Optional Reading
"These books are absolutely unreadable," NY Times
Biography (Wikipedia)
Richard Thomas Osman was born in Billericay, Essex, to Brenda Wright and David Osman, and grew up in Cuckfield near Haywards Heath, West Sussex. When he was nine years old, his father walked out on the family, which Osman says has created difficulty for the rest of his life.
His mother went to teacher training college but, before she got a full-time job, making money to raise her two children was a challenge. His elder brother is musician Mat Osman, bass guitarist with the rock band Suede.
Osman attended Warden Park School in Cuckfield. While still at school, he gained his first broadcasting experience as a regular contributor to Turn It Up, an open-access music show which went out on Sunday evenings on BBC Radio Sussex.
From 1989 to 1992, he studied Politics and Sociology at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary of Pointless co-presenter Alexander Armstrong, who read English.
Biography (Wikipedia)
He is the creator and former co-presenter of the BBC One television quiz show Pointless. He has presented the BBC2 quiz shows Two Tribes and Richard Osman's House of Games and been a team captain on the comedy panel shows Insert Name Here and The Fake News Show. He has also appeared on many British panel shows.
Osman worked at Hat Trick Productions before becoming creative director of the television production company Endemol UK, producing shows including Prize Island for ITV and Deal or No Deal for Channel 4.
P.S. He is 6' 7" tall, and been subjected to "body shaming."
He is the author of the crime novels The Thursday Murder Club (2020), The Man Who Died Twice (2021), The Bullet That Missed (2022), and The Last Devil to Die (2023).
Publications
The Thursday Murder Club (2020)
Osman's inspiration for the book came from a visit he made to an upmarket retirement village. He wrote the book over 18 months in secret. After a publishing auction, Penguin Random House acquired the rights to The Thursday Murder Club and its sequel The Man Who Died Twice for a seven-figure sum in 2019. The book sold 45,000 copies in its first three days and became a Sunday Times number one bestseller.
The Guardian described it as the "fastest selling adult crime debut" in recorded history. Osman was 50 when this first book was published.
Publications
The Man Who Died Twice (2021)
According to The Guardian, one of the fastest-selling novels since records began: only 4 other novels have sold faster.
“It’s wonderful to see how many people have fallen in love with Richard’s fabulous Thursday Murder Club and simply couldn’t wait to read the next installment,” said his publisher Joanna Prior, managing director of Penguin General. “The response to these characters and the crimes they solve from readers around the world has been extraordinary and it has been a joy to work with retailers to make publication week such a big moment for everyone to share in.”
From The Guardian: UK book sales in 2021 were the highest in a decade. Booming appetites for crime, sci-fi and romance drive fiction sales 20% higher than in 2019, with Richard Osman the year’s bestselling author.
Publications
He commented:
I'd love one of those books that's a caper around the world, but that also has some truth about the world, and also makes you laugh and also has some of the aesthetic of Thursday Murder Club, but it's Da Vinci Code. And I couldn't quite find one.
Offering a clue about the upcoming detective, he said:
I'm quite a reluctant traveler,” he reveals. “I'm not in love with going around the world and seeing the Pyramids. I'm a bit happier staying at home and watching the snooker.
“And I thought, that's quite a fun detective, a reluctant traveler, having to go around the world and saying ‘oh god, really? I've got to get on a private jet and fly to the Cayman Islands?' – but just thinking ‘I've got the local pub quiz on Tuesday.' And that felt to me like an interesting world to explore, so I'm going to explore it.”
Publications
The Bullet That Missed (2022)
The Last Devil To Die (2023). It reached number one on the New York Times Best Seller list.
A fifth book in the series is planned for release in 2025.
Interviews
Barnes & Noble YouTube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68SLS1PuAnY
Midtown Scholar Bookstore (3:19)
https://www.google.com/search?q=interviews+richard+osman&oq=interviews+richard+osman&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30j0i390i512i650j0i751.4613j1j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:cb274cc3,vid:fJke-IygSzk,st:0
Cast of characters
Amy Wheeler:
Works for Maximum Impact Solutions which provides security for famous people, such as Rosie D'Antonio, popular novelist. Amy is hired to protect her from Vasiliy Karpin, a Russian chemicals oligarch she described as a bulldog or bullfrog chewing on a nettle in her latest novel. They meet later in the book and he asks her to autograph it for his sister-in-law who thinks Rosie has described him perfectly and has threatened to kill him if he harms Rosie.
Late in the novel, when police pursue her because of blood stains left at the various murder sites, she agrees to meet Jeff in their offices and investigate their records. He thinks she is the culprit, she thinks he is; Amy shoots Jeff, and puts him in Henk's private den, behind the boardroom mirror. If Susan is innocent, she will call the police; if she's guilty, she'll call Francois Loubet. She does the latter.
A couple of times, the novel makes reference to Amy's "bad" childhood, but without any details.
Cast of characters
Steve Wheeler: Amy's father-in-law, retired after 25 years from the London Metropolitan Police, now living in Axley, "the perfect English village" that simply found itself a small clearing and settled in to New Forest.
