The Bullet That Missed: (The Thursday Murder Club 3)

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This is the fourth book in the series, and while it can be read as a standalone, the emotional aspects of the narrative might not resonate if you are not familiar with the characters or the series. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. He was born with nystagmus, an eye condition that significantly reduces his vision, he memorizes entire scripts since this condition makes it tough to read an autocue.

I will say that while this entry was every bit as charming and full of life as its predecessors, it also had more emotional heft due to a loss that impacts all of the characters. As a reader of the series, it wasn’t necessarily unexpected, but the amount of tears I shed was! My apologies to the drivers in the cars next to me who surely thought I was having a breakdown of some sort. Kudos to Richard Osman for handling the potentially controversial topic sensitively, with room for opposing views. That’s the thing about Coopers Chase. You’d imagine it was quiet and sedate, like a village pond on a summer’s day. But in truth it never stops moving, it’s always in motion. And that motion is aging, and death, and love, and grief, and final snatched moments and opportunities grasped. The urgency of old age. There’s nothing that makes you feel more alive than the certainty of death.” Fall is in the air and I was finally able to pull out all my coziest clothes again, so what better audiobook to match the mood of the season? The Last Devil to Die, book number four in the cozy crime series The Thursday Murder Club. While others celebrated autumn’s return of pumpkin spice in all its disturbingly copious forms … I enjoyed my annual visit to Coopers Chase Retirement Village and its clever septuagenarian sleuths: Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibraham, Ron.

Retailers:

THE THIRD NOVEL IN THE RECORD-BREAKING, MILLION-COPY BESTSELLING THURSDAY MURDER CLUB SERIES BY RICHARD OSMAN

I highly recommend The Last Devil to Die to those readers who enjoy a Cozy Mystery with a solid group of main characters! It's Boxing Day lunch at Cooper's Chase, a retirement village in South East England, where resident septuagenarians Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, and Joyce learn about the murder of antiques dealer, Kuldesh Sharma, who also happens to be a friend of Stephen, Elizabeth's husband. While previous books in the Thursday Murder Club series have been full of action and crowded with characters, it becomes noticeably apparent early on that this book feels different with its quieter, softer tone, fewer characters, and an unexpected emotional punch. With that said, it's a topic that's handled in a most thoughtful and compassionate way by the author. When an emotional door opens up for one topic, it segues into another topic that sheds light on a key character in this series. Book #4 feels like an unanticipated shift in the Thursday Murder Club. It's evolving and surprising the reader yet keeping the core of the series fresh and ever-changing. Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club are concerned. A decade-old cold case leads them to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers.The Last Devil to Die audiobook narrator Fiona Shaw does another remarkable job with her voicing skills. She's one of the reasons I've made this format my preference for this series. Be sure to listen to the conversation between Osman and Shaw at the end of the audio for the author's thoughts about why he's planning to do less TV and more writing in the near future. Her retort is perfectly fitting and definitely a sign that there will be more Thursday Murder Mystery Club meetings in readers futures… The most richly accomplished of the brothers’ pairings to date—and given Connelly’s high standards, that’s saying a lot. In 2020, Osman announced that Amblin Entertainment had bought the rights to the first book to adapt it for a movie. We've had a few updates since, but we're still waiting for concrete information on when we can expect to see the titular club on the big screen.

Richard might be the one that provides all of the missing Pointless answers yet he is not involved in writing the questions and claims he isn’t as brainy as some might think. He is good at doing quizzes and words and he has a good memory. Since he cannot see very well, he has had to listen a ton and take in information very well.

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

He wrote this novel in secret as he worked his other jobs before he sprung it on eager agents. In all, it took him eighteen months to write it. He gave it a month, then thought he quite liked it. Richard was doing a little bit less producing, and an idea came to him when he had the time and some discipline. As the gang springs into action they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters and drug dealers, as well as heartache close to home.

In his author's note, Osman indicates that he is working on a new series, so it might be some time before we can visit with our good friends from Coopers Chase again. I'm glad to know that he has not retired them for good, because I'm invested in this friendship now and I look forward to seeing them again some Thursday in the future. There are some interesting new characters introduced - Mervyn, who is looking for love in all the wrong places; Jill Regan from the NCA; and assorted criminals, some obviously so, others not so obvious. Of all the criminals it was Garth who intrigued me the most, a great big Canadian bear of a man who loved very deeply.This is a series where the characters have been drawn so deftly they seem real. These are people I wished they lived in my community! In the year 2017, he started hosting Richard Osman’s House of Games, a series where four panelists compete in general knowledge tests in a variety of entertaining games five days a week. The overall winner’s crowned on Friday. There’s also a primetime version of the show that airs on Friday nights. I have to warn you though, this book feels like the series' most intimate and emotional one yet, so get the tissues ready. Osman doesn't shy away from talking about growing old and dying. In fact, couched in all that humor and sleuthing is the ever-present specter of death coming for everyone, especially when you are of a certain old age. From 1989 until 1992, he studied Sociology and Politics at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary of Pointless co-presenter Alexander Armstrong, who read English Literature.