I received a complimentary copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own.

I was hoping to love this as much as the Richard Osman series but I felt like this just didn't come together in quite the same way. The characters are really funny and charming but it just didn't come all the way together for me.

Tantor Audio have released some of my favourite audiobooks, so I was delighted to see that they are releasing Russell Cooper's Murder on Friday Street. Well read by Bronwen Price, the novel follows a group of former MI6 spies as they dig into a cold case.

When Randolph Vine was murdered in the quiet village of Friday Street, it was quickly closed as a failed mugging gone wrong. His death left his daughter Charlie (NEVER Charlotte) orphaned, and she moved in with Randolph's old friends, twins Cedric and Ambrose, who became her guardians.

10 years later and new clues to Randolph's death come to light, and it may link back to his work with MI6, where he worked with Cedric and Ambrose, and Linus Pope.

And so we follow the adventures of Charlie and the band of retired spies, who left behind a life of espionage for a rural life of honey making and gentler pursuits.

And when it looks like they're reaching a dead end, they call in their former boss - Verity Fanthorpe, who rocks up in her clapped out campervan.

Between them, they work to dig up secrets from their espionage pasts in Russia and Germany, to find out what happened to their old friend and finally be able to give Charlie the answers she needs.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel - murder, mystery, intrigue, with an absolutely riotous cast of characters, sparky dialogue and a satisfying conclusion. I'm off to pick up the rest of the series on ebook, as this is a world I've loved being immersed in.

This cozy mystery leans more on character charm than plot precision, and while the mystery element may leave some readers wanting, the quirky cast more than makes up for it. The story takes a little while to gain momentum, but once it does, it becomes a genuinely fun and heartwarming ride.

The real draw here is the characters - Verity, Ambrose, and Cedric especially. Their banter and antics made me laugh out loud more than once, and I found myself eager to spend more time in their world, even when the mystery took a backseat. Though retired MI6 officers might be expected to do a bit more actual sleuthing, this isn’t a gritty investigation - it’s more about delightful personalities getting into mildly absurd situations. That said, the plot does ask for a fair bit of suspension of disbelief.

Still, the ending was sweet and satisfying, and I’ll absolutely be picking up the next book when it’s released. Readers who enjoy cozy mysteries with eccentric older protagonists and a focus on found family will likely find this a charming read.

I very much enjoyed Murder on Friday Street—it had just the right mix of mystery and humour, and I found myself laughing at various points. Honestly, I think my new favourite trope is a 70-plus retired spy who’s sharper than everyone else in the room. More of that, please! I’d definitely want to read more in this series.

What an amazing book. This story had so many plot twists and funny moments. The twin brothers are quirky and delightful. I listen to the story and the reader was phenomenal. She brought to life each character that was involved in the story. I love the feistiness of the women in it and the relationships that they had.

This was absolutely delightful!

Murder on Friday Street is a cozy mystery built on the bones of a spy thriller, and the unusual combination works so well here. Ten years ago, Charley Vine was orphaned at age 18. She's been loved and cared for ever since by the wildly eccentric twin neighbors whose home is just down the lane from where she and her father lived. Cedric and Ambrose are retired from MI-6 (the Intelligence part, as they point out), where they worked with Charley's father, a field agent who died in a mugging-gone-wrong in their tiny little town in Surrey. The death has never sat right with Charley, and as she has some time off on her hands, she decides to enlist Cedric and Ambrose in another look at the cold case. The cast of characters investigating and being investigated grows exponentially as the case expands, with tendrils reaching back to the fall of the Berlin Wall. While the plot is complex, it's easy enough to follow as long as you can handwave a few loose ends (Who/where is Yuri's mother? Why did Joshua go to Australia and back again? How and when were sleeper agents placed?) At the beginning, I was a little confused that the audiobook narrator is a woman because the book opens on Cedric and Ambrose, but I soon realized that although the POV often switches among the characters, the story is primarily Charley's. Bronwen Price does an excellent job of subtly distinguishing among the various accents without being overly obvious about it. All in all, a wonderful book with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and quirky characters who quickly find a way into your heart. I'm looking forward to book 2!

