The Bullet That Missed

This is Richard Osman's 3rd installment in the "Thursday Murder Club" series and there is no letdown in the pace of challenges and mysteries to solve by our intrepid quartet.  Publishers Weekly offers this favorable review: "Osman’s diverting third Thursday Murder Club mystery (after 2021’s The Man Who Lived Twice) delivers laughs along with a nicely woven plot involving fraud, murder, and life in the Kent retirement village of Coopers Chase. At the club’s regular meeting in the Jigsaw Room, the four members—Elizabeth, a retired but still well-connected British spy; Ibrahim, a well-meaning psychiatrist; Ron, a still-feisty activist for workers’ rights; and the unexpectedly shrewd Joyce, whose diary entries enliven the narrative—decide to tackle the cold case of Bethany Waites, a journalist for the local TV station whose wrecked car was found at the bottom of a cliff 10 years earlier. The police declared it a murder, surmising that Bethany’s body had been washed out to sea. The group’s investigation stirs up a hornet’s nest and leads to another death, a kidnapping, and blackmail. The pace is breezy, the characters are intelligent and varied in their interests and backgrounds, and the humor is often pitched to readers who understand the vagaries of getting older. Osman reliably entertains.  

Library Journal calls it a "character-rich mystery" with "...investigations into fraud, murder, and threats in a case that takes the group into prisons, TV studios, and danger; romance, humor, and a clever trap to catch a villain..." Booklist concludes, "Plenty of layers, but plenty of laughs, too." Kirkus also praises and ends their review "The mysteries are complex, the characters vivid, and the whole thing is laced with warm humor and—remarkably, considering the body count—good feeling."

The Last Devil to Die

This is the 4th in the "Thursday Murder Club" series by Richard Osman and the characters and plotting continue to fully engage me.  Joyce is pursuing yet another unavailable male who is in the throes of a romance scam, which the gang are determined to expose and bring to justice. Elizabeth is dealing with Stephen's increasing losses to dementia. Ibrahim is acting as therapist to a big time drug dealer, Connie, who is in prison and just occasionally serves as a source of information about bad guys for the Thursday Murder Club. Ron is still not making a commitment to Pauline but finds that, since their last spat and her radio silence, he misses her quite a bit. Then they learn that a long-time friend of Stephen's has been murdered and they are determined to find the killer. The victim was an antiques dealer who occasionally served as a transit station for illegal drugs coming into the country, so the friends quickly get involved in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with some pretty scary people.  The body count will continue to rise unless the gang solves the mystery or until the last devil is dead.  Library Journal says of this story that it's "a bittersweet mystery about the problems facing many older people: dementia, computer fraud, death. Humor does, however, alleviate the poignancy in this strongest, most emotional book in the best-selling series." 

Kirkus offers this brief plot summary: "In their last outing, they were helped by antiques dealer Kuldesh Sharma, an old friend of Elizabeth's husband, Stephen, and now they're devastated to learn that Kuldesh has been murdered, shot in the head while parked at the end of a dirt road. A missing shipment of heroin seems to have been involved. This gives the gang another chance to fearlessly poke their noses into places you wouldn't expect to find people their age .. ." and concludes their review by saying "Osman serves up another delightful mystery..."