crew of amateur detectives. And, that's really part of the charm, the way the characters show that just because they are all old and rightfully worried about their mortality, they are also living very much in the here and now. They use all their charm and wile to gain any advantage they can to try and solve the murder. As Elizabeth aptly says: "Imagine if we only ever did what we were supposed to?"

When reprimanded by the police, Elizabeth also says: "You might try to explain to the CPS that four people in their seventies and eighties have failed to report digging up a body....With what evidence, other than the inadmissible confession you've taken from us this evening? And with four suspects, all of whom are quite happy to go to court, smile happily and pretend to mistake the judge for their granddaughter."

Despite being a light-hearted comedic type murder mystery, because of the age of the main characters it does also touch on some pretty serious subjects including medical issues, physical decline, loneliness, grief and loss. But, once again Osman manages to juggle the two seamlessly and with respect.

Not without its issues, but take it as it's meant (not too seriously) and you've got yourself a fun, entertaining, and eccentric mystery which makes for a wonderful break from the dark and grisly nature of much of this genre. I, for one, am looking forward to the next in this crime series and seeing what Joyce and the gang get up to next.

This is a delightful murder mystery story with a certain charm. The characters are wonderful and the story was definitely good fun. Although it gets a little complex at times, with all the different subplots and characters, it's wrapped up nicely.

When Tony Curran is found dead, there is no shortage of suspects, and there are plenty of people trying to ascertain the identity of the culprit. The members of the Thursday Murder Club, a spritely collection of retirees from various walks of life, the local CID, and PC De Freitas, desperate for something more interesting than giving talks on security to the residents of the local retirement village, are all only too anxious to play their part.
Told from various viewpoints, including diary entries from former nurse Joyce, the newest member of the Club, the characters are revealed as the story unfolds. Managing the Club and benignly manipulating the activities of the unfortunate detective inspector, is the formidable Elizabeth with an apparently limitless number of favours to call in from her unspecified former career. Witty dialogue and deft plotting create a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable police procedural with a twist, shot through with dry humour and great characterisation. I hope the Thursday Murder Club will be back with a new mystery very soon.
I can't buy this for our library as our oldest readers are only eleven years old, but I enjoyed this book immensely and will recommend it to all my fellow bookworms.

I enjoyed this book but found the end a bit confusing as there were so many people involved in a variety of scenarios. Might be my age - I could the heading to Coopers Chase. Certainly a very different story with a sofa of Miss Marples

Persevere...initially I found the number of characters confusing and their role in the storyline too subtle.. However, as the book progressed the main characters became more defined and easier to identify with. Also in the beginning the writing came across more as a script than a novel but was easy to adjust to.
However, keep reading as the novel becomes to flow and the characters grow on you.
think "New Tricks" meets "Last of the Summer Wine" set in a retirement village.
looking forward to the next instalment.

Ooo... Richard Osman from Pointless has written a book. Now, not being scared of a drop of "celebrity writers" even those who cheat a little, I knew that this would be in a whole class above the rest. For no reason than I know he is a smart cookie at the best of times as well as being a crime fiction aficionado. So... I had high hopes and expectations going into this book. And I'm very please to add that it did indeed tick all the boxes I need to make a good book a great read. Well, there is just one more I'd like - for it to be the start of a new series... please :)
So. We meet Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Roy. Four golden oldies living in a retirement village who also happen to be members of The Thursday Murder Club where they ponder on, and offer solutions for, old unsolved murders. One day though, they are thrown into disarray when they all get caught up in a real murder, that of a property developer, and pretty soon realise that they are best placed to assist in their very own first "live" murder case... Much to the consternation of the police, I hasten to add!
And so begins a cracking story, an interesting plot, interwoven around and about some very well crafted characters as we follow our gang's endeavours to bring the perpetrator to justice... before the police!
I loved this book, and I do hear a whisper that it could well be the start of a series - yay - I'm so glad about that as during my time with the characters I kinda got to know them a bit, got to like them too. You know the type of characters that you are sad to say goodbye to at the end of a book.
Plotting is amazing and executed so very well that I really hope most of you go in as blind as you can so as not to pick up early clues from reviews. Everything should, and must, be discovered at the right times for maximum impact. So, I'll say no more about it other than I do admit to sitting back and applauding the author in several places when the penny finally dropped - or was revealed to me.
All in all a cracking read that I thoroughly enjoyed and am really looking forward to what I hope will be the next in what looks like it could become a favourite series. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Featuring an intriguing bunch of residents from the Sheltered Accomodation of Coopers Chase. Elizabeth and Joyce lead the Thursday Murder Club, a group who get their kicks from going through old unsolved murder cases -they are joined weekly by Bernard, Ibrahim and Ron. Very quickly their lives are interrupted by real live murder and they dedicate their efforts to 'helping' the police along by carrying out their own investigation and pointing the police in the right direction. A light hearted romp of a tale peppered through with trauma and tragedies that unravel as the investigation continues. From tragic lost love to business fraud, this story covers it all. A cleverly written entertaining first novel from Richard Osman, and hopefully not the last!