Very silly—in the best possible way. The plot is bonkers, the characters are wonderfully ridiculous, and the whole thing feels like a cozy mystery that doesn’t take itself too seriously (thankfully). I had a great time with this one and enjoyed every minute.

From the very first chapter, I knew that “Murder On Friday Street” wasn’t going to be the usual quick-paced mystery I often gravitate towards. The story takes its time, settling me into the quirky English countryside and introducing an ensemble of eccentric characters—retired MI6 twins, a mysterious woman in a campervan, and Charlie, seeking justice for her father. While the premise promised an intriguing blend of espionage and rural whodunit, I found myself wishing the plot would move a bit faster.

#thankyounetgalley

Thank you so much to Tantor Audio and NetGalley for this ALC of Murder on Friday Street.

I adored this book! It grabbed my attention from the very start. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator’s accents were spot on and really made me feel like I was listening to a play. The characters were hilarious (especially the brothers) and wrong Kevin. It was a great mystery as well that definitely kept me guessing. I cannot think of one negative thing to say. I truly hope there is more in this series!

Audiobook narration was good. It's got some eccentric characters and had some funny moments. It wasn't for me personally, but I know a lot of my readers will really enjoy this cozy historical mystery.

Thursday Murder Club meets Thus Adonis Was Murdered in this witty mystery. The mystery was good -- solving a 10 year old cold case -- but the characters are hands down the best part. I love the banter and the bickering between old friends (and not-friends, as the case may be). I would love to visit Tanglefoot Farm, see the bees and the flowers, and meet Charlie and her adopted uncles.

I can't wait for the next one!

Thanks to NetGalley for the free copy, all opinions are my own

I enjoyed this book. The is an old fashion story, with a very English feel to it. I must admit it did start out very confusing jumping around in time and to different characters and I wasn't sure if was for me but it was just introducing you to some very quirky characters and setting the scene for the investigation. I was soon hooked and found myself enjoying it. The story revolves around Charlie who at a young age loses both her mother in a car accident and her father in a mugging. Her father's death is never solved and she joined by her eccentric uncle's set out to find out what happen. But of course it's not as simple as that. Her uncle's were analyst for MI6 and her father was a spy in Berlin. Cue.... well dead bodies, coded messages, suspects, high speeds and you get an entertaining and an extremely eccentric mystery. The characters were unique is the only other word I can up with to explain them and it wasn't just the uncle's that fit that description. The mystery was good and all the clues are there in amongst the chaos and hilarity for you to solve it yourself. I look forward to the next adventure.

After ten years the secrets are being declassified and Charlie hopes to find out what really happened to her father. A mugging leaves Charlie an orphan and going to live with her fathers bachelor best friends. They might be twin genius but they weren't prepared to raise a child. Now older and armed with questions, Charlie wants answers. Can they work out who killed her father?
I liked the narrator. She played the parts to a tea and made the characters easy to imagine, as they ran around getting into trouble.
I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

This is the first book in the Friday Street murder mystery series. I absolutely love this book and was gutted when it ended. I went straight out and bought a book number 2. I can’t wait to read more from the group and find out whether their next mystery will take them.

The easiest way to describe the audiobook is charming. It's easy to listen to, and Brownen Price has a very distinctive style of narration style, so that you know exactly which character is which as you listen. It's very easy to listen to and get absorbed in - I wouldn't recommend multi tasking!

Overall, a great, cozy mystery with a great array of characters. I listened to it very quickly, I didn't want to stop!

Murder on Friday Street by Russell Cooper is a charming cosy murder-mystery set in an idyllic village in England. The plot follows a now 28 year old woman, Charlie, who had lost her father over a decade before in a mugging gone wrong. Having been taken in by two eccentric retired twins, who were close friends with her late father, Charlie has been cared for and doted on, but the lingering loss of her father never faded, and something about the mugging never sat right with her. It also didn't help that her father was a former MI6 operative so a mugging just seemed a bit far-fetched. The story revolves around how Charlie, and the dynamic duo of Cedric and Ambrose, go about trying to solve the decade old murder of their friend, while picking along a ragtag group of people that help them along the way.

