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

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Game show host turned bestselling novelist, Richard Osman, is the author behind the mystery club phenomenon known as the Thursday Murder Club. A series of novels which feature Elizabeth (former MI6 spymaster), retired nurse Joyce, Ron, an opinionated ex-union activist, and mild-mannered psychiatrist Ibrahim - a septuagenarian quartet of retirement village dwelling residents who work together to solve murders. 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. 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. Richard Osman has been an extremely productive and creative author for the past few years, so much so that there now seems to be a plethora of writers who try and duplicate his formula. Once again, Osman proves he is at the top of his game as he treats us to his usual assortment of seniors who assist the police in solving crimes. Elizabeth is the leader, Joyce her friend and diarist, Ron the former union leader and Ibrahim who is a psychogist. Here we have one of their friends, an antique dealer, who is murdered after he is given an old box filled with heroin. The dealer is dead, and the box with the heroin is missing. They care less about the heroin, but need to discover who killed their friend. We also are treated to a side issue of Romance Fraud on the internet as a new resident at their apartments has fallen for an internet romance and shipped a large amount of funds to Lithuania to help his "true love" pay her bills. Add to this, Elizabeth's husband Stephen is suffering from dementia and we have many segments of the book dealing with the condition, aging, death, etc. Finally we also have University professors, Afghan drug smugglers, a cocaine dealer who Ibrahim counsels at her prison cell, and a rival antique dealer and her male Canadian partner. I am telling you, the plot is interesting, we get to also meet Bob the Computer Guy who also has just moved into the complex, and we are treated to Joyce with her diary entries which also help tie things together, and who has surprisingly taken the lead when Elizabeth is indisposed.

Richard’s debut novel, called “The Thursday Murder Club”, was released in the year 2020. His work is from the mystery genre. Viking Press acquired the rights to the novel for a seven-figure sum, in a ten publisher auction. 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. As the cold case turns white hot, Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), while Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim chase down clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?There's always something just out of reach. . . . Everyone chasing the thing they don't have. Going mad until they get it." This was an entertaining mystery, with more chaos and mayhem (hehe) than you'd expect old people to get themselves into. We see Joyce really come into her own here, stepping in for Elizabeth who is otherwise indisposed. I feel like all the side characters were particularly charming, and I even started to like Connie if you can believe it. We also have a little side mystery going on to catch an online scammer, just to add a bit of extra zing to the whole thing. A local developer is discovered dead with a mysterious picture left next to the body, The Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case all of a sudden. While the corpses start piling up, could our unorthodox yet brilliant group catch this killer, before time runs out? 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.

Is being a spy always this boring?’ he asks Elizabeth. She has been unusually quiet today. ‘It’s 90 per cent this, 5 per cent paperwork and 5 per cent killing people,’ says Elizabeth.Harry Bosch and the Lincoln Lawyer team up to exonerate a woman who’s already served five years for killing her ex-husband. The cast was a bit smaller this time but still had diverse and fascinating characters including an art forger, her comically psychotic Canadian husband, some drug runners, a couple museum experts, a victim of romance fraud, a brief return of Stephen’s friend, antiques dealer Kuldesh Sharma, imprisoned drug maven Connie, and of course, the eminently lovable Bogdan, along with detectives Donna, Chris and others. Narrator Fiona Shaw did a stellar job once again of voicing them all. As we have come to expect from Osman's writing, there is more than one tightly plotted mystery to unravel.