The fifth entry in the Thursday Murder Club series takes place at some remove from the prior novel. It’s been long enough for Joyce’s perpetually single daughter Joanna to meet a man named Paul, fall in love with him, and get married. It has not quite been long enough for former spy and (spoiler alert for the fourth novel) recent widow Elizabeth to get back to her old self. At Joanna’s wedding, a large-small affair that nearly breaks the always fragile bond between mother and daughter, the groom’s best man approaches Elizabeth for help. It seems that his nerves are not at all due to having to give a speech: Nick Silver tells Elizabeth that someone had tried to kill him that morning. He’d discovered a sophisticated bomb planted under his car.
Nick doesn’t know who tried to kill him, but he’s certain about why they would. Nick and his college friend Holly run a “cold storage” company, providing security services for anyone who wants to store items or information off the internet and away from computer hackers. A small payment they accepted early on in Bitcoin has now grown into the impossible fortune of the title, around 350 million pounds. Nick and Holly have stored their Bitcoin code within their own facility, known ominously as The Compound. Each of the pair has half of the 12-digit combination to the safe containing the code, and both codes are required for access. Nick and Holly have established such thorough protocols in the event of one or both of their demises that it seems impossible that someone could believe they could steal the money, but clearly someone is giving it a try.
Elizabeth and Joyce are supposed to see Nick the day after the wedding to begin their investigation, but by the time they show up Nick has pulled a runner. Later, when a bomb does go off, the investigation ramps up, as the Thursday Murder races to see if they can find and save Nick before it’s too late.
The club’s attentions are a bit divided this time around. Ibrahim is still trying to rehabilitate drug kingpin Connie Johnson, but he errs by encouraging her to mentor a fellow inmate, a petty thief whom Connie encourages to think bigger. More seriously, Ron is pressed into caring for his grandson Kendrick when his daughter Suzi is forced into hiding, having finally confronted her abusive husband. Ron and his son Jason are desperate to get back at the bastard, but he’s a dangerous man to deal with.
For me, the Thursday Murder Club has become more about getting to spend some time with the characters as opposed to expecting a fascinating mystery each time around. Osman isn’t a showy writer, but he is gifted at establishing characters and making them feel real. Joyce’s diary entries are particularly useful in this regard, not only for humanizing Joyce but the rest of the club as well. Joyce’s worry over grieving Elizabeth, concern over Ron’s secret-keeping, and bemused annoyance at Ibrahim’s know-it-all behavior are exquisite shortcuts to world-building. My only slight irritation is with Osman’s use of conflict between mother Joyce and daughter Joanna, which however keenly observed is sometimes a bit too much.
The world of Coopers Chase has expanded so much as the series has gone on it has become harder to service all of the characters. Fans of the series will find themselves missing police officers Donna and Chris, who are largely absent, and especially jack-of-all-trades Bogdan, who is sidelined as well.
The case of The Impossible Fortune is less intriguing than other Thursday Murder Club plots, due to a decided lack of suspects and uncertain stakes. However, Osman earns some credit from this reader by springing an unusual and satisfying twist at the very end. That, and the comfortability of the world of the story (despite all the violence and car bombs and whatnot) continue to make the Thursday Murder Club a must-read.