The Thursday Murder Club
Published by Penguin Books 2021
390 pages
ISBN 978-0241-98826-8
5/5 stars - loved it
This is a story concentrating on four people in Fairhaven retirement home for people with enough money. Joyce is new and while eating lunch Elizabeth, who knows everything, approached her and asked, how long it would take to die from a stab wound to the abdomen. This is how Joyce, retired nurse, got involved in the Club of Japanese Opera, codename for the Thursday Murder Club, named to prevent uninvited from showing up.
The club was started by Penny (former police officer) and Elizabeth, retired spy and MI5 agent, they started to look into cold cases. But Penny is in a coma after a stroke. Ron a former activist for the labor movement, and Sir Ibrahim, retired psychiatrist, they make up the team, intelligent people with time to think and enjoy being together and doing something worthwhile; not sitting and waiting to die. They want challenges and feel that they contribute.
The murder of the contractor who wants to enlarge their retirement home, happens right under their noses so they get involved. Their relationship with the local police is at first not very heartfelt but the police officers, Chris and Donna, got won over and enjoy the time they spend together. All together it is a funny, cozy book, many places I laughed out loudly. When they want to move the nuns’ grave yard an extra body was recovered. So, the gang starts to investigate that as well; they do it well and find important clues.
The story is well told, is logical and not too exaggerated and makes sense. Every few chapters we get Joyce’s diary notes and what she wrote on page 233 nicely summarizes what it felt like for me to read the book:
There was a jolly atmosphere, and I can understand the reasons why. We each of us understand we’re in a gang and we understand we are in the middle of something unusual. We understand also, I think, that we are doing something illegal, but we are past the age of caring. Perhaps we are raging against the dying of the light, but that is poetry, not life. There will be other reasons I have missed out, but I know on the walk back down the hill we felt giddy. Like teenagers out too late.
The Man Who Died Twice
Published by Viking an imprint of Penguin Books 2021
ISBN 978-0241-42543-5
420 pages
3/5 stars, I was disappointed
I ordered it before the paperback came out. This book starts with a vicious attack on Ibrahim that lands him in the hospital; the police know who did it just outside the police station. But to get him sentenced by the court is unrealistic, so he is released to continue his evil ways. Our friends make plans that may not be legally right, but it serves overall justice in particularly knowing this evil person will not attack another elderly person. It is a big problem when the older persons are attacked being older, easy targets that cannot fight back; what happened here is revenge, but it did give me a feeling of satisfaction, that is rare in real live.
Elizabeth receives a letter from a fake double agent, that had a fake death in 1981, so she starts a journey into her past with strings to the present.
This book is not as funny nor as cosy as the first one, it actually quite depressing in contrast to the optimistic atmosphere in the first book. It is too unrealistic and exaggerated: 20 million pounds worth of diamonds disappeared, current and former agents playing hide and seek with each other, the mafia, narcotics gangsters; Elizabeth worked out a plot that is so far out, it is irritating and made me feel that the author thinks his readers are stupid.
Reading the book, I felt that it was written in order to be made into a movie, if it is, I will choose to not see it.
I wanted to give it 2 stars but because Ibrahim’s attacker was framed and put in prison, I give it 3 stars. I will probably not read another book in this series.
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