A peaceful, wealthy retirement village in the sleepy Kent countryside may not be the obvious choice for a murder mystery novel. But Osman’s debut shows why authors of the world may have been missing a trick when overlooking the elderly as potential ringleaders of a pacy thriller.  

The Thursday Murder Club spend their Thursday afternoons in the jigsaw room of the Coopers Chase retirement village, “between Art History and Conversational French”, investigating unsolved murder cases. But when a murder happens at the heart of their community, The Thursday Murder Club take it upon themselves to get to the bottom of things.

“Well, let’s start with Elizabeth, shall we? And see where that gets us?” – the opening line of The Thursday Murder Club sets the scene for a novel in which Elizabeth Best, one of the book’s four main characters, finds herself at the forefront of the action. A former secret agent, Elizabeth’s character tends to be the driving force behind much of the book’s activity, although Osman does a masterful job of balancing Elizabeth’s no-nonsense exterior with the reality of managing her husband’s dementia, creating a layered persona you can’t help but fall in love with.

The rest of the gang is composed of former nurse Joyce, ex-psychiatrist Ibrahim, and former trade union leader Ron, with the four unlikely protagonists each bringing a unique approach to proceedings. 

Once Thursday Murder Club finds themselves in the middle of their first live case, readers are taken along for the ride. Expect to hop from crime scene jargon and gripping investigations to discussing the merits of a coconut and raspberry slice. After all, it wouldn’t be a great British novel without cake and plenty of cups of tea, would it? 

Osman wrote The Thursday Murder Club in secret over a period of 18 months, following a visit to an upmarket retirement village – which he says acted as his inspiration. When word of the popular presenter’s debut novel broke, it sparked a 10-way publishing auction – with the book going on to be dubbed by The Guardian as “the fastest-selling adult crime debut since records began”. 

In fact, this is just one of many accolades for The Thursday Murder Club. The crime fiction novel was the first fiction debut to take the Christmas number one spot, as well as the number 1 bestselling fiction book of 2020, after only three months of sales. It is regarded as the only book to have reached more than 1 million copies sold in the same year as its release, and topped the list for the most independent bookshop sales in 2020.

More about Richard Osman

Richard Osman is famous for his TV career, spanning everything from producing to presenting. Based in London, with his wife, Ingrid, and Liesl the cat, he is the creator and former co-presenter of Pointless on BBC One, also becoming a household name for quiz shows like Two Tribes and Richard Osman’s House of Games. 

Other works 

The Thursday Murder Club is the first in the series, followed by The Man Who Died Twice in 2021. The third book, The Bullet That Missed, came out in 2022, before the latest instalment, The Last Devil To Die, was released in 2023 – reaching number one on the New York Times Bestseller list. After initially teasing that the series would stop at four, fans will be pleased to know that Osman has announced a fifth book – with a release scheduled for 2025.

The highly anticipated filming of The Thursday Murder Club film is happening in the UK this summer, with Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Celia Imrie, and Ben Kingsley confirmed to play the book’s four main characters. 

In the meantime, Osman has started a new series, We Solve Murder, with a release date of September 2024. 

Want to read more?

If you loved The Thursday Murder Club, don’t forget to check out the following installments in Osman’s series. Or, head to our Crime section for more inspiration on what to read next. 

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