Book review: Deep characters, humour and mystery outline an entertaining murder tale

Richard Osman weaves an engaging jet-settling murder mystery. Picture: Conor O’Leary/PA

• We Solve Murders 
• Richard Osman 
• Viking Review, €16.99 

Richard Osman’s best-selling series The Thursday Murder Club is now joined by the first book in a new series called We Solve Murders.

The book introduces a father-in-law and daughter-in-law pair, Steve and Amy Wheeler, who go on to set up a detective agency when a dead body along with a bag of money turn up on the remote tropical island where she’s working in private security.

Amy is very close to Steve, and they speak by phone every day. 

She turns to him for help as the only one she can trust when three other clients of Amy’s firm are killed in three separate incidents, each murder occurring when she was nearby. Is someone trying to frame her?

Steve has retired from the British police and is living in a sleepy village in the New Forest, where he carries out simple investigations like finding lost dogs. 

He enjoys being retired and loves his familiar routine, especially taking part in a weekly pub quiz, sitting on a bench talking to his late wife, and looking after his cat named Trouble.

In contrast, Amy loves adventure and enjoys her job with Maximum Impact Solutions protecting rich individuals, many of them celebrities, and the challenges that means. 

Her husband Adam works in finance and travels a lot. Though they love each other, they’re happy to spend lots of time apart, at least for now.

When the novel opens, Amy is on an island off the coast of South Carolina.

She’s protecting world famous crime novelist Rosie D’Antonio, who has been threatened by a Russian oligarch, offended by her basing a character on him in one of her books.

As a character, Rosie is reminiscent of a Jilly Cooper or Jackie Collins creation.

She’s not going to miss out on any excitement, so when Amy and Steve set off to find out what has been happening they are helped by her and her private jet. 

She’s a larger-than-life character and will be sadly missed if she does not appear in future books in the series.

The action moves from Steve’s village in the New Forest in England to South Carolina and Dubai via St Lucia, Dublin, and a vineyard in County Cork. 

On the way they meet a variety of people — including social-media influencers, a customs agent, a film star, hitmen, and drug dealers. The customs agent is one of the most memorable.

Osman uses ChatGPT cleverly — the villain utilises it for his emails to disguise his writing style.

The novel reflects our contemporary world, never more so than with the characters of Felicity and Bonnie. 

Felicity is a talent agent who used to focus on actors but now finds herself looking after social media influencers, without any real understanding of what they do.

Bonnie is one of them, she’s had some little success on Instagram and approaches Felicity to help her broaden her reach.

There is something moving about Bonnie, a single mother, who desperately wants to earn more money so she can support her children and really thank her own mother for her help. 

She lacks self-confidence and there are some amusing but equally touching scenes when she questions what she’s doing.

Osman is very good at creating characters with depth. While the novel is very amusing, at times laugh out loud funny, there are also many touching scenes. 

Among them are with Steve, where he reflects on the loss of his much-loved wife.

We Solve Murders is an entertaining read, fast paced, bewildering so at times as the settings change so rapidly, and always great fun. It’s full of delightful characters

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