I’ve read and enjoyed all of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club books. If you haven’t, I recommend you begin at the beginning, as this installment alludes to previous characters and events. I check them out using the Libby app and my local public library.
The members of the Thursday Murder Club in The Last Devil to Die live in Cooper’s Chase, a retirement village in England. In the first three books, they used skills from their previous lives (psychiatrist, union leader, international spy) to solve cold cases. This time, however, a friend is murdered and they mean to get to the bottom of it. When more people end up dead, the club uncovers a wide and surprising scheme.
The mystery is good and twisty, with a satisfying conclusion, so kudos for that. And because the sleuths are all pensioners, it also explores the different ways in which we age. The loneliness and loss certainly, but also friendships, fun, and filling the days with meaning and purpose. At 74, I identify with the main characters. These are my peeps.
A couple of examples of where Osman gets it:
“I also raised a glass to Bernard, here last New Year, and gone now. We won’t all be here this time next year, that’s just the facts of the matter. Those at the back of the line will fall, and no one will tell you where you are in the line. Though at my age I have a rough idea. As Ibrahim always says, ‘The numbers don’t look good.’”
“There are plenty of things to look forward to though, and that’s the key. What’s the point of another year if you don’t fill it?”
But some of the best chapters are those from the point of view of Elizabeth’s husband, Stephen as he descends into dementia.
“Stephen wanders through the living room. It is late, and he is alone, which doesn’t feel quite normal. Feels off. Hard to tell why. He knows the sofa, and there is safety in that. It’s his, of that he is certain. Brown, some sort of velvet, the imprint of his backside in a lighter, golden brown. If he knows the sofa, things can’t be too out of kilter. Worse comes to the worst, sit yourself down, wait and see what happens, trust that it will all make sense in the end. He cannot find his cigarettes, for love nor money. He can’t even find an ashtray. No lighter, no nothing. He has opened all the drawers in the kitchen. Stephen can see the sofa from the kitchen, so it stands to reason that it must be his kitchen. There’s some blasted business going on. Something is being hidden from him. But what, and why? The key is not to panic. He feels like he has been through all this before. This confusion, these thought processes. Deep inside, he wants to scream, he wants to cry for help, to cry for his father to come and collect him, but he clings to the positive. The sofa. His sofa. There is a picture on the kitchen worktop. It is a picture of him, looking much older than he remembers, and he is with an old woman. He knows her, knows her name even. He can’t access it right now, but he knows it’s there. A cigarette would calm him down though. Where has he put them? Is he forgetting things? Something is spinning, but it’s not the room, and it’s not his eyes. It’s his memory. His memory is spinning. However much he tries to tether it down, it is refusing to hold still.”
“Stephen takes the weight off. He feels much older than he should, perhaps he ought to go to the doctor. But something tells him no. Something tells him he has a secret that others mustn’t know. Sit tight on the sofa, don’t raise the alarm. Everything will come back into focus soon enough. The mist is sure to clear…. Stephen is loved and safe. Whatever else is going on, and something most definitely is, Stephen is loved and Stephen is safe. That’s a starting point. A rock on which to stand.“
“But the tears keep rolling. Because Stephen has had a flash of memory, of recall. The flash is fuzzy and bent, like a beam of sunlight through a broken stained-glass window. But it is enough. He knows, in that moment, precisely what is happening. He sees the water on the kitchen floor, looks down at his tattered pajama trousers, and holds the pieces of his mind together for long enough to understand what they mean. And what they are going to mean in the future. Oh, Stephen, of all the luck. He looks at his wife, and sees in her eyes that she knows it too.”
See what I mean? Sniff. Perfect and poignant.
Of course, one nice thing about what’s happening to Stephen is that he is oblivious to all the dead bodies piling up. Or that the clock is ticking on the club’s efforts to discover the killer before someone else is murdered.
While I might not choose to join the Thursday Murder Club, I definitely agree with its member’s intentions: to use our gifts for as long as possible. Recommend.
“We became fans of Richard Osman during the COVID shutdown when we watched a lot of British TV. He’s a frequent and amusing guest on “QI”, “Would I Lie to You”, and “8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.” I recommend those shows too. These shows even hold up well when rewatched.
Lorie Smith Schaefer 