Is there anything Richard Osman can't do? He's a TV presenter, producer, director and now a novelist.

The Thursday Murder Club is a wonderful read. It's funny, sometimes poignant, involving and cleverly plotted.
It's a tale set in the retirement village of Coopers Chase. So, I initially thought it' might be a typical, rather cosy English murder mystery. Well it is and it isn't. It's so much better.

The four main characters Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim and Joyce meet every Thursday to discuss unsolved murders and try to solve them – hence The Thursday Murder Club. They may be getting on in years, but they are definitely not past it. They are all strong, vivid characters. We learn a lot about the club members and other village residents thanks to newest member Joyce, a former nurse, who gives us background information about the other characters and mentions the day to day events and interactions of the village in her diary in a very chatty but observant way. You get such a vivid picture of the people and places. I can almost picture a dramatised version on television.

When a murder occurs on their doorstep they naturally want to get involved in solving it. That's where PC Donna de Frietas and DCI Chris Hudson come in. They way the four friends manage to become involved and get information from them is genius, and hilarious. At times I was laughing out loud but there is a serious side too. The book touches on friendship, ageing, loneliness, loss and living - all part of the story.

I wouldn't call it a crime thriller but the story has pace. There are plots, and sub-plots, and twists and turns and red herrings and yet it is an easy read. The story just flows. I got very engrossed and found it hard to put down.

I'm not usually one who likes cosy murder mysteries. I usually prefer thrillers. However I really liked this book.
It was such a joy to read. I hope there might be another one from Richard Osman soon.

The Thursday Murder Club is a fabulous, fabulous book, it is one of those rare novels where you are enjoying the narrative and characters so much that the actual plot doesn’t really matter (even though it was gripping); it was one of those books that you don’t want to read too quickly because you don’t want it to end.

Please let it be the first of a series!

Many thanks to Viking Publishers, to Mr Osman and to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this wonderful book.

Set in a picturesque retirement village, four quasi-friends from different walks of life are brought together every Thursday by their common interest in discussing (and solving) cold cases. But when the owner of their retirement village is murdered after announcing his plans for a housing development in the pristine countryside, the Thursday Murder Club springs into action to solve the murder.
Both the setting and the plot are great ideas and well executed. The characters are endearing and mostly realistic.

I loved that the most-feared and powerful institution/ group in the area is the parking committee within Coopers Chase. The generational gap is displayed with humour, particularly regarding technology. While these and other little details move the book into the ‘cozy’ category, the plot also addresses the more serious aspects of ageing, mental and physical decline, murder and suicide.

The ending was unexpected and while it wasn’t all I wanted (unnecessary deaths), overall it was an enjoyable read.
At times there were quite a few characters to keep track of, but that didn’t take away from the plot. Overall, the book was written well and very easy to read.

Joyce’s lemon drizzle and coffee cakes sounded delicious and they inspired me to bake a chocolate coffee cinnamon crunch cake (some of which was consumed while reading the book).

I hope this isn’t the last we’ve seen of the Thursday Murder Club/ the Coopers Chase residents and that Osman decides to turn this into a series.

I’m always a little dubious when celebrities write fiction. It’s not their fault, its some kind of bias that I have - I am trying to be better, promise. But, having watched Richard Osman on TV for many years, it was clear that he is very articulate, and so I thought, more than capable of writing a book. But, did he have the imagination to do so? And the long and short of it is yes, he absolutely does.

So many aspects of this book caught my attention first off; the title. A club, no doubt. But did they attempt to solve murders or commit them? Secondly, that it was written by RIchard Osman, who is someone that I admire and watch on TV regularly. Finally, the setting. A murder mystery set at a luxury retirement village? Where the elderly residents get up to a spot of detective work? Yes please. That had me sold.

The Thursday Murder Club could have gone one of two ways. It could have been a spectacular book with a great plot and fantastic characters, or it could have been a disaster. I am so thrilled to say that it was the former, in every way possible. A superb book in all regards.

‘The Gang’ as I affectionately call them, are all, in their own ways, fantastic. Human, flawed, and complete. Each with their own distinctive narrative voice. I have to say, of them all, Joyce was absolutely my favourite. Although Elizabeth might be the obvious choice, with her sharp intelligence, Joyce just made me feel all of the feels.

