Published by PENGUIN, 2023, 416 pages, condition: new.
Shocking news reaches the Thursday Murder Club. An old friend in the antiques business has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing. As the gang springs into action they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters and drug dealers, as well as heartache close to home. With the body count rising, the package still missing and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out? And who will be the last devil to die?
"In this installment, murder hits close to home when a friend of Stephen's is killed. With their trademark forthrightness and humor, Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim stick their noses where they don't belong, and are soon caught up in the world of heroine dealers, antiques, and fake art.
I usually try to bam my way through murder mysteries like nobody's business. After all, I want to pick up clues as fast as I can, put it all together, and get to the whodunnit pronto. But this series feels like one to savor, and this installment is especially so. I read it slowly, immersing myself in these characters who over the course of four books now feel like friends rather than just characters on a page.
This was an entertaining mystery, with more chaos and mayhem (hehe) than you'd expect old people to get themselves into. We see Joyce really come into her own here, stepping in for Elizabeth who is otherwise indisposed. I feel like all the side characters were particularly charming, and I even started to like Connie if you can believe it. We also have a little side mystery going on to catch an online scammer, just to add a bit of extra zing to the whole thing.
I can't talk about the series without talking about its humor, and that's on full display here. Humor is subjective, and what one reader finds funny may not click with another. But for me, it completely works. Richard Osman has this gentle way of poking fun at the folly of human nature and growing old. It's cheeky and lighthearted, and it never comes at the expense of the characters' humanity. I have to warn you though, this book feels like the series' most intimate and emotional one yet, so get the tissues ready. Osman doesn't shy away from talking about growing old and dying. In fact, couched in all that humor and sleuthing is the ever-present specter of death coming for everyone, especially when you are of a certain old age.
And yet, reading about these four friends who take life by the horns when it would've been much easier to just coast and fade out is so inspiring and invigorating. As Richard Osman puts it wisely via Joyce, "The urgency of old age. There's nothing that makes you feel more alive than the certainty of death."
