Seven Bookworms met on Monday to discuss "The Thursday Murder Club" by Richard Osman.
Firstly, what’s it all about?
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends met up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.
But when a brutal killing took place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club found themselves in the middle of their first live case.
Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron were pushing eighty, but they still had a few tricks up their sleeves.
Could our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?
Pam came up with some probing questions from The Penguin Book Club to keep the discussion rolling along, such as: “Who do you like in the book?” Joyce and Elizabeth were those first nominated: Joyce for her helpful diary and insightful asides: we saw her as the glue that kept the group together. We saw Elizabeth as a leader and a “can do” person, thanks to her shady experience in the secret service.
Lawrence and Ginia agreed that this is a very English novel, set in the fixed relationships and customs of the past, which explained how Dorothy and some readers “couldn’t connect” with it. Others enjoyed the realism of the word pictures and some expressions.
Pam admitted it took some time to warm to the book, and Ian occasionally laughed out loud as he related to the personalities and turns of phrase. Jane felt the plot was secondary, as she enjoyed the word pictures and cadences of the speakers.
I personally dislike books written in the present tense (especially historical books) except those by Damon Runyon. But I enjoyed Joyce’s diary (written in the past tense) and perhaps my dislike of the present tense lead to me losing some interest in the convoluted plot.
Joyce’s role as someone who was “happy to be overlooked" led to some discussion her role, and “never underestimate the elderly” led us to probe the grey area between the law and morality as it related to the deaths of Penny and her husband John.
We didn’t get around to discussing the problem of obtaining Fentanyl in a concentration suitable for “murder by syringe”, or how difficult it would be to secretly administer it in a crowd. Perhaps some other day.
We enjoyed reading and discussing “The Thursday Murder Club”, about how the elderly members used their collective brains and abilities (with the police as a helpful aide) to solve the mystery.
“Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone” By Benjamin Stevenson will be our next book for discussion. Suggested by Dorothy Gilmour, it is set in Victoria and described as “Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle meet Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club in this fiendishly clever blend of classic and modern murder mystery.”
Why not read it, and join the next Bookworms discussion?