The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, 1), Richard Osman. Penguin Books (ISBN: 9781984880987) 2021.
Summary: Four seniors meet on Thursdays to solve cold cases until a present day murder leads to something more.
Police Constable Donna De Freitas finds the residents of Coopers Chase unusually sharp and interested in far more than keeping their doors locked. They are interested in murder, at least four of them. First there is Elizabeth Best, who possibly worked in intelligence and seems to have a lot of contacts. Joyce Meadowcroft is a retired nurse and diarist for the group. Ibrahim Arif is a psychiatrist who still reviews his patient files and occasionally sees an old patient. Rounding out the group is Ron Ritchie, a former political firebrand who has mellowed only just slightly.
They call themselves the Thursday Murder Club because they meet on Thursdays in the Jigsaw Room at Coopers Chase to try to solve unsolved murders. The cases come from founding member Penny Gray, a former police officer, now in a coma. PC De Freitas hits it off with the group, although they wonder why such a capable woman left the force in London for the rural setting of Cooper’s Chase.
Ian Ventham, a shrewd and ambitious developer owns Coopers Chase. Tony Curran handles construction and maintenance and has a quarter stake in Cooper’s Chase. Ventham has his eyes on expansion, the next phase of which involves the graveyard of the convent which occupied the grounds of what is now Coopers Chase. But he wants to cut Tony out and replace him with Bogdan Jankowski, who, let’s say, is “resourceful.” Ventham and Curran have a meeting at Coopers Chase, where some residents witness a heated conversation between the two. The next day, the Thursday Murder Club learn Curran was murdered by bludgeoning in his home. The murderer left one clue, a picture of three men with a pile of money in front of them. One is Curran. One of the others is Ron’s son Jason, a famous ex-boxer, involved in a few shady dealings.
DCI Chris Hudson leads the investigation. But PC De Freitas, due to her lack of seniority is not on the team. However, Elizabeth finds a way to remedy that in exchange for information. Now, the Thursday Murder Club has their ‘in” with the police. But before anything happens, Ventham has a confrontation with residents, preventing him from starting his next phase. Except that Jankowski quietly does start exhuming bodies. At the first grave, he encounters a skeleton buried on top of a casket containing another. That can’t be good.
And then Ventham, resigned to fight again another day, collapses and dies by his car. An investigation determines that someone murdered him by a drug overdose. There are a lot of suspects. A crowd had surrounded him, including some Thursday Murder Club members and a “pretend” priest. There is a lot of murder to investigate! And it turns out that the Thursday Murder Club is very resourceful, often getting information the police lack, and sometimes even sharing it!
I won’t say more so that you can join the investigation. What I particularly like is that Osman’s characters don’t play a role. He develops each one, including De Freitas and Hudson. We like these people and enjoy their interactions. Each has hidden depths, some exposed here, and some left for the future. While we delight in the characters and their interactions, Osman captures another characteristic of senior communities. Dementia, decline, and death are ever present. Perhaps the joie de vivre of the four central characters is that they still have their wits and health and life experience. And they intend to use them!
