In my quest for more British crime fiction, I landed on the hugely popular (there is a Netflix series starring Pierce Brosnan in the works) The Thursday Murder Club series. I didn’t try it earlier because it’s one of those cozy mystery books, that I am not too fond of. And this series, set in a retirement home, seems a bit too twee.
But, it was described as delightful to me, and so I gave it a shot.
About The Thursday Murder Club
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, Ibrahim, and Ron might 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?
∼ Synopsis from goodreads
My Review
Was the book synopsis intriguing for you? Sadly, for me, it was not. Lacking in detail, and judging by the phrases retirement village, or pushing eighty, it seems like the book isn’t targeting my age group at all. I started it and felt confused and bored pretty much immediately, although the book does come together nicely in part 2.
I didn’t like the fact that the book publicity was treating the book premise of octogenarians investigating murder as new or revolutionary. Miss Marple would like to have a word.
Annoyingly, the book is twee and quirky, I can’t take it seriously at all, and it seems like half of it’s one big joke. But the really big problem with this book is that you can’t just kill a random man that no one cares about, including the characters in the book, and then expect the reader to be invested in solving the murder. There’s nothing anchoring it.
So, the plot was quite weak, but I enjoyed the humor and the storytelling.
That said, I think this would work better as a series of short stories rather than one long, fairly lightweight book.
Have you read this book/series? What are your thoughts?
