‘In life you have to learn to count the good days…’
Richard Osman is a wonderful man, isn’t he? Pointless is bloody wonderful (I treasure the memories of sitting down to the beloved quiz show when my dad was still around to become annoyed by the contestants’ hopeless answers), his various podcast appearances are bloody wonderful, and now he’s written a bloody wonderful book. Is there anything he can’t do? Besides presumably finding a comfortable seat on a plane or in a cinema. Heck, we even measure distance in Richard Osmans these days. What a world!
Hiding in plain sight as a bunch of harmless pensioners living out their days in the luxurious retirement village Cooper’s Chase, the Thursday Murder Club are a group of amateur sleuths led by the enigmatic Elizabeth and also containing Ron, a former trade unionist; Joyce, a former nurse (who also offers an epistolary take on the events that are unfolding); and Ibrahim, a former psychiatrist. What starts out as an open and shut murder case soon expands to include long dead nuns, retired boxers and enough twists and turns to fill, well, a detective novel, I suppose.
On the subject of crime fiction, it’s not a genre that I usually enjoy. Sherlock Holmes did nothing for me. I can’t get on with Agatha Christie. And while Osman is channelling both of those influences here, The Thursday Murder Club feels a little warmer than all of that, a little less clinical. Like an old jumper or the smell of a Sunday roast. Even the book’s title feels like it could be a Kinks song. Basically, it’s very British, and in a time when we don’t have much to feel proud about, it’s nice to have something that anchors us to these shores that isn’t shrouded in the insidious cloak of jingoism.
All that aside, Osman’s debut novel is just like the man himself: funny, warm and more intelligent than it lets on. With two sequels and a film adaptation in the works, the Thursday Murder Club are going nowhere. Thank goodness for that.