His life revolves around meals at the Brass Monkey, their Wednesday-night pub quiz, his cat "Trouble," and his deceased wife Debbie.
He carries a Dictaphone with him and records his conversations with deceased wife Debbie, especially on his walks through the village and at the bench with a plaque remembering her.
He and Amy regularly talk, but about "nothing." They never talk about Amy's troubled childhood, or about Steve's grief, loss, or loneliness.
He and son Adam also don't communicate frequently, or well, except about dinosaurs, Adam's childhood fascination.
He hates flying and admits that he prefers the familiarity and regularity of his "small" life. But he breaks his routine to help Amy, and at the end of the book, reluctantly agrees to join Amy in her new enterprise, We Solve Murders, at Debbie's urging.
Cast of characters
Steve Wheeler:
Steve is the one who solves most of the puzzles in the mystery—the identity of Loubet, the fact that he killed Rob Kenna, the link between the dead influencers' bags and Loubet's money laundering, the whereabouts of Jeff Nolan, in disguise as Martin from Lymington at the pub
"But Steve has learned you must never resent other people for their happiness. Everyone is taking the best shot they’ve got, and some shots are just luckier than yours. Anytime you feel your unhappiness turning into bitterness, you have to check yourself. You can live with unhappiness, but bitterness will kill you." (pp. 95-96)
Adam Wheeler: Amy's husband, Steve's son
A financier who brokers big money for individuals and corporations. Although he tries to explain his job, Amy doesn't really understand. But they have agreed on a "call option" for their marriage.
For most of the book he's in Macau, but, at Amy's request, he tries to visit Courtney Lewis in the Dubai prison, another of the influencers killed just a day before he visits.
Cast of characters
Jeff Nolan: CEO of Maximum Impact Solutions
After his early introduction, Jeff disappears for a good portion of the novel. Steve thinks he may have been killed when he finds Jeff's BMW in the forest, blood smeared across the passenger seat. We later find out that Jeff keeps blood for just such a purpose.
He shows up later in Steve's pub as Martin, loss adjuster from Lymington, complete with beard, to let Amy and Steve know he's alive.
Hank van Veen: Jeff's former best friend and partner in the close-protection business
Jeff and Henk are now competitors, with Henk taking many of their former clients.
He's Dutch, tries to meld into the crowd, drinks only milk if possible, thinks Jeff is the killer Loubet has hired, and points out the bullet holes in the tree where Gooch was murdered and hung.
Cast of characters
Susan Knox:
HR manager for Maximum Impact Solutions, where she has worked with Jeff and Henk for 30 years or so.
At the end of the novel, when Amy is holding Jeff hostage in the back room, he admits that he didn't pay her much, give her Christmas or birthday presents, but he did trust her with his various financial accounts because finances bored him. She was therefore able to embezzle sizable amounts of money from these accounts, over the years, without his knowledge. The amounts were small initially but grew as she fell into financial trouble. By working with Francois Loubet, she hoped to recoup those losses and pay Jeff back.
She paid $10,000 to Max Highfield for every influencer he introduced, 35 in all, through his connection with Felicity Woolaston at Vivid Viral Media. He was Felicity's first client.
Cast of characters
Susan Knox: HR manager at Maximum Impact Solutions
has worked for Jeff for maybe 30 years, gets paid 60K per year, but lives in Hampstead. Not affordable for someone at that pay scale. Jeff assumes she inherited the house, but her parents are still living.
Initially she blames Max Highfield as the assassin, tells Amy to kill him and she will support her. Later she blames Jeff because the payments to Max came out of his accounts, but Susan has been "topping up" her salary by dipping into those for years. She invested the money, bought properties, but always paid back from her profits. But then she started to lose money, couldn't pay back his accounts, so she turned to Loubet with a proposition.
She's the one who used the name "Joe Blow," a character from Max's movie, The Rose of Sarasota.
Cast of characters
Rosie D'Antonio:
Famous 80 year-old novelist whom Amy has been hired to protect from Vasiliy Karpin, Russian chemical oligarch who threatened to murder her for including him in her most recent novel, Dead Men & Diamonds. She's feisty, enjoys life, speaks bluntly, and is fond of men. She has her eye on Steve, although he consistently resists her overtures.
Late in the novel, she seduces Eddie Flood, although he has been one of the men hired to kill Amy, shooting at her car. He's fired for his failure to complete the task, but moves forward with his alternative goal--to get Rosie to read the draft of his first novel. He succeeds at that.
Cast of characters
François Loubet:
Finally identified as Mickey Moody, a retired scrap metal dealer who lives unostentatiously near a golf course in Dubai where he golfs with, and ultimately kills, Rob Kenna, the murder broker.
When he takes a sauna with Steve, Steve notices the names Elisabeth and Louisa tattooed on his shoulders, names of the grandmothers who raised him. Loubet is a combination of their names. He ends up in prison and writes to Susan, also in prison, inviting her to begin a conversation. She declines.
Cast of characters
Kevin: former Navy Seal who has become Rosie's protector and chef on her island home. But he's also been hired to kill Amy, forces her into Rosie's "safe room." Rosie smacks him on the head with her Oscar award, they escape, and lock Kevin in the safe room.
