Although I read a lot I am not particularly into crime novels although I have read old stuff like Sherlock Holmes. Recently Richard Osman has had great success with his books in this genre. I am not sure how well known he is outside the UK, but here he is on TV a lot presenting various game shows and he has produced a fair few too. He comes across as a nice and very smart guy. He is also very tall, as I can verify from seeing him when we went to a recording of the show QI.
His first book is The Thursday Murder Club, which I have just finished.
I read this fairly quickly, but then some of the time I was on a long train journey. It is an easy read anyway.
It is about a group of older people in a retirement community who enjoy solving old crimes. They have a mix of experience including a psychiatrist and a lady with a mysterious background who seems to have worked in national security. Then a murder happens close to them and they cannot resist investigating. It does seem that the police need a little help.
There are lots of twists in the plot, some of which I could anticipate. There are times when you think it is resolved, but then there were plenty of pages still left to go then.
I expect other crime books are more graphic about the violence than this. This is more like some of the daytime murder mysteries on TV where you never see much blood.
There are some quite emotional scenes in the book though. Some people have hard decisions to make and I imagine some readers will find these very touching, especially if they have had similar situations in their family. I do think he writes well about how life is for older people who may not always be taken seriously by the young, despite them having far more experience of life. The club members do exploit this.
I did enjoy the book in all. Film rights have been bought by Steven Spielberg's company, so expect that fairly soon. I was wondering who they would get to play the various roles. There have been a fair few films with parts for older actors and this could keep some of them busy. We also have the second book in the series and a third is coming. They have been very big sellers and could have got more people into the genre.
I am not reading something completely different as I like to mix it up. I will review that at some point.