Great Reads for Great Readers

 

The Bullet that Missed, by Richard Osman.

           

Game-show host Richard Osman has, with his third novel about a gang of retirement-village sleuths, cemented his reputation as the new master of the comic Crime novel:  his Thursday Murder Club series is rightly lauded as perfect entertainment, while glossing over none of the sadness and isolation that affect so many of the elderly – and the vulnerability, physical and emotional, that they are forced to deal with in their everyday lives, as shown so powerfully in Book Two, ‘The Man Who Died Twice’.

In Book Three, the gang is still meeting every Thursday, and have decided that their latest cold case investigation should centre upon the murder ten years before of Bethany Waites, an ambitious and talented young TV journalist whose car was found at the bottom of a Dover cliff.  Her blood and clothes were found in the car, but her body has never been found.  There was no doubt of her murder, as she was investigating a huge VAT fraud at the time, but the police investigation revealed practically nothing – just the sort of mystery that former spy Elizabeth, retired nurse Joyce (whose new rescue dog Alan loves them ALL with tongue-licking abandon), retired psychiatrist Ibrahim, and former firebrand unionist Ron delight in sinking their teeth into.

There’s just a tiny complication, though:  Elizabeth has just received a text from an unknown number instructing her to kill Viktor, an old friend from her spying days, a retired (naturally!) KGB officer, who now lives in great style and wealth in London as a money-launderer:  if Viktor is not disposed of in two weeks, Joyce will die.

Naturally, Joyce is blissfully unaware that she may have only a fortnight to live, and when she and Elizabeth take the train to the Big Smoke, she is enjoying herself tremendously – until she meets Viktor in his palatial Penthouse and Elizabeth suddenly points a big gun at him:  even her threat never to speak to her best friend EVER again does not persuade Elizabeth to lower her weapon.  What had been a lovely day out (it wasn’t even raining!) has turned into the worst time of Joyce’s life.

Once again, we are all willingly sitting in the palm of Mr Osman’s hand:  his plotting is water-tight and his supporting characters are, as always, people like thee and me, and wholly delightful (as thee and me are)!  And because life isn’t always a laugh a minute – even though it should be – we must make the journey with Elizabeth as she witnesses her beloved husband’s inexorable decline into dementia.  With this great series, Mr Osman has shown that he is a true voice of Those of a Certain Age – the Elderly.  And he does it with great style and wit.  Well done!  FIVE STARS.