I was not sure what to expect from Richard Osman. I know him as a witty tv presenter but the book title and subject seem far removed from him. However, I was pleasantly surprised by his writing. It’s warm, funny, intuitive and engaging. He creates characters that are quirky and likeable.
Almost a modern day Agatha Christie feel to the writing, it felt very rural and British, in the nicest way.
I would certainly look for further books by Richard and would recommend this as an excellent autumn read, sitting under a corker tree in the warm September sun.

I love Richard Osman so I so wanted to love this book but truthfully, I struggled! I'm going to chock it up to the fact that I'm just not a mystery reader so that aspect didn't even keep me hooked. I guess this cosy mystery was just too cosy that I ended up drifting off to sleep more than once and if this wasn't an arc I would have seriously considered DNF-ing which I really didn't want to say! It picked up pace a lot by the halfway mark though and I actually found myself actually invested in the story and I did enjoy all the twists and turns that occurred and finding out just why everyone did what they did but I just didn't love it unfortunately!

The Thursday Murder Club is Richard Osman’s debut novel about four elderly people living in a community care home in Kent. Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, and Penny set up a ‘murder club’ every Thursday where they revisit old homicide cases to see if they could shed new light on the events. Quite the hobby for a bunch of 70-year olds. Eventually, Joyce takes over from Penny after her health declines. While initially their club is a hobby to satisfy themselves and relive their past careers, their work turns out to be of immense value to the local police department when a real murder happens to the man who built their care home. Looking for a chase, the gang find themselves entangled in the murder and will do anything to figure out who the culprit is.
This book has clearly had a lot of time, effort and research put into it. From the characters complexity to knowing what will reel the reader in, the story fits perfectly into the murder fiction genre and is definitely going to change the traditional scene up. The post-Brexit, conservative Kent that acts as the setting of the book, as well as the dry British humour the characters possess is quite the odd combination for a murder, but it works perfectly. Nothing drives a murder story further that witty comments from a couple of old guys, and that’s a sentence I thought I’d never say.
While initially I did almost dismiss the book because it took a while for me to get attached to any of the characters, by the time I reached around 40% into the narrative I found myself eager not only to uncover the case but learn more about these characters personalities and their wacky backgrounds. My initial lack of interest was due to the murder being presented to the reader very early on, before the reader has a chance to familiarise themselves with any of the protagonists. Luckily, I continued reading and am extremely thankful that I did – this book is everything that a reader needs in the 21st century; witty, humorous, insightful, complex, and very, very British (all the things I support).
The research that Osman has put into this book is beyond compare, from being able to create a detailed description of the community home and how it’s run, to the sights the protagonists visit across London and Kent, only explains a portion of the knowledge Osman had to acquire before writing this book. Additionally, the intersecting lives of the characters as well as relationships and different timelines reveals a complex story that has the perfect combination of suspense, complexity and logic. By the end of the novel, everything fit perfectly into place, despite the constant flow of characters and their personal stories to the murder. Once again, I can only credit Osman and his incredible mind for being able to piece this book together.
One of the main attractions of this book that kept me wanting more is the four protagonists. These four lovable, interesting characters really drive the story forward and their deep friendship to one another is so raw and tangible that it’s easy to forget they are in their 70s and in a community care home. The lust for life they have as well as their energy, slyness and cheeky characters is what makes them so lovable – even the other residents in the home acknowledge that their spirit is unlike no other, and powerful when the four of them are together. Their ability to make fun of each other whilst also knowing when to make comments, when to not and when to comfort is heart-warming and it only intensifies when you think about some of events they’ve had to experience in their lives, most notably loss. The friendship, to them, is not just a group of elderly people solving mysteries, it’s about acknowledging that their remaining years aren’t plentiful and wanting to spend their days with the people whom they love.
On the murder/mystery side, it is everything I didn’t expect it to be – I find murder mysteries often fall into similar tropes, with the police usually being the culprit or involved with the culprit, the characters often unlikable and the plot being simple. However, this case is anything but simple and the characters throughout are extremely likeable, making the case feel as important to the reader as to the characters. Throughout, the reader is hooked by the characters as well as the on-going murder case.
Overall, I’d wholeheartedly recommend this book, a mystery book lover or not. If you love and crave that British, witty humour and want to fall in love with characters again then this book is for you. From laughing because of one-off comments by Ron to tears because of Joyce’s love for her friends, this book will stay with me for the rest of my life. If you’re interested in reading this book, it will be published September 3rd, 2020 and you can pre-order it here.

