The Thursday Murder Club

The Thursday Murder Club is a mystery fiction novel focused around a murder at a retirement home called Coopers Chase. It was written by Richard Osman in 2020 and published by Penguin. Osman is a British television show producer, and the chosen style of narrative reflects this in the novel; the chapters are often left on cliffhangers and switch to follow different characters as a television show would when compiling several plot threads together. The novel alternates between a first-person narrative told through the perspective of the protagonist Joyce and her diary entries, and a third-person narrative focusing on all the characters. The story follows Joyce and her friends as they attempt to solve a series of murders happening at Coopers Chase. Together, the group works with the police and proves their worth by racing to solve the murders before the detectives assigned the case do. Other novels in the series include The Man Who Died Twice (2021), The Bullet That Missed (2022), and The Last Devil to Die (2023).

Plot Summary

The story opens with Joyce’s diary entry, in which she is discussing an old murder case with Elizabeth. During this interaction, Joyce is invited to become part of The Thursday Murder Club hosted in the Jigsaw Room with Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim; there was once another member, the group’s co-founder, Penny; however, she is ill and in a coma in Coopers Chase’s on-site hospital, Willows. There is tension at Coopers Chase over the new development being planned by Ian Ventham, which will involve the demolition of the Garden of Eternal Rest, the cemetery attached to the Church. The issue brings to town people who want to defend the land, such as Father Matthew. Ian is going ahead with the construction anyway. He wants to cut Tony, his business partner, out of the deal, and does so within the first few chapters when sitting outside. Ron and his son Jason, along with Joyce, are witness to Tony and Ian having what looks like a disagreement in the parking lot. Later that day, Tony is murdered, and a photograph of three men is left next to the body: Tony, Ron’s son Jason, and a man named Bobby.

Elizabeth visits her friend Penny often, with Penny’s husband John sitting quietly in the room, always there with his wife; she goes over the details of the cases, not sure if her friend can hear her, but she always makes sure to go and give her updates throughout the story. Joyce and Elizabeth take the Coopers Chase shuttle bus into town, where Elizabeth pretends that her bag has been stolen, but she will only speak to a female officer to give the report. Once inside, PC Donna De Freitas comes to speak to them, which was Elizabeth’s plan. Elizabeth tells Donna that if she agrees to let them in on some information, that she will make sure Donna gets put onto the team covering Tony’s murder. Meanwhile, Ibrahim and Ron trick one of Donna’s superior officers, Chris, into thinking that Ron is going senile in his old age, and he acts afraid of the police when Chris comes to interview him. Ibrahim suggests that Donna be put on the case to make the residents feel more comfortable, and Chris agrees. While this all going on, Father Matthew has gone to visit Ian to ask him to reconsider moving the graves of the nuns, but the man refuses. Father Matthew leaves after promising to make it as difficult as possible for Ian to go ahead with his plans.

Joyce and Elizabeth meet with Joyce’s daughter Joanna to look over Ian’s financial records to see what kind of shape his companies were in, and it turns out that they are all doing very well. Ian made over £12.25 million from the death of Tony. Joyce gets closer with a character Bernard, a widower who spends most of his time at the top of the hill near the cemetery, a place he had fond memories of with his late wife. When Chris and Donna come to visit, Elizabeth gives them the blue folder consisting of Ian’s financial records. At this point, Jason shows up, and Chris asks the ex-boxer outside for a fan photo, under the ruse of asking him why he would be in the photo left at the scene of the crime; however, before he leaves, he hits on Donna by giving her his number and asking her to text him the photo she took of Chris and him.

The residents get woken up early one morning when Ian has sent workers to begin the demolition of the Garden of Eternal Rest. Several of the Thursday Murder Club members, along with Bernard and others, take up posts in front of the gates as a form of protest. Ian calls Chris and Donna to come handle the situation. During this, one of Ian’s contractors Bogdan finds a skeleton placed into a grave on top of another coffin holding a skeleton. Down by the gates and the group of protestors, Father Matthew gets into an argument with Ian before the two men fall to the ground in a scuffle; Ian is pulled off by several of the other men there and told by Chris to leave. Before Ian can get into his truck, he falls to the ground dead, having been poisoned by a shot of the drug fentanyl. The Thursday Murder Club goes over the list of people that were there to narrow it down to 30 potential names, themselves included, that could be a suspect in Ian’s murder. Bogdan goes to speak to Elizabeth at her house and has her meet him at the cemetery to show her the skeleton he found. She also agrees that it is best if they keep it a secret for now. Eventually, Elizabeth invites Donna and Chris over so that they can tell the murder club everything they learned about the third potential murder to have happened at Coopers Chase. Later that week, Elizabeth takes Joyce on a trip into Folkestone to visit a flower shop and café, which is where she was able to track down Bobby, now going under the name Peter. Elizabeth agrees to keep his secrets if he comes back to town to tell police everything that he told her.

While looking through photographs from years ago at the home of developer Gordon Playfair, Elizabeth and Joyce discover an image of Matthew when he was younger, in the church during a gathering. After speaking with him and getting the truth, Elizabeth has Matthew re-tell it for the others and the officers; Matthew details the time he spent at the church, where he fell in love with a nun named Maggie and they planned to run away together. One night when she was meant to meet him, he discovered that she had killed herself in the chapel because she was pregnant and shamed by the head nun. The only way he could have her buried in the church grounds was if he agreed to strip himself of his title and leave forever. It is why he came back.

Meanwhile, Jason uses the dating app Tinder to get a date with Karen Playfair, Gordon’s daughter. He accuses her of being the murderer but is quickly proven wrong. When discussing things with Ron later, Karen notices an image of someone that lived there 50 years ago. The image is of John, Penny’s husband, and the Thursday Murder Club gathers together before going to Penny’s room to confront him. John goes into detail about a man he killed years ago in an act of assisted suicide, before burying him in a grave in the cemetery. Elizabeth quickly calls him on his bluff and says that she knows he is actually covering for Penny, who had taken justice into her own hands by killing a murder suspect who was never brought to justice. John admits that Penny only confessed to her crimes during her dementia, and he killed Ian to bring an end to the development project that would have unearthed the body.

The novel wraps up in the last two chapters when Stephen, Elizabeth’s husband, gets a confession out of Bogdan. He admits to having killed Tony, because a long time ago Tony had ordered someone to kill one of Bogdan’s friends, a cab driver who helped bury a young boy. The story ends with a final entry from Joyce, who states that she believes Bogdan was the one to kill Tony, even though he was never charged for it, before she leaves to go see the Thursday Murder Club for another meeting in the Jigsaw room.