The Bullet That Missed: (The Thursday Murder Club 3)

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Richard Osman was born in Billericay, Essex, England on November 28, 1970 and is a writer, comedian, producer, and television presenter. He is best known for creating the BBC quiz show Pointless. It's Boxing Day lunch at Cooper's Chase, a retirement village in South East England, where resident septuagenarians Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, and Joyce learn about the murder of antiques dealer, Kuldesh Sharma, who also happens to be a friend of Stephen, Elizabeth's husband. With films, of course, you're filming one every two years or so, so filming four [would mean] they're going to be eight years older than they were on film one. So the Hollywood thing, by and large, is that you get people you can age up a little bit. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Her retort is perfectly fitting and definitely a sign that there will be more Thursday Murder Mystery Club meetings in readers futures… 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." You know that the author can write great characters that are humorous, he can certainly write funny, he knows where the jokes can be inserted to make you smile and laugh but what I didn’t anticipate is the writer’s way of dissecting pain and sorrow and put it in wonderful words for us to read. So here’s the anticipated effect, in one chapter you are sobbing and in another you are laughing very hard, you would be looked at as unstable but that’s this book for you. So you are warned, no reading in public places or all the seats next to you will be vacated. With Elizabeth preoccupied with Stephen’s care, Joyce takes the lead. Ron is Ron, while the reader finally learns more about Ibrahim’s past. A new friend comes into the fold, and some new residents of Coopers Chase find themselves in scandalous situations. Also, the criminal characters are entertaining, and I especially enjoyed Garth’s character. Donna, Chris, and Bogdan also play significant roles. It was great to see Joyce come into her own, channeling her inner Elizabeth. I also loved the Murder Club's chutzpah as they dropped in to have tea with various criminals and then casually arranged for a luncheon summit including two drug lords and two art forgers.As we have come to expect from Osman's writing, there is more than one tightly plotted mystery to unravel. Richard’s debut novel, called “The Thursday Murder Club”, was released in the year 2020. His work is from the mystery genre. Viking Press acquired the rights to the novel for a seven-figure sum, in a ten publisher auction. While working as the creative director at TV giant Endemol, he pitched the idea for Pointless to the BBC, becoming the co-presenter along with Alexander, when it began in 2009. He created the series where he’s jokingly referred to as Armstrong’s “pointless friend”. He previously worked exclusively in behind-the-camera roles for other shows. Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club is concerned. A decade-old cold case leads them to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers.

Richard loves every sport, especially watching them. He remembers that when he was fifteen, staying up until after midnight to watch the 1985 snooker world final.Usually by the fourth book in a series, my interest starts to wane and I don’t continue on, but I have grown fond of this gang, and look forward to what’s next! Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. I highly recommend The Last Devil to Die to those readers who enjoy a Cozy Mystery with a solid group of main characters!