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So we reach the fifth book in the Thursday Murder Club series, and I think it’s been my favourite so far! There’d been a two year gap since the fourth book was released, and so after such a long time away, just within a couple of pages of starting I felt all warm and fuzzy, realising how I’d missed the characters, particularly Joyce!

The book start’s with Joyce’s daughter Joanna’s wedding, but within 24 hours we have a missing person, a dead person, and $350m worth of bitcoin at stake if only they can work out how to get hold of 2 parts of a code.

This sounds very dramatic, but of course, it’s Thursday Murder Club, so as well as plenty of excitement, there’s also plenty of mundane and lovely moments, and of course some excellent little lines.

• “If we have different ideas about gluten, we’re going to have different ideas about most things.”
• “That’s the problem with going out. One thing leads to another, and you find yourself going out again.”
• “She remembers when Dan Hatfield had two arms. The money he’d wasted on tattoos on that other arm.”
• “Rightmove teaches you an awful lot about the world, and also a lot about people’s taste in curtains.”
• “That must be the world’s shorted honeymoon […] I feel like Liz Truss.”
• “Amazon deliveries have been the single greatest boon for professional hitmen. Everyone is always expecting one.”

I’m just sad it’s another two year wait ’til the next one now, they’re such a fun gang to hang out with!

The Thursday Murder Club are back for book three!

This time they’re looking into a cold case of a young local news presenter who’d been killed a decade previously – and while they’re looking into this, Elizabeth starts receiving anonymous threatening messages…

It’s so weird how a murder mystery can be such a cosy read, but the characters are so warm and real (special mention for Joyce and her dog, Alan), and you can just feel Osman’s sense of humour and enjoyment of British idiosyncrasies throughout.

As with previous books, there’s not a lot I can say without giving spoilers, but I was up rather late last night as I read the last 50 pages or so, absolutely hooked!

My copy from Waterstones had a little bonus bit of content at the back, a little insight into Joyce’s side project in this book, which was a good bit of fun.

Some spoiler-free quotes from the book:

• “The Thursday Murder Club? Sounds made up.” “Everything is made up, when you really think about it.”
• “I just think that you can be very talented and have lovely hair. Perhaps I’m shallow, but both of those things are important to me. Claudia Winkleman is a good example.”
• “Everyone wants to feel special but nobody wants to feel different.”
• “If life ever seems too complicated, if you think no one can help, sometimes the right person to turn to is an eight-year-old.”