Maybe it makes me a bit of a grandmother, but sometimes there’s nothing better than curling up with a murder mystery, a warm mug of soup (cream of chicken FROM THE CAN), and a cozy blanket – preferably also if it’s raining and you have cuddly pets nearby. I’m very particular about my coziness.

Well, if that makes me a grandmother, then I’d fit in perfectly with the crew from Coopers Chase retirement village, the main characters in Richard Osman’s debut novel Thursday Murder Club.

The crew consists of Elizabeth, a mysterious and whip-sharp former intelligence agent; Ibrahim, a psychologist who still indulgently sees some clients while retired at age 80; Ron, a former labor union firebrand whose son Jason is a retired boxer; and Joyce, a retired nurse who’s the newcomer to the group.

In my mind, they correspond to Jane Goodall; Oded Fehr from The Mummy but how he currently is, as a silver fox; the angry guy who told the joke about international travelers on a plane at the Slaughtered Lamb pub in An American Werewolf in London; and my great-aunt Joyce but also Jane from The Great British Baking Show, who may be more recognizable to the audience at large. Other than Jane Goodall, these may be niche references, so please see use the image below as reference.

We join our crew as Elizabeth introduces the club to Joyce, via asking her nursely expertise about how quickly a victim would have bled out from a specific stab wound and whether or not it matched the boyfriend’s alibi. From there, you know you’re in for a journey.

Our septuagenarian friends soon find themselves embroiled in a real murder mystery – and then another, and another. You see, all is not well at the luxe Coopers Chase. The owner, Ian, is a rich snot who will do whatever he can to make more money, including trying to harass neighbors out of their lands and dig up a cemetery full of nuns, former residents of the nunnery that Coopers Chase was remodeled from.

The chaos starts when he decides he doesn’t need to keep his current business partner in the loop, a decision which will profit Ian millions. Then that partner ends up dead.

But even with Suspect #1 right in the spotlight, with Ian, nothing can ever be easy. The police aren’t moving in the right direction, so Elizabeth and co. take things into their own hands.

As an aside, I refuse to ever watch police procedurals on TV or anything in that vein, and know nothing about police protocol, but I’m fairly confident that the officers should have been stricter with our club members and that half the stuff they dug up would not have been admissible in the evidence record or in court.

Ignoring that improbability – which, to be fair, one of the detectives (“constables” – that’s so British), does address – it’s fascinating to see the different areas of expertise that each of the club members bring to the table. Elizabeth’s a dog with her nose to the ground, using her mysterious personal history to call in connections and favors around the world and in all sorts of positions of authorities to help out. How could the local police compare?

At points, it does get a little convoluted. There are murders on murders on murders, on deaths, because nearly everyone here is old and ready to kick it anyway. Some motivations and relationships span decades and when spliced together with current goings-on, you can lose your head in the murder maze.

Joyce has a crush, whose widower-hood is permanently crushing; Ron’s son Jason has quite a history; Elizabeth’s comatose friend Penny and Penny’s husband John add layers of detail that should be impossible for a vegetative old woman and her nearly mute spouse. Plus, Coopers Chase is almost a character on its own – the vibrant retirement village, full of llamas and luxury and dead nuns, is as much of a factor as its owner and creator.

As much as I love my murder mysteries, I am doggedly terrible at solving them. I have figured out a single Hercule Poirot mystery before the Belgian himself, only because I know the Russian alphabet’s phonetics offhand and didn’t have to look the letters up like he did. This book was no exception – I thought I had it sorted and then there was still half the book left.

Alas, this was not The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, so my theory was useless here.

I plowed through Osman’s debut novel in a day, and eagerly looked up the sequel. Unfortunately, that does not come out until late autumn of this year, but you can bet I’ve already recommended it to the library.

Even with some confusing plot moments and sometimes too many twists to sort through when you’re reading it with the end in sight at 3 a.m., the endearing thought of our retired friends using their copious free time and retirement home outings to solve several murders is as warm and cozy as my mug of soup and blanket.

Reviews blog posts Buying New Bookshelves Fiction Reviews