We Solve Murders by Richard Osman

Amy Wheeler is a bodyguard protecting bestselling author Rosie D’Antonio on a remote island in South Carolina. It doesn’t seem like a strenuous assignment for one of Maximum Impact Solutions’ best employees but that’s until her boss, Jeff Nolan, tells her three of their clients have been murdered – when Amy was conveniently nearby.  He's acting as if she's responsible! 

She’s just deciding she’d better leave Rosie to go investigate when someone tries to kill her. Amy escapes, with help from Rosie, and they go on the lam together. Amy enlists her widower father-in-law, Steve, a retired policeman who would prefer not to leave his small British village in the New Forest and, especially, his pub quiz-night, but can’t say no to Amy. Their pursuit of a mysterious (and seemingly homicidal) money launderer to clear Amy’s name takes them from South Carolina to St. Lucia, Dublin, Dubai, and back to Axley, where Steve’s cat, Trouble, is waiting for him to return.

My Impression: Osman decided to take a one-year break from his popular Thursday Murder Club books to launch a new series. The main characters are Amy, a receptionist turned bodyguard, and her father-in-law, who speak nearly every day, no matter where she is working (Amy’s husband Adam barely appears in the story but I suspect he will be more visible in the future):

He knows Amy can handle herself – he once saw her knock out an MMA fighter with a single punch at a Christmas party – but he also knows the things that can go wrong. Steve worries that Amy will be killed; Amy worries that Steve doesn’t eat properly . Steve worries that Amy and Adam don’t see enough of each other; Amy worries that Steve is lonely. There is a healthy equivalence of concern, and, also, they make each other laugh.

The first book in a series requires a lot of world-building, and I thought this started slowly (except for all the dead bodies) with a few too many different points of view. However, the action is nonstop, if somewhat over the top, and we get to know these new characters and how they react under pressure – they are more active than Osman’s senior citizens. As Osman said in an interview, “Amy is in her 30s and Steve in his 50s, ‘so, for me, very young,’ he joked.”  Amy grew up in foster care; Adam and Steve seem to be her only family.

It is his characters’ interactions and conversations, as well as their interior monologues (particularly Steve’s reflections) that make the story amusing, and I found the plot easier to follow than in his other books. While I think Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim are more fully developed than Amy and Rosie (and much funnier!), there is lots of room for them to become more dimensional in future books. Grade: B+

The Thursday Murder Club is going to be a Netflix movie!*

Publication: Viking, hardcover, 2024
Genre: Mystery
Source: Thank you to my mother for this copy!

This is book 26 for Carol’s Cloak and Dagger Challenge.

* Thursay Murder Club cast photo credit: Giles-Keyte//Netflix