I read this book after seeing the movie so I pretty much knew how the plot was going to go, yet I was pleasantly surprised that the book and the movie are not 100% the same.
Set at the idyllic retirement home of Coopers Chase (seriously, when I get old enough to retire find me a place like this), the Thursday Murder Club gathers to solve cold cases, mostly for their own enjoyment, and because none of them can really not be a bit busy-body. Elizabeth (co-founder of the group and former MI6 agent(?)), Ibrahim (a semi-retired psychiatrist), “Red” Ron, (rabble-rouser and protest leader), and Joyce (a retired nurse), who is subbing in as the other co-founder Penny (a former police officer), suffered a stroke and has wound up in The Willows, Coopers Chase’s hospice section. Life is going well until Ian Ventham, the developer of the home comes to inform them that the cemetery next door (Coopers Chase used to be a Roman Catholic convent) will be dug up to make room for new buildings. Residents are up in arms, all swearing it will not stand. And yet it’s the co-owner, Tony Curran, who winds up dead. Now that there’s an actual dead body and a fresh case to be solved, can these four retirees help the police to find the solution? Or should the graves not be the only thing to stay buried?
If you go in knowing this is going to be a cozy, British mystery, I don’t think you’d be disappointed; this is definitely more Midsomer Murders or Miss Marple than True Detective or the ilk. The murder(s) share the spotlight with the personal lives of the characters, and those murders are far from the only secrets taking precedence. Everyone in this book has secrets; even if they’re not discussed, they’re alluded to. One of them being why one character specifically doesn’t want the graveyard dug up, and when the reason came out I wondered how I missed it prior. If you remember this was previously a Roman Catholic Convent and what the character’s vocation is, it becomes all too obvious. That’s an example of a decent (and heart-breaking) secret; there’s one about a character named Bernard that the resolution just had me thinking, “no offense, but you’re a bit overly sensitive there, aren’t you?”.
The main characters are, thankfully, varied and interesting and opinionated without ever veering into “characters” or “hoots”. If this was a book about older people who were just too cute to live and knew it, and solved the mystery by being overbearing know-it-alls who stick their noses where they don’t belong and get in the way of the police I would have put it down without ever planning on picking up more of the series. As it stands now, I’ll pick up the next four books in the series over time; this was a decent book, but not one that put me in a huge rush to finish the series.
Though Joyce, there are other handymen in the world, you know? You can do something with the current one.