This was an unexpected pleasure to read. The set up and characters were well developed and the idea of setting the main plot in an upmarket retirement village worked well. I enjoyed the main characters and the way they interacted together to form a crime solving team. I suspect this won’t be the we hear of them. I definitely recommend this.

This book is an easy read; the residents of a beautiful retirement home in the Kent countryside investigate historical cold cases as well as lending a hand to solve current murder/s. For me the first half of the book was stronger than the second half; the characters are amusing (sometimes funny but sometimes a bit too cliche and cringey) and the ‘setting the scene’ descriptions are enjoyably detailed. I felt it sort of lost it’s way in the second half when the crimes were being solved and I wasn’t sure / didn’t like how some of the characters ‘ended’ (without giving away a spoiler). I’d hoped the plot lines and police characters further developed. A good beach read. I would read what Richard Osman writes next.

Four old codgers, two ladies and two men, decide to amuse themselves by investigating cold cases and set themselves up as the Thursday Murder Club. The lead Lady has contacts to enable them to do this. They all live in an upmarket retirement village owned by an obnoxious property developer who has designs for expansion by acquiring adjacent property and land to which everyone objects. When he arrives one morning complete with diggers to demolish an ancient cemetery everyone rallies to bar the way and protest. In the resulting medley he drops dead, found to be poisoned. How the club gets to weasel information from all and sundry and infiltrate the police investigation and solves murders and other mysteries makes a compelling story with many laughs along the way until it becomes darker as things are revealed

More cosy mystery than fast-paced page turner, this debut from Richard Osman was refreshingly different. He has a unique style of writing that I really enjoyed. The premise is really unusual and worked really well with great characterisation. A group of elderly, often underestimated, people in a luxury fold/retirement community come together to solve mysteries and cold-cases, to the bemusement of the local police. At times both funny and poignant – I'm sure this will be a hit.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book.
It is a murder mystery reminiscent in style of Alexander McCall Smith's No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.
A group of pensioners in a retirement village decide that they will investigate old, closed police cases to keep themselves amused, only to find themselves in the middle of a real life crime.
Delightful characters, crimes which, although gruesome, do not seem to be because of Osman's light touch, and a well-woven storyline, which incorporates insights into what it means to grow old make this a charming page-turner.
Great fun!

This was a feelgood relaxing read.

I loved the setting and would like to book my place in a similar retirement home. The posse of senior citizen detectives were all people that I would like to spend time with and I enjoyed the way they manipulated younger people by using their prejudices about old age against them.

The puzzle was engaging and the journey of getting to a solution was satisfying.

I enjoyed the gentle humour and observations of human behaviour, overall my take away from this is the value of listening to your elders and providing them with plenty of cake and wine.

This is set in a very nice retirement village in Kent. There is an abundance of clubs and activities to join in with. The four retirees, Elizabeth, Ron, Abraham and Joyce are all members of The Thursday Murder Club. This was originally set up by Elizabeth (ex-spy) and her friend Penny (ex-DI) to try to solve some of Penny's cold cases. Penny is no longer able to take part in the club so the others have joined Elizabeth.

PC Donna de Freitas has recently transferred from the Met following the end of a relationship and she is not happy with the boredom of her new role in Kent. She yearns to be solving murders rather than giving security talks to the residents of retirement homes. The Murder Club love Donna though and have her pegged for bigger things and wiithout anyone knowing what is happening, the Murder Club manage to get Donna on to the murder team which is run by DCI Chris Hudson.

When Tony Curran is murdered, the retirees are beside themselves with the opportunity to solve a current murder. Due to the fact that they are just seen as "Old Fogies" they are able to find their way in to places that the police wouldn't. Not to mention the questions that they can ask without anyone thinking that they need to watch what they're saying. The club then choose when and how much information they will then share with Donna and Chris ... but not without expecting something in return.

The characters are all complex and interesting and all of them, no matter how small their part in the plot, are needed.

There are plenty of red herrings and I found this easy to read and found myself looking forward to being able to pick the book up each time.

I very much look forward to the next in the series.

I hugely enjoyed this book!

An interesting cast of characters, a really clever story.

And really, really funny.

I hope Richard writes more. I'd certainly buy them

I loved it - clever plotting, funny, well-paced, and with great characters. Richard Osman is that rare celebrity who can also write a good book.