Plot Summary ( from Goodreads )
In a peaceful retirement village , four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved killings .
But when a local property developer shows up dead , ‘ The Thursday Murder Club ‘ find themselves in the middle of their first live case .
The four friends , Elizabeth , Joyce , Ibrahim and Ron , might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves . Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late ?
My thoughts on the book :
The retirement home setting where the everyday pace of life is a far cry from the hustle and bustle of the modern world and the bunch of amateurs eighties – pushing sleuths is such a refreshing change from the deranged murderers , psychological profiling of the disturbing characters , cliques with secrets , unreliable narrators and everything in between that the current gen suspense fiction can ‘ t seem to do without . What is even better is the fact that the gang has two murders to solve . . .
The narrative is highly engaging and the author manages to keep the suspense quotient up despite the easy tone of the narrative . A good two – thirds into the novel , the author starts playing with the reader by throwing the red herrings left , right and centre and except for very few , the reader wouldn ‘ t guess them for what they are ( atleast I didn ‘ t identify several of the red herrings . But , it did not bother me at all and I was only too happy to let the author surprise me . . . ) .
Another thing I loved about the book is it ‘ s character sketches – especially those of the eighty plus amateur sleuths . Richard ‘ s amateur sleuths are not spry just because they happen to be the protagonists – they have their own fears about possible memory decline and concerns about each other ‘ s physical and mental well – being .Only a brave author could do what Richard has done with these four – creating characters with weaknesses and showing the readers how they have learned to live with them . Aside from the sleuthing , the dynamics amongst the residents of the retirement home offers a poignant picture into old age and it ‘ s hopes , fears , regrets and everything else it entails . . .
It is a breezy read – there is suspense but without the tension that comes with the regular supense fiction narrative . In these times , I think we would like a mood booster read and I guarantee you that this IS one . If you are a hardcore suspense fan who is loath to pick up any other genre but still need a change from the gore , police procedurals and detectives with egotistic tendencies , unreliable narrators , shades of disturbing psyches etc etc , then this is the book which you didn ‘ t know you needed . . .
I am looking forward to #2 and #3 in the The Thursday Murder Club series . If you are checking out Audible version , it has the author interview by Marian Keyes as a bonus . . .
Rating : 4 . 5 / 5
If you have already read The Thursday Murder Club , let me know in the comments section about your thoughts on the book . . . Until the next review then . .
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