The Thursday Murder Club is a charming and poignant mystery novel full of great characters, amusing scenes and dialog, and multiple, hard-to-solve murders. With a strong theme of the worries that accompany the aging process, The Thursday Murder Club is also touching and enlightening.

This post may contain Amazon Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you, from qualifying purchases. (This in no way affects the honesty of my reviews!) All commissions will be donated to the ALS Association.

Let’s begin with a quick summary of The Thursday Murder Club. (Warning: Some spoilers below.)

Coopers Chase Retirement Village is located on the grounds of a former convent in the south (?) of England. The community is full of pensioners that are in various stages of aging, from still active to needing skilled nursing. The four members of the Thursday murder club – Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron – fall into the former category, but the founder of the club – Penny – unfortunately falls into the latter.

Penny is a former police detective who brought copies of cold cases into retirement with her. She assembled an eclectic group of people to meet every week to attempt to solve the unsolved murders – Elizabeth seems to be a former spy, Ibrahim is a retired psychologist, Ron is a former union leader and agitator, and the newest member, Joyce, is a retired nurse. They each bring unique skills, perspectives, and personalities to the club, and they all relish solving murders.

There is a lot going on in the plot. Let’s see if I can do it justice.

The members of the club have two fresh murders to solve as the two partners that own the retirement village are killed within days of each other. But they need information from the police to fill in the blanks. These are not doddering senior citizens – they are smart and not averse to manipulation. They soon make a solid connection with two of the police officers who are investigating the crimes – Donna and Chris. The police won’t tell them everything, of course, but there’s enough information being shared to make it mutually beneficial. 

Buy now on Amazon!

The crimes have roots in both the past and the future. Tony, the minority partner who was killed, had only recently gone legit after a long history of crime. Did someone from his past pay a visit to his home and bludgeon him to death?

The majority partner, Ian, is also an unsavory character with plenty of smarm (is that a word?) but no ethics. Ian and Tony are quite a pair, and when the two of them are seen arguing the day Tony is murdered, Ian becomes a person of interest. But did he really have enough time to drive from Coopers Chase to Tony’s house in order to kill him? This is one of the things the murder club hilariously tests out.

Ian has plans to expand the village, which will involve digging up a cemetery full of nuns. But the day the heavy equipment shows up at Coopers Chase to begin work, the residents stage a protest (also hilarious!). Ian pushes a priest who’s trying to save the cemetery, and a scuffle ensues, with many of the male residents trying to restrain the dreadful Ian. Minutes after, Ian is dead from an injection of fentanyl. Now the question is who has access to fentanyl and knows how to use a syringe. (the answer to the second question is pretty much everyone in the village, given their health status.)

So, now the police (and murder club) have two murders to solve, and the main suspect in Tony’s murder is dead, but that doesn’t faze our intrepid professional and amateur sleuths. Their journeys to solve the murders take them from London to Cyprus, and the early 1970s to the present day, and along the way they find surprising information about the past, the victims, the suspects, and even their fellow residents.

The Thursday Murder Club is a wholly satisfying mystery that will surprise you until the very end. And its lively plot and humor will keep you thoroughly entertained. The pace is fast and never dull.

The novel had some of the most well-developed characters I’ve encountered in recent memory. Elizabeth was a little intimidating, but in a kind way; Joyce was bright and curious; Ron delights in confrontation but can also be a teddy bear; and orderly Ibrahim is wise about human nature and methodical about organizing the information about the cases. The two police officers – Donna and Chris – are also very likable. Donna fled London after a bad breakup and longs for something exciting to work on. Chris is competent at police work but he doesn’t take care of himself and is very lonely.

In addition to the plot and the characters, I was drawn in by the theme of aging, which was persistent (maybe a little too persistent?) throughout the story. The older characters had their aches and pains, and several were lonely because they had lost their spouses, but a primary concern was losing their memory and sliding into dementia. In fact, Elizabeth had a process that she followed every day to test her mental acuity. It really makes you think about your own humanity, especially if you’re nearing “old age” like me. I think the author did a great service by including this topic in his book. It’s a good reminder to everyone not to take their elderly relatives or their time on Earth for granted.

As you can probably tell, I enthusiastically recommend The Thursday Murder Club. Even if mystery isn’t your top genre, there’s much to enjoy in this novel.

If you’re already a fan of The Thursday Murder Club, you may be happy to hear that Netflix is making a movie of it with a star-studded cast – Helen Mirren as Elizabeth (brilliant casting!), Ben Kingsley as Ibrahim (brilliant casting!), Pierce Brosnan as Ron (I’ll reserve judgment – can he really pull off a rough, brawny former union leader?).

If you’ve read The Thursday Murder Club, what did you think? Inquiring minds want to know (talk about showing my age)!