A review by heresyourletter
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I was excited to read this book as an avid cozy mystery reader. It had a great cast of characters and funny, well-written dialogue, but I found the pacing slow and

hated the overuse of unnecessary suicides/“mercy killings” as a way for characters to get out of their problems. Their suicides didn’t really contribute to the overall plot and almost trivialized the horror of suicide and its impact on surviving loved ones. The suicide of a devout Catholic nun in front of a church altar is particularly horrifying and unrealistic given her faith background. I feel other methods could have been used to write characters out of the main story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicide, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Bullying, Drug use, Terminal illness, Dementia, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Cancer, Infidelity, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, and Pregnancy

One character mourns the death of her husband throughout the book. One character mentions cheating on his wife through online dating with younger women. Another character mentions leaving her partner finding texts on his phone. One character is non-responsive after a stroke for the majority of the book. One minor character has dementia. One character tells a fake story about killing a man who tried to sexually assault her. Occasional drinking of wine and beer. Brief disparaging comment about the Nigerian Prince scam.

One murder victim and several other characters are revealed to have been involved in drug dealing before the book’s events begin. A priest and a nun are revealed to have had a sexual relationship, resulting in a pregnancy. Three different characters die by suicide. One is a pregnant nun, who hangs herself in front of a church altar. One character injects another with fentanyl when it is revealed to the outside world that she murdered a criminal.