I won’t give anything away about the plot as that’s something that should be discovered while reading. But I will say this, there are plenty of twists and turns to keep you enthralled in the story. Some that I saw coming, and some that I didn’t.

Overall, The Thursday Murder Club has shot to being one of my favourite books of the year, because it has it all, intelligent plot lines, thrilling twists and wholly real characters. I laughed, I gasped and I wept. I couldn’t be more thrilled that this is going to be part of a series and I would happily read dozens of books about this gang and their adventures.

Our novel is set at Coopers Chase, a retirement village in Kent, where four OAPs fancy themselves as murder mystery solvers. When someone actually is murdered, the four of them take the police for a ride, 'helping' them try to solve the crime. As the debut novel of TV presenter Richard Osman, I didn't know what to expect but this was an absolute delight.

This book is witty, clever, so full of joy and so heartwarming, but also emotional and touching at times. The characters are wonderfully developed, each one is unique and delightful to spend time with. This is a novel filled with funny moments which feels cosy and exciting at the same time.

It would be fantastic if this book were turned into a series. This is the perfect book for anyone who loves a murder mystery. Richard Osman clearly has a talent for writing and I can't wait to see what he comes out with next! I absolutely adored this book.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman was a really fun crime novel with the older generation being the stars! I enjoyed the writing style and the pace of the book. The different twists and turns throughout the book kept me on edge. I would recommend it highly.

Here are the pensioners I want to be! Confidently smashing their way through red tape and societal norms like a gang of imperious dowager duchesses and cranky troublemakers, these retirees are an absolute joy. Clever, astute, compassionate and fiercely opposed to injustices great and small, the residents of a wealthy old folks home embark on unlikely adventures. It’s a romp, lively and silly, not to be taken too seriously and as I read I was busily casting the inevitable movie in my head...

Richard Osman, in case you don't know, is the very tall guy on Pointless who has all the answers.

I was very pleased to find out he had written a book and even more delighted when the publisher agreed to let me review it.

Like its author, The Thursday Murder Club is well dressed, funny, and quintessentially English.

Four pensioners in a Kent retirement village spend their Thursdays solving old unsolved murders. That is, until a real murder takes place and they decide to do the police's work for them, although they can't resist letting the local constabulary in on their investigations.

I loved this book with its gentle but clever humour. The characters of the four pensioners are spot on and absolutely believable. Everyone knows an Elizabeth, a formidable and endlessly resourceful woman (probably in MI6 in a former life), Joyce, our narrator who likes putting vodka in her cakes, Ron, the former union man, and Ibrahim, who is always having to explain to the less enlightened residents how modern technology works.

Donna, the PC that the pensioners took to their hearts and her boss, Chris, made a good double act. Bogdan, the Polish man of all trades and expert chess player, also made me chuckle quite a lot.

I liked the reference to the Isle of Wight, too, by the way. If it's good enough for Jane Austen, and all that.

Looking at the end of the book, it seems pretty certain there will be another adventure for our intrepid pensioners, and that's good news. After all, there are only so many cakes Joyce can bake or chocolate bars Chris can eat.

I was sent an advance review copy of this book by Penguin Books (UK), in return for an honest appraisal.

I was so looking forward to this book and unlike my previous read I was not disappointed. Always unsure with a new author to me, and a debut novel and by a famous person as you can never tell how good they will be but I need not have worried. Any chance of a follow up?

It was funny in places but also made you think about what people have to deal with in life. Loved the characters, a friend has just moved into. Retirement estate, I hope she does not experience so many murders although I am sure she could cope with the drinking!

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

When I heard that Richard Osman wrote a book, I knew I had to read it. He’s smart and funny, he’ll write a decent story I thought, and I was right! The Thursday Murder Club is set in an upmarket retirement village called Coopers Chase where the residents start drinking at 11am and break all the rules, because, well, how much trouble could they possibly get into at this stage in their lives?

The Thursday Murder Club members consist of four 70-80 year olds who meet up once a week and review unsolved murders from over the years. The club can’t believe their luck when 2 actual murders happen, meaning that they can now investigate in real-time. They work as a team utilising their various contacts in and outside the retirement village as well as softly and carefully involving the police when it suits them.

