![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Dictionary Corner
Book Review: The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman
It took a long time to establish, in fact, that Osman has not (yet) appeared in Dictionary Corner on Countdown; my suspicion is that he's waiting for Paxman to retire, at which point he will take over University Challenge. I'm sure I read that Bamber Gascoigne set his own questions, and knew the answers, with the implication that Paxman just farms it all out to a team of researchers. Anyway, this book was definitely hyped up towards the end of last year, and the paperback finally arrived a few weeks ago as a belated Christmas present. I've seen a mix of reactions, with some people loving it and others rather dissatisfied.
The Thursday Murder Club comprises Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim. It was set up by Elizabeth and Penny, a retired police inspector, but Penny is now unresponsive in the on-site nursing home at the luxury retirement village of Coopers Chase, built on land from a former convent. The club pass the time by examining unsolved murder cases from Penny's ever-so-unofficial and data-protection-breaching archive. Joyce is a retired nurse; Ron is a retired trade unionist; Ibrahim is a retired psychiatrist; and Elizabeth... well, Elizabeth is plainly retired, but we never get an official description of her career. The snippets suggest she's not so much the Lady Anne Smiley as her husband.
Ian Ventham is the owner of the development, and he has expansion plans. But these are thrown into chaos by events, including murder. Our heroes, of course, relish the opportunity to exercise their little grey cells, and they continually outsmart the local police.
High expectations are hard to fulfil, so would it hold up to them? For me it did. I didn't expect to take it seriously, so the whimsical nature of the storytelling didn't bother me. I quickly settled in to a combination of Midsomer Murders and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, with more than a side-serving of Dinnerladies, but this is more than the sum of the parts. With references to "Waitrose deliver vans [that] clink with wine and repeat prescriptions", and at least one gratuitous mention of macaroons, this is unashamedly written for a liberal elite audience, but it's very entertaining.
It took a long time to establish, in fact, that Osman has not (yet) appeared in Dictionary Corner on Countdown; my suspicion is that he's waiting for Paxman to retire, at which point he will take over University Challenge. I'm sure I read that Bamber Gascoigne set his own questions, and knew the answers, with the implication that Paxman just farms it all out to a team of researchers. Anyway, this book was definitely hyped up towards the end of last year, and the paperback finally arrived a few weeks ago as a belated Christmas present. I've seen a mix of reactions, with some people loving it and others rather dissatisfied.
The Thursday Murder Club comprises Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim. It was set up by Elizabeth and Penny, a retired police inspector, but Penny is now unresponsive in the on-site nursing home at the luxury retirement village of Coopers Chase, built on land from a former convent. The club pass the time by examining unsolved murder cases from Penny's ever-so-unofficial and data-protection-breaching archive. Joyce is a retired nurse; Ron is a retired trade unionist; Ibrahim is a retired psychiatrist; and Elizabeth... well, Elizabeth is plainly retired, but we never get an official description of her career. The snippets suggest she's not so much the Lady Anne Smiley as her husband.
Ian Ventham is the owner of the development, and he has expansion plans. But these are thrown into chaos by events, including murder. Our heroes, of course, relish the opportunity to exercise their little grey cells, and they continually outsmart the local police.
High expectations are hard to fulfil, so would it hold up to them? For me it did. I didn't expect to take it seriously, so the whimsical nature of the storytelling didn't bother me. I quickly settled in to a combination of Midsomer Murders and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, with more than a side-serving of Dinnerladies, but this is more than the sum of the parts. With references to "Waitrose deliver vans [that] clink with wine and repeat prescriptions", and at least one gratuitous mention of macaroons, this is unashamedly written for a liberal elite audience, but it's very entertaining.