This book is actually the first one that we’ve done a bookclub meetup about in Bali as well as our normal meetings at Tales Bookcafé. We’re planning on splitting our time between Bali and Lembongan so that we can meet even more people that want to share their thoughts on what they’re reading. 

The Thursday Murder Club is a book that follows four pensioners living in a peaceful retirement village who meet weekly to solve cold cases. When a real murder occurs nearby, they find themselves unexpectedly involved in an active investigation. If you enjoy mysteries but aren’t a huge fan of thrillers, this is a book for you. A cozy murder mystery is the best way to define it.

The book relies quite heavily on switching perspectives often in order to move the plot forward, with most characters getting at least one chapter from their perspective. Although among these there is one standout, which is Joyce. Her chapters aren’t just written from her perspective, they’re actually diary entries which gives them a slightly different tone than the rest of the book. I suppose this was done in order to set her apart as more of a “main character” than the rest of the club but I personally think that Osman didn’t utilize this narrative choice to its full potential. Having her chapters be diary entries was mostly a bit confusing because there isn’t really a justification for why she’s writing them and they didn’t really give me anything in terms of the story.

The premise is charming and the world building was solid. I could see the club’s antics at Coopers Chase very clearly in front of me as I was reading. Books featuring older characters often carry a certain sense of freedom due to them being simply “too old to care” which is definitely the case in this book. These characters have all lived very full lives before the start of the story, which helps them become complex and multi-layered.

My biggest issue with this book was that I honestly got a bit bored after a while. The constant perspective switches were slightly disorienting and I felt that it took you out of the story sometimes. It felt like a huge portion of this book was people just repeating information to each other, which I think is partially a side effect of all of these quick jumps between characters. Personally I thought that the book was a bit too slow paced and lacked some well-needed action. Even though it’s not supposed to be a thriller or a noir style mystery it could have had some more excitement and I feel that Osman could have spent more time actually unraveling the mystery of the book.

The book spreads itself thin in many aspects in a way that feels like a setup for a series (which it is), the trouble for me is that it ended up being so thin that I’m honestly not sure that I’m interested enough to read the next book

Even though I’m being a bit harsh I’m actually looking forward to seeing the movie adaptation that is coming out on Netflix at the end of August. I’m curious to see if the change in medium will have any effect on how I feel about the story.

All in all my final verdict is 2,5/5. The book wasn’t horrible, just a bit lack-luster.

Going forward our meetups will alternate between Bali and Lembongan with 6 weeks apart. Our next meetup will be on Lembongan and the book that we’ll be talking about is Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. See you then!