{"id":9137,"date":"2021-07-29T08:26:40","date_gmt":"2021-07-29T12:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9137"},"modified":"2021-07-29T08:26:40","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T12:26:40","slug":"the-thursday-murder-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9137","title":{"rendered":"The Thursday Murder Club"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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What better review for today, right? I highly recommend the audio-version<\/a> of Richard Osman\u2019s award-nominated debut cozy crime novel, narrated by Leslie Manville. Osman, who\u2019s had a career in television production, has a second book with many of the same characters already available for pre-order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four septuagenarians living in the Coopers Chase Retirement Village, located in the Kentish Weald, meet every Thursday to discuss cold murder cases. Their combination of still being sharp as a tack and varied life experience makes for lively, insightful discussions. Elizabeth, the group\u2019s leader, is the veteran of some possibly clandestine career that took her to countries around the world, Joyce was a nurse, Ibrahim a psychiatrist, and Red Ron a notorious union organizer and gadfly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their differences in temperament add to the group\u2019s chemistry. While Ibrahim would like to analyze every factor down to its nub, Ron\u2019s instinct is to barge in and clobber somebody. Elizabeth keeps various thoughts to herself, but Joyce writes a diary, and lucky thing too, because in it, she tells us what the group is thinking and, possibly, why. Joyce\u2019s diary is Osman\u2019s clever way to handle backstory and summary without tedious authorial intrusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an early scene, local DC Donna De Freitas visits the group to five her usual spiel on \u201cPractical Tips for Home Security.\u201d She\u2019s barely begun before Elizabeth cuts her off. \u201cDear, I think we\u2019re all hoping this won\u2019t be a talk about window locks.\u201d Ibrahim adds, \u201cAnd no ID cards, please; we know about ID cards. \u2018Are you really from the gas board, or are you a burglar?\u2019 We\u2019ve got it, I promise.\u201d \u201cAnd no need to tell us we mustn\u2019t give our PIN to Nigerians over the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Freitas regroups and asks what they do want to talk about, and an enjoyable hour-long free-for-all starts. They recognize that the young De Freitas, for all her amiability, is rather underutilized in the local police department. What she\u2019d like to be working on is a nice juicy murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fate conspires to accommodate her. Tony Curran, a man with a gangster past, and the greedy developer, Ian Ventham, intend to build a second phase of Coopers Chase, on more of the former convent land Ventham purchased from the Church, including plans to dig up the nuns\u2019 cemetery. When Tony is stabbed to death in his kitchen, the Thursday Murder Club wants in on the action. Their new friend Donna De Freitas may be the key, if they can only manage to get her on the murder team and convince her to let them help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ventham\u2019s helper Bogdan, has hardly started excavating the graves when he discovers a set of human bones, not in a coffin, but on top of one. This looks like trouble, so he reburies them. Now the Club has two mysteries to solve: who killed Tony Curran, and who is the extra body? Though the local police barely tolerate this amateur assistance, in truth, the oldsters run rings around them. Joyce especially has a way of sounding like a batty old lady, chatting about cakes and tea, while maneuvering the detectives into spilling some useful tidbit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the overall mood is lighthearted, there are moments of sadness, as loss is ever-present in a place like Coopers Chase. That doesn\u2019t stop these four memorable characters from living their lives to the fullest. If you\u2019re in a summertime mood for something light and delightful, this book could be it. If you choose the audio version, Leslie Manville\u2019s narration is tops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Order here <\/a>from Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What better review for today, right? I highly recommend the audio-version of Richard Osman\u2019s award-nominated debut cozy crime novel, narrated by Leslie Manville. Osman, who\u2019s had a career in television production, has a second book with many of the same … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Thursday Murder Club - four sprightly septuagenarians run rings around the police investigating two murders. ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1335,77,52,1821,3,632,126],"tags":[1883,1884],"class_list":["post-9137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amateur-detective","category-audio-books","category-crime","category-humor","category-mystery","category-police","category-reading-2","tag-richard-osman","tag-thursday-murder-club"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2nn","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9139,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9137\/revisions\/9139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}