The Thursday Murder Club Again

“Morning has broken at Coopers Chase. From the window of Elizabeth’s flat you can see the dog-walkers, and a few latecomers rushing to Over-Eighties Zumba. The air hums with friendly greetings, and the sounds of birdsong and Amazon delivery vans.” (p. 27)

The Bullet that Missed: Another great story from Richard Osman’s highly entertaining group of friends that meet on Thursdays in the jigsaw room of Coopers Chase, their retirement community! By the end of the novel, these exceptional characters have once again solved a cold case and brought several miscreants to justice, while providing us, the readers, with lots of fun. 

At the center of their investigation are a famous but aging TV news presenter and a make-up artist who helps him stay good looking. Some of the club members are a bit star struck, so they chose to re-open the unsolved murder of a colleague of this minor celebrity in order to get to meet him. This seems especially amusing when one knows that TV presenting of this sort was the author’s earlier claim to fame. If the reader is supposed to recognize real people in this story, though, I am deficient, as I know nothing about British TV stuff.

Osman’s characters are as good as ever. Elizabeth, the former high-level spy never disappoints! Joyce, the most naive member of the group, as always records in her diary the progress of their investigation as she sees it, and at the same time, reflects her domestic concerns. For example, she writes:

“Sitting on my sofa, watching a program about trains, is a man called Viktor Illyich. He’s a former KGB agent. He’s Ukrainian. I told him I wanted to write my diary and he laughed and said I had plenty to write about today. I have left him with a glass of sherry and a slice of cherry-and-dark-chocolate cake. I saw it on Instagram and thought it had Ron’s name all over it. But, as it turns out, Viktor is getting the first slice, which goes to show how plans can change. The rest is in Tupperware for Ron though. … Viktor says the cake is very good. I know he would say that anyway, but he’s had the whole slice, so let’s assume he’s telling the truth. I don’t normally like dark chocolate, as a rule, but it really works here. It has Kirsch in it too, so that helps.” (p. 149)

As in the earlier books in the series, two low-level police officers are also involved, though never anywhere as effective at solving crimes as the retirees. They are investigating a mysterious crash of a van, which I think is left as a loose end when the main mystery is resolved — would someone tell me if they’ve read the book and I am wrong about this? Some of the criminal characters from an earlier book are also involved in this one. Chris, one of the two partners in the police team, is still trying to eat healthy food. 

He has “lost a stone and a half in weight. He recently bought himself a T-shirt in size L, instead of his usual XL, or occasional, shameful XXL. He eats salmon and broccoli now. He eats so much broccoli he can spell it without looking it up. When was the last time he had a Toblerone? He can’t even remember.” (p 31)

Suspense builds very effectively in The Bullet that Missed. You can tell from the title that there are guns in the story, and that’s really important for a story set in England where there aren’t guns in almost every household the way there are here. (OK, it’s only 40%, but still…) The characters are brave, resourceful, and very clever — but I’m not going to tell you more and spoil the mystery. How wonderful that these stories keeps being fun to read — as always I’m grateful to my sister who gave me the first novel in the series.

Review © 2022 mae sander