Tony Taylor, member of Steve's pub quiz team, a mechanic, "long-term divorcé, long-term lush" who takes care of all the car problems, occasionally branching out into microwave and coffee-machine repairs." He falls for Felicity.
Dr. Jyoti Das, member of Steve's pub quiz team, a widow who fields all and any medical questions, despite the fact she’s a doctor of medieval history.
John Todd, another member of the pub quiz team
Nelson Nunez: drug dealer living at Bluff Point on St. Lucia. Rosie's name earns them an entre. Amy and Steve want information on Loubet.
Nunez takes them captive because Loubet has told him to shoot one of them, but not which one. Steve frees himself, grabs the gun Amy has hidden in Rosie's jumpsuit, and shoots both Nelson and his bodyguard, just wounding them.
Cast of characters
Felicity Woolaston: owner of Vivid Viral Media, a social media marketing firm that connects influencers with commercial brands to sell their products. She develops a relationship with Tony Taylor, Steve's pub quiz friend.
She is an intermediary who seems unaware of the money laundering going on under these guises. Until Bonnie Gregor, an ambitious but clueless housewife who has established a presence on social media by painting her bathroom door pink.
Bonnie meets and becomes friendly with Felicity after getting a job offer to sell organic paint at a photo shoot in Sao Paolo. Neither woman knows these jobs are a ruse for smuggling money from Francois Loubet.
When Steve realizes these influencers are all killed, he contacts Tony, and he and Felicity speed to the airport just in time to pull Bonnie off the plane, before she's killed like the others.
Cast of characters
Andrew Fairbanks (South Carolina), Bella Sanchez (St. Lucia), and Mark Gooch (Ireland) are all "tragic Instagram influencers," killed by Loubet's hit men when Amy is in the vicinity.
All three victims are found with bags of money—Loubet's money laundering service—and all three scenes contain traces of Amy's blood to throw suspicion on her as the murderer. The blood is courtesy of Susan and the company's drug testing requirement.
Gary Gough: Undefined criminal boss with an isolated house outside Axley named "No Comment"
His daughter Lauren is extorting money from Mollie Bright, who is stealing from her mother's coffee shop—the reason why Steve visits him for the first time.
Later, when the police are looking for Amy, she hides at his house, and in the boot of his car when he takes her to London to meet with Jeff.
Cast of characters
Rob Kenna: murder broker who sends Eddie Flood to kill Amy, golfs with Mickey Moody, the real Francois Loubet
Eddie Flood: buddy of Rob, they grew up together. Rob hires him to kill Amy, he tracks her, despite the trip to Hawaii, and shoots out her car windows, but doesn't succeed. Rob fires him and he turns to his other ambition—a novel. He seeks out Rosie and persuades her to read; he's not a committed killer. According to Rob:
He’s still fit, is Eddie. Hair nicely cropped, gone to fat a bit, but not as much as the other lads they’d grown up with. Eddie was always a little smarter than the rest. (p. 123).
Max Highfield: self-obsessed actor
As Max leaves, a heady haze of testosterone and Tom Ford lingering behind him, he passes Susan Knox on her way in to see Jeff. As he passes her, Max gives her a firm pat on the backside. “There she is,” says Max. “My hot cougar.” “She’s the head of HR, Max,” says Jeff. “She doesn’t mind,” says Max over his shoulder, as he leaves the room. “It’s a compliment.” (pp 25-26).
At that point, we don't know that Susan and Max are acquainted.
Cast of characters
Carlos Moss: customs officer at the Emory Executive Airport in South Carolina who tips off Steve when Eddie asks about Rosie and her companion
Barb—Rosie's friend who houses her and Amy, and later Steve
Justin Scroggie—sheriff in SC who killed Andrew Fairbanks. When Amy and Rosie go to his house to find clues, they find him dead, hung, and confiscate his computer.
Questions for discussion
Last week, we reviewed the characteristics of mystery novel written by men. One of those was complicated plot. We Solve Murders has a complicated plot.
Is it too complicated?
Does it need to be complicated?
Did the pace of the novel move quickly enough to keep you reading?
Questions for discussion
Paired detectives are fairly common in mystery literature—Sherlock Holmes and Watson, Poirot and Capt. Hastings, Richard Jury and Melrose Plant in P. D. James. But the pairing here is unusual—a female detective and her father-in-law. The Thursday Murder Club series did include a group of senior citizens, male and female, friends with mixed talents.
So why a woman and her father-in-law here?
Questions for discussion
Another of the characteristics is a focus on action rather than personal relationships.
How much action does this novel have?
Are there relationships developed in this novel?
Questions for discussion
In a murder mystery, characters are always facing trouble, threats, tricky situations, and other problems that require them to call on their personality reserves.
How do the various characters respond to the adversities presented in this novel?
How would you describe Osman's characters?
Questions for discussion
Why does Osman include tech, like ChatGPT, in this novel. Loubet uses it to disguise his identity, preferring instead to sound like a "friendly English gentleman."