Best for:
Fans of the Thursday Murder Club series.
In a nutshell:
Nick has found a bomb under his car. At Joyce’s daughter’s wedding, he talks to Elizabeth to ask for help. The next day, Nick is missing, and his business partner is a possible suspect. In other news, Ron’s daughter has kicked out her abusive husband, who happens to also be a less than model citizen in other ways.
Worth quoting:
N/A
Why I chose it:
I have enjoyed all the books in the series so far, and I’m invested in these characters. Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, Donna, Chris.
Review:
Osman is so good and developing characters AND plot. Some books have a great plot but the characters could be literally anyone. And some books have amazing character studies but not much happens. Osman, in my opinion, does a great job with both. Each book we learn more about these people, as their lives change and connections grow even stronger.
In this case, we are with Elizabeth, who lost her beloved Stephen in the previous book. Grief is hard, and she’s not her old self, because she won’t be again. But the case allows her to start to reconnect with one part of her past, and its good to see.
I also like how much time we spend with Ron this book, and of course with Joyce and Ibrahim. Much like the other books, I appreciate that this book primarily focuses on the very rich lives of people who are much older. They get their own internal lives, their own desires. They aren’t relegated to side story lines. I don’t think there’s enough media that explores the lives of older adults, so its great when the ones that do are so fun to read.
(There’s also a cheeky little joke in here that sort of references to film recently made of the original book, which did make me chuckle.)