First things first, this book will remind anyone of the Thursday Murder Club; but in a good way. I quite enjoyed the diverse and eccentric cast of characters we stumble upon, and occasionally found myself chuckling at the absurdity of their antics. The plot was more fast paced than I expected for a cosy murder-mystery but still easy to follow. There is significant plot armour, especially around Charlie who in my opinion, was a very disappointingly written character. Outside of Charlie, the characters just worked so well for me. Definitely recommended for fans of the cosy murder-mystery genre.

Such a fun murder mystery with great characters! Charlie’s father’s murder was never solved, but now she has a few new clues, time off, and the assistance of her guardians - two bachelor twin brothers, Cedric and Ambrose, with a penchant for cheese and sartorial aptness. They just happen to be retired MI-6 officers specializing in the I (for intelligence). They are founts of knowledge but not cut out for field work. Fortunately, Charlie takes after he father, a former MI-6 field operative, and there are others on Friday Street (and in the same-named village) who worked with her father and who have the M (for Military training) she can rely on as they pursue clues and uncover long-held secrets. I hope this will become a series, as I would very much like to read more of the brothers, Verity, and the Russians in the future. The narration is very good and it was easy to follow, even when switching narratives (from Charlie’s to Verity’s POV, for example). 4.5 stars rounded up.
While it has been compared to Osman’s Thursday Murder Club, I enjoyed this book and its characters even more.
My thanks to the author, publisher, @TantorAudio, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook of #MurderonFridayStreet for review purposes. Publication date: 29 July 2025.

This was a fun cozy mystery, although it's really more about the characters than the plot itself. I really liked the characters, especially Cedric, Ambrose and Verity. Their conversations were very enjoyable. The plot requires the reader to accept a lot of unrealistic things, which I couldn't. I personally felt like there was barely an investigation, especially given that most of them are retired MI6 officers. It felt a bit too juvenile to me. But, I'll still be picking up the rest of the series when it comes out because I like the characters and I would like to see more of them. The ending was quite wholesome as well. Overall, I would recommend this to anyone who likes cozy mysteries with elderly people as the protagonists.

The narrator did a great job of making the story come to life. One issue I did have was that Charlie's voice was too shrill which made it difficult for me to picture her as an adult.

I wanted to like this, but for me there was just not a lot of there there... I found the characters to feel like caricatures. There was a lot of goofy nonsense going on, but not a lot of plot development. So many of the actions made no sense and felt contrived to generate a silly cozy feel.

That said, the narration is very good and I tried for longer than I should have to keep listening because Bronwen Price made a valiant effort to keep things moving, unfortunately I just could not engage with this one.

This was fun to read and a decent mystery. I like Charlie and her relationship with the older people, and having a character be known as "Wrong Kevin" for most of the book is exactly my kind of humour. Bronwen Price's narration really brought the characters to life.

Something I feel like Thursday Murder Club-alikes (this one included) often miss is depth. The quirkiness is fun and memorable, but on its own it's not enough to make the characters feel real. Verity has some very emotional moments, but Cedric and Ambrose are almost entirely defined by their extreme eccentricity. I would like to see more development of them as people beyond just being the wacky retired twins who wear matching outfits and are very fussy about tea.

The mystery got a little convoluted but it was satisfying enough. And I love a parlour room scene, but this one felt so manufactured that it came off as silly to me.

Overall I enjoyed reading this. I'm giving it 3 stars but I'm still keen to pick up the next in the series.

4.25/5

This review is for the audio version of the book. Narrated by Bronwen Price. She brings the cast of characters in this book to life giving each their own unique personality and voice. She was such a good choice for narrator.


This was delightful, charming, and so much fun.

Charlotte has been living with the eccentric retired spies, Cedric and Ambrose, (twins) since the death of her father (also a spy) 10 years ago, in a small town outside of London called "Friday Street".

When new information in the death of her father comes up, Charlotte pokes and pushes Cedric and Ambrose out of their comfortable routine life into helping her investigate.

This was just a wild and fun book. The characters are all charming, even the ones you're not supposed to like. They have their eccentricities and dis-likable qualities but they have so many redeeming qualities as well.

The dialogue/banter between them is witty and biting but also good natured, mostly. Also, the cast is so varied and so funny.

Verity was absolutely a gem. Once you read it, you'll understand.

Definitely worth your time. I want more of these books.