Something delightful: The Thursday Murder Club
In the fall of 2023, I started getting into reading “cozy mysteries”—basically, mystery novels that don’t have any gore/graphic violence, and that feature an amateur detective in a small town. (Think the vibe of Murder She Wrote as opposed to Law and Order: SVU.) After reading a couple of real duds, I eventually found my way Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club, a four-book series (with more coming!) that I love so, so much.
The books are centered on a British retirement village, and the amateur detectives are four septuagenarians who live there. Richard Osman’s writing is really clever and truly laugh-out-loud funny, but the books are also surprisingly beautiful and tender. (I should warn you that as the books go on and you get to know the fantastic cast of characters better, you will cry.)
I initially bought the books for my Kindle, and then went ahead bought physical copies because I liked them so much that I wanted to be able to see them on my shelf, and then I also bought the audiobook for the first one because I wanted someone with a British accent to read me a story. I’ve already re-read the entire series once, and I will probably read them again right before the fifth book arrives this fall.
If you need a nice little pick-me-up as we enter the muddy part of winter, I’d highly recommend the whole series!