The story is written with obvious compassion and I enjoyed the charming sincerity of Osman. Although you don’t learn too much about each of the character’s pasts, you can still get a really good sense of the types of people they are. The characters are what make this book really sweet to read.

The reason this book doesn’t get 5 stars is because at the beginning there are a lot of characters and you don’t really know who the main characters are or who is important to the plot. I found myself having to re-read some pages to remember who’s-who.

4 stars

When a ‘celebrity’ writes a book, one never knows what to expect, but Richard Osman has done himself proud with this absolute gem! Every Thursday, four elderly residents of a retirement village get together to have a go at solving murders from the past, but they are suddenly confronted with not just one but two murders very close to home. The characters themselves are realised with humour and empathy and it is a joy to read a book where the main protagonists are all over 70! However, there is more than a little feeling of both Blyton’s Famous Five and Chesterton’s Father Brown here, and plot, characters and writing style are none the worse for that. If you’re looking for a serious police procedural this book is probably not for you, but if you are in need of humour, style, gentle persuasion and great fun, buy this book - you won’t be disappointed!

The Thursday Murder Club, set in a 'Luxury Retirement Village', offers portraits ranging from the expected elderly British married couples, to, among other central characters, a lady detective, Turkish-Cypriot criminals, a retired Catholic priest a former Trades Union leader, and the latter's former famous boxer son, now constantly appearing on reality television. The author restrains himself from making the latter make an appearance on his own 'Richard Osman's House of Games' or 'Pointless'. A cast list in the forefront of this book might be helpful, although I grant that accompanying descriptions, such as 'X, a villain' or 'Y, a murderer', would spoil the reader's endeavours to discover 'who dun wot'. But there could be a clue in the following anonymous Foreword:

Killing someone is easy. Hiding the body, now that's usually the hard part. That's how you get caught.
I was lucky enough to stumble upon the right place, though. The perfect place, really.
I come back from time to time, just to make sure everything is still safe and sound. It always is, and I suppose it always will be.
Sometimes I'll have a cigarette, which I know I shouldn't, but it's my only vice.

One of the pleasures of reading thrillers comes from your success in identifying a perpetrator before he is/she is/they are/ brought to justice. But don't reduce your enjoyment by only considering those revealed to be smokers in this novel. I would strongly recommend buying the Kindle version of this intriguing detective story, so as to make frequent use of the name- or incident- searching facility in such a device. Towards the end of the book, the average reader is likely to be confused by the reappearance of a name or incident only briefly mentioned earlier. I speak from my own experience. Novels do not have a useful index; this book warrants one, and fortunately an e-reader can supply it.

Wendy Pollard.

Just what I expected from Richard Osman - a clever and funny novel with great characters and a plot with plenty of secrets.
I laughed at the antics of the determined elderly amateur sleuths and the police who tried to contain their efforts.
Warm, funny and gripping. Can’t wait for the next one!!

As you might expect from the author, this is a charming and intelligent debut and is fortunately written with a series in mind. In parts funny and in others poignant, this is a cleverly plotted book very much in the tradition of the English crime novels of Agatha Christie, MC Beaton and Robert Galbraith. The characters are interesting and well crafted, the plot clever without being tenuous and the setting quirky and fun. I don’t often give 5 stars but I have here, which shows how much I enjoyed this read.

I feared that this was another of the endless list of celebrities jumping on the bandwagon to write a book to increase their self esteem. I was not expecting a great deal.

How wrong was I?

All credit to Richard Osman the book is enjoyable with a storyline that keeps you hanging on until the end. It is well written, the storyline continually moves forward unlike a lot of authors now days that spend a lot of time describing characters and scenes irrelevant to the story itself. I would certainly read another of Richards"s books. He certainly is an author to watch.

I was curious to read Richard Osman's debut novel, as it' can be a bit hit or miss when a celebrity puts pen to paper. I'm a big fan of his so I was really pleased to be given the opportunity by Netgalley and the publisher to read an ARC.

