Transcript
Welcome to Mystery Books Podcast where you’ll discover new mystery books and authors. I’m USA Today bestselling mystery author Sara Rosett. I’m also a bookworm who specialties in the mystery genre. I love sharing my favorite mystery discoveries from classic golden age novels to contemporary cozies.
This is Season two, Episode one, and it's all about The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.
First off, I hope that I don't mess up and call it the Tuesday Club. The Tuesday Club is a title of a Miss Marple short story collection. So if I do have a slip up and I call it the Tuesday club, just know that that's a mistake in this whole episode is dedicated to The Thursday Murder Club.
So The Thursday Murder Club was published in 2020, and it is the first book in a new series.
Book Blurb
Here's the blurb: In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, E-brahim and Ron must be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?
The first line is this: “Joyce: Well, let's start with Elizabeth, shall we? And see how far that gets us.”
So there's a couple of interesting things about this book. One is the narrative split. It begins with a first person diary entry from Joyce. And so that was the first line of the book. She's bringing us into her world. And we get her take on things, through her diary, through her point of view. And then there is a third person, omniscient POV, that rotates among several of the characters. So this is a really interesting structure that you don't see very often. Most cozies, amateur sleuth mysteries are either first or third limited. It took me a little bit to get used to it, and I did like the glimpses we got of other people's lives as we rotated through the cast. But at times I felt that there were just a few too many people; got a little confusing a couple of times. But it was interesting and I enjoyed it; especially Joyce's diary entries that are very funny.
Now, this is a really interesting book because I feel like it's an example of a new type of subgenre that we're seeing in the mystery market. It's a subgenre, and I think of it sort of as an upscale, cozy mystery or an upscale amateur sleuth. I think it's designed to appeal to possibly book clubs or readers who wouldn't pick up necessarily a super sweet cozy that's very heavy on crafts or hobbies or the animal theme that a lot of cozies have now. I think this one is designed to appeal to a slightly different reader. And you can see it in the cover. It's very sleek, very what I would call noncozy. It looks a little bit different. And I think that that's intentional. And I think it's an attempt to update the traditional mystery. It's written in the Agatha Christie vein.
There's a couple of other books out like this that I would think fall into this kind of upscale book club type cozier mystery. The Magpie Murders is one. There's another. It's got the Queen Elizabeth as the amateur sleuth. It's called The Windsor Knot. And these are all traditionally published. They usually come out in hardcover and they have elements of the classic mystery. But there's a newer, modern twist to it. The Magpie Murders is told in a very unique way. This one, The Thursday Murder Club is the narrative style is different. It's not quite as different as the Magpie Murders, but there's just something new and different about this type of book. And I'm interested to see if there continues to be more books in this subgenre. If it does well. I've thought it's very funny that it seems that red is the color of choice for the covers. Almost all of the new books that I see, that kind of fall into this new subcategory seem to have red on the cover.
Story Behind the Story
Now on to the Story Behind the Story/Fun Facts section. Richard Osman, according to Wikipedia, is, "An English television presenter, producer, comedian, director and novelist, best known for being the creator and co presenter of the BBC one television quiz show, Pointless."
Themes and Tropes
Themes. All right. So let's go on to themes. So this book has a very strong theme about aging. It takes place in a retirement community. There's lots of characters thinking about death, the loss of mental acuity for yourself or for a loved one. And what that means and how that an impact and could impact your life. And it sounds like you would be very kind of sad and maybe a little depressing. But the book isn't that at all. It has touches, you know, like the low notes. But overall, I would say this is a very entertaining lighter mystery. But it does show you that you can take a subject like aging and death and explore it in a lighter way.
All right. Tropes. So this is one of my favorite tropes, the Gang of Misfits. It's even got a subset of that. This is like the retiree geriatric Gang of Misfits. So in a way, it reminds me of the movie Red. If you saw that, where you've got these group of spies that are supposedly retired and they have to, you know, get get back into their work again. So this doesn't, these are retirees. They all have a unique skill that they bring to the ability to detect.
And one of my favorite things about this type of Gang of Misfits trope is the mix of personalities, and I think that's so important. If you're going to use this type of story, the different personalities and how they interact is one of the major appeals of the book. And I certainly got that from this story. Each of the sleuths is very different. And they each have a different skill set and how they work together and where they clash and conflict is where a lot of the fun elements come from the story. And I just really enjoyed it.
So I'm not going to get into the puzzle. It's extremely convoluted and there are a ton of minor characters. Too confusing for me to delve into now. But I want to focus on the four main characters, and that's the main thing I was interested in while I was reading the book.
So I want to look at the high level tropes associated with each character. They're a little more nuanced in this, but we'll stay big picture to get an overview of the main trope. Which is the Gang of Misfits.
First is Elizabeth. She's practical. She's the leader. If this were the A-team, she would be Hannibal. So if you are old enough, you'll get that reference. She's focused and super efficient and mysterious. She has quite a back story that we don't really get the whole story on. I'm sure there will be more of that in future books. But that's Elizabeth.
Next, we have detail oriented E-brahim, who had been a psychiatrist. The trope that he's most closely associated with would be the Geeky Perfectionist. And so there's a lot of humor around the way he does things and what's important to him.
So here's a little tidbit of dialog that shows the interaction among the characters, and the kind of the tone of the book. This is Elizabeth speaking:
“All I need you to do is lie to a senior police officer,” says Elizabeth. “Can I trust you with that?”
“When can you not trust me, Elizabeth?” says Ibrahim. “When have I let you down?”
“Well, never, Ibrahim,” she agrees. “That's why I like to keep you around. Also, you make very good tea.”
Then you also have the third character, Ron. He's kind of scrappy and rabble rousing and he's a Rebel. I would say that's his main identity. He was an activist and he doesn't back down from a confrontation.
So here's a diary entry from Joyce about Ron, which describes Ron's key strength, which is, "Namely, he never believes a single word anyone ever tells him."
Then lastly, we have dependable, reliable and often overlooked Joyce. She's a caregiver who handles problems and keeps everything clicking along. She also has a very dry sense of humor.
When she visits her daughter Joanna at her office in London, Joyce says, “We were in a boardroom, and the table was made from the wing of an airplane. I knew not to make thing of it in front of Joanna, but it really was something. I sat there as if I saw airplane tables every day of the week."
Quotes
So here's a quote to end with.
Elizabeth is speaking to Joyce and she says, “Here’s the way I see it, Joyce. If we’re going to investigate this murder--”
“We’re going to investigate the murder?”
“Of course we are, Joyce,” says Elizabeth. “Who better than us? We have no access to case files, any witness statements, any forensics, and we are going to have to change that.”
And with that, they're off to orchestrate this series of events that sets up a young woman who came to speak to the retirement community about the importance of locking doors and never giving out private information. They want to get in touch with her and get her assigned to the murder investigation, so they'll have a connection to the officials. It's the first of many chess-like moves the group puts into action to get and give information.
Before we close out, I want to mention another book that has some similarities to The Thursday Murder Club, and it is called Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody. It is by Barbara Ross. It is also set in a retirement community. And it makes me think that there might be a possibility that this is going to become a new type of sub subgenre. This one is a little bit different, has a different premise than The Thursday Murder Club. It also takes place in a retirement community, and it has a woman who is a busybody who is hired to look into some problems going on at the retirement home. And, of course, a dead body turns up, and she must investigate. So it's really a fun book if you're interested in this type of setting.
So here's my question for you. Do you enjoy a Band of Misfits mysteries and do you have a favorite?
I hope this podcast has let you revisit a favorite book or perhaps helped you discover a new author to try. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, I hope you'll tell a fellow mystery reader.
