The Last Devil to Die is lively, but gives no quarter to Thursday Murder Club newbies
Richard Osman at Wimbledon in 2022.
- The Last Devil to Die
- Richard Osman
- Viking, €19.99
This is the fourth book in 'The Thursday Murder Club' series, written by British national treasure Richard Osman.
Osman already had a high profile from his television appearances as a comedian and satirist and as a presenter of the popular tea-time quiz show, .
The first three volumes have broken all records, becoming the fastest-selling adult hardback of all time, according to its publisher.
Steven Spielberg bought the film rights to the first volume of 'The Thursday Murder Club' series and is now working on the movie. Sometimes, it seems, dreams come true.
It is a fiendishly clever formula, putting figures beloved of English detective stories into a new combination, and milking it for all its worth.
The “detectives” are all living in Coopers Chase, a south coast retirement home on the Kent-Sussex border, and therefore of a certain age — that is to say, over 80.
They meet every Thursday in the Jigsaw Room, set aside for the solving of puzzles.
Elizabeth is a retired spy, and therefore superior to everyone else, which suits her serious character and rather cold nature. She is described as being less approachable than the late Queen.
Her husband Stephen is showing signs of dementia, and his sudden sad decline is a major theme of this volume.
Joyce is a retired nurse, fond of baking — mainly cakes — and owner of a winsome dog called Alan. Joyce’s accounts of events are written in the first-person as her journal, which she keeps to ward off loneliness as she is recently widowed.
Ibrahim is an Egyptian psychotherapist, and shares Stephen’s interest in antiquities of the Middle-east, while Ron seems to be a relative newcomer, socially awkward but well-intentioned.
And then there is poor Kuldesh Sharma, the first murder victim, an innocent octogenarian antique dealer, killed by a professional hitman, a bullet through the head. But why?
Very few concessions are made here to readers who are new to 'The Thursday Murder Club' (TTMC as it is known), and for the first hundred pages or so it was hard work to discover who was who, and what was their backstory.
At least the print is unusually large, so that is not quite as daunting as it sounds.
As well as the people in TTMC, there are characters in the local police force who have tangled with the “amateurs” from the care home before, and have a history of resentments, on the one hand, and grudging respect on the other.
There is also an excellent cast of villains, which for me were among the best things in the book being both entertaining and authentic-sounding. There is Mitch Maxwell, top of the heap of UK-based cocaine dealers, Connie Johnson, one-time coke dealer, now a prison inmate and client of Ibrahim’s, an essential source of information to TTMC. My favourite was a giant of a man called Garth, introduced as ‘a scrupulously polite Canadian psychopath’, who certainly lives up to the tag.
The violent deaths among the drug dealers alternate with relatively light “comic caper” scenes featuring the old folk and the police. Stephen’s mental decline is sensitively handled, though other issues that sometime cause grief to care-home residents do not feature.
Osman is a born storyteller, but the plot is a little frayed at the edges, so that attentive readers will probably be one or two steps ahead of the action.
Is this perhaps a sign of author fatigue? In a lengthy 'Afterword' Osman explains he is taking a break from TTMC mysteries for a while, and his next book will feature a new detective duo.
Meanwhile, if you are looking for lively light entertainment, TTMC is a good bet, but to save headaches, be sure to read the four volumes in the order they were first published.