The Thursday Murder Club isn't quite what I expected, it's a cosy murder mystery set in a genteel retirement community - think 'Midsummer Murders' meets 'Waiting for God'. (Apologies if I'm showing my age here!). It really shouldn't work but it absolutely does. I loved it! (4.5 stars from me).

I really liked the central characters, and Richard's portrayal of Joyce, Elizabeth, Ibrahim and Ron is full of warmth and love. It certainly shows that there is definitely life after retirement, each one with a lifetime's experience and stories to share. I'd love to see these characters solve another murder in the future, there is so much scope for them all.

If I had one criticism, the character list was very extensive and maybe there was one murderer too many but all in all it's a great read and I would recommend.

An interesting read with lots of links to the same things with different outcomes. Written a bit tongue in cheek about older people. Easy to read and can just imagine the author saying some of the things.
I didn’t like how it swapped from one theme to the other just in the next sentence with no break. A bit confusing!

When I saw that famed funny tv host Richard Osman had written a crime mystery, I must admit to having two reactions. The first, was that I NEEDED to read this book. The second, worry. I was worried that the nook would not do him justice, or worse still, that he wouldn’t have really written it himself. I was wrong on both accounts.

The Thursday Murder Club is a fantastically beautiful and heartwarming cosy mystery. The protagonists are not the average John and Jane of most cosy mystery novels, but a bunch of lemon-drizzle making, crossword solving old folks, who have set up their very own ‘Thursday Murder Club’ to occupy their Thursday afternoons. These old folk - Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron are not your average granny and grandad however, they are quick witted, devious, ballsy and keen to put their sleuthing skills against that of the real life police. Based in their very English, rural Kent, upper market Retirement Village, the foursome uncover secrets that the police couldn’t crack, and make witnesses spill their confessions as easy as asking about what they’d had for tea.

There were two main things that jumped out at me during this book and really made this book just made for me and Both are very very unique...one is that one of the characters is called Father Mackie....Mackie is my surname and I never ever see or hear this in anything so this blew me away as soon as I read it. The second is that portions of it are set in Cyprus. The beautiful place I now am lucky enough to call home. I felt so nostalgic and proud when the first mention of Cyprus came. The thing I liked most about this book though, was how lovable the characters were. I really fell in love with all four of the oldies in their own little way, their characters each being very different but well developed. We got to mix the excitement of the murder mystery with snippets into their real lives, both sad and heartwarming, which only made them feel ever more real as little old ladies and men. The family worries, the loneliness, the desire to fatten up their daughters, their friends slowly dying one by one, their ever closer inevitable inch towards death. There were so many moments I laughed out loud at this book (Ron pretending to be senile for one) and others where I shed a tear at what must be a very real reality for so many old folk. It was very unusual and unique to have four little old people at the heart of a crime mystery and I absolutely loved it for this.

The story was well thought out, and easy to follow yet led me down so many garden paths to red herrings! I was so certain so many times, only to be pleasantly proved wrong, and I did not see the ending coming until it hit. That’s so rare for me these days and I always appreciate a book that can trick me like that and leave me clueless and guessing right up to the last page! The only inconsistencies for me were the Turkish Cypriots having such Greek Cypriot names, but that’s a small detail that was I not currently living in Cyprus, I would no way have noticed. I enjoyed this book so much, and I really will not only be looking out for the second book, but also remembering how much I want to live in a ‘contemporary upmarket residential home’ when I’m Joyce and Elizabeth’s age!

5 lemon drizzled, taste the difference stars. 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

I guess I should admit to you that I wanted to read this book because I am a huge fan of Richard Osman. However, I was pleased to find that this lived up to all of my expectations, and more.

The Thursday Murder Club is humorous, light-hearted fun, but with just the right amount of mystery. It keeps you guessing right up to the last page and I’m looking forward to joining this team of pensioners in solving more mysteries in future. I loved the dynamic between Chris and Donna as well.

There were so many facts and little tidbits of info in the book, which I enjoyed learning, but also show the author’s true character.

Definitely a great read and looking forward to book two!

If there is such a thing as a cosy murder story this book epitomizes it. It has strong, well rounded main characters with the author managing to balance humour and a good tale with sensitive handling of difficult subjects. I look forward to meeting up with Joyce and friends again soon
Thank you to netgalley and penguin books for an advance copy of this book