Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for the ARC of this book.
I didn’t think Richard Osman’s first book in his Thursday Murder Club was great, but I thought I’d give the second book a chance because the first book was so popular, I thought maybe I’d missed something. Unfortunately, I found the second book suffered from all the same issues as the first.
Osman writes with some beautiful touches of gentle observational humour which make you smile; he is clearly infatuated with his characters, his characterisation is strong and you get a really good sense of them, especially the old ladies. The problem, however, is the plot. I felt both books lacked a compelling narrative. There is nothing propulsive about the plot, it meanders along and in both books I just didn’t care about the outcome. This really is an issue in a mystery book.
There doesn’t ever feel like there are consequences to any of the events. I think five people are shot dead in this book and their deaths are largely met with a shrug of the shoulders or the other characters feeling it’s jolly good fun to be surrounded by all this death. The heroes of the book commit crimes left, right and centre; framing someone, withholding evidence, stealing evidence, lying to the authorities, purchasing drugs etc. and it seems we are supposed to find this endearing. Why should we care about who has committed one crime, if the people investigating it are perpetually committing other crimes? They are no better than the villains.
Judging by the hype around this book, I am in the minority in being underwhelmed by these books. I’m sure this will continue to be a wildly popular and successful series, I’m just not sure why. It probably has something to do with the excellent marketing. The books are beautiful and very current. The titles are catchy, although the title of this book has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, it’s just a throwaway line from what is essentially the epilogue. I wonder if this series would have been published if it were not written by a celebrity.