Richard Osman is a terrific writer. I read this book in one sitting, the story and writing drew me in and kept me entertained for over 4 hours. The Thursday Murder Club group are so well written that I can picture them - I definitely know who I'd like to play them in a film - they are so diverse yet so compatible.

Loved it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I read a free advance review copy of the book. This review is voluntary, honest and my own opinion.

I wrote, of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club “[It]… is wonderful. It made me laugh and it made me cry”. I am delighted to report that his new book, The Man Who Died Twice, is just as good. Laugh? Imagine a video call to a stereotypical New York mafia boss who appears on a screen, snarling and banging his fist on a desk, to be met with “Frank, you’re on mute, I think.” Cry? Yep, several times. I was so wound up with tension at the end of the book that I even laughed and cried at Richard Osman’s acknowledgments that follow the novel. “Despite repeated requests to my publishers, I am not allowed to score people out of 10 according to how helpful they have been”. I have never seen such eloquent loving generosity from an author. To a friend who departed during 2020, “Kourosh, you will forever be an honorary member of the Thursday Murder Club.”

Osman is also an author who slips into the narrative a sign in an independent bookshop “Your Local Bookshop – Use it Or Lose it’. In his acknowledgements at the end of the book, he asks us to support our local bookshops. Quire right. Osman uses City Books in Hove, I use Gullivers Bookshop in Wimborne. Both are civilised refuges in an unquiet world.

What’s the book about? I am delighted to report that the four members of the Coopers Chase retirement village’s Thursday Murder Club are back. Ibrahim, Ron, Joyce and Elizabeth may be in their seventies, but they can compete with MI5. Their two allies in the local police force, Donna and Chris, together with the local builder, Bogdan, also play major parts. An old acquaintance contacts Elizabeth. There are £20m of diamonds missing and he’s suspected of taking them from a very senior, highly respected member of the underworld, Martin Lomax. Unfortunately, Lomax wasn’t the owner. They belonged to the New York mafia – and they would like them back, urgently.

Elizabeth’s formidable intelligence cracks the problem, but Osman makes sure we know it’s teamwork. One of the messages surfacing at times through the novel is that we all need friends. Joyce knits friendship bracelets and hands them to people in return for a charitable donation. Even Elizabeth realises what friends are. When Ibrahim is hurt, he says “I don’t believe in revenge.” “I do”, says Ron. “As do I”, says Elizabeth. And what excellent revenge it is!

Osman show tremendous skill in portraying the characters: intelligent Elizabeth, mumsy Joyce, gentle Ibrahim with his amazing retention of detail, bluff Ron, taciturn Bogdan, PC Donna. Whichever character is speaking, Osman gets the mannerisms and the vocabulary note-perfect. The characters live in your head – you can see and hear them speaking. Some chapters are narrated by Joyce and the tone, the language, the content are those of a woman in her late seventies. Admittedly, in this case, one who picks up a pair of kitchen knives to deal with murderous intruders and who asks a baddie “Would you like some painkillers?” then happily says “Shame, I don’t have any”.

Flaws? Ummm… None. This book is simply perfect. I laughed, I cried. I was on the edge of my seat, reading as fast as I could. I didn’t want it to end. And now I’m going to read it all over again…
#TheManWhoDiedTwice #NetGalley