If you’re a fan of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club books you look forward to a new novel from him with gleeful anticipation. The Murder Club books, set in a plush retirement village, are as English as Enid Blyton but with jokes and without the casual racism. Or Beatrix Potter but without rabbits and washerwomen in bonnets and with the whimsy. If you don’t enjoy Osman you are likely a reader who wrinkles your nose at the idea of whimsy. Whimsy is very English and Osman is not averse to some rather large dollops of it. A fair degree of tolerance is required.
But what is this? His latest novel opens in the south of the US. Rosie D’Antonio is the most bestselling writer in the world – “If you don’t count Lee Child.” She certainly doesn’t. Fame means vast riches. She is living on her own private island off the coast of South Carolina.
Living on this island mostly involves floating about in an “inflatable chair shaped like a throne, in a swimming pool shaped like a swan”, while fully made-up, smoking dope and “sipping something green through a non-recyclable straw”. Recycling straws doesn’t occur to Rosie. This is funny because plastic surgery is her idea of recycling and of a lot more use to Planet Rosie than saving the actual planet.
Somebody, quite possibly a number of somebodies, is trying to kill Rosie. Which is why also on the island is Amy, a private security officer who works for the mysterious Maximum Impact Solutions. She’s one tough gal. There is also a former navy Seal who doubles as the chef. He’s one tough guy. His name is Kevin. He might be a bit thick.
Meanwhile, and there are oodles of meanwhiles in any Osman, somebody is also trying to kill Amy. The rich pothead and the trained-to-kill Amy go on the run. Kevin does not accompany them, having been locked in Rosie’s panic room by the unlikely pair of gals at the time.
There are bad guys galore. There is François Loubet, who is reputed to be the biggest money launderer in the world. He has a “murder-broker” because you never know when you’re going to need one of those. There is the chemicals billionaire Vasily Karpin, who is out to get Rosie after she put him in one of her crime books and accidentally on purpose failed to disguise his identity.
There is an undisputed good guy: Amy’s father-in-law, Steve. He is a retired copper living in, yes, an idyllic English village in the New Forest where he mostly talks to his cat, his mates down the pub, The Brass Monkey, to his dead wife and, occasionally, to one of those New Forest wild ponies. He has, sometimes to his bemusement, opted for the quiet life. He watches the Tipping Point game show on the telly. He and Amy love each other. They talk on the phone almost every day. When she’s not, you know, getting stuck inside “an abandoned old pipe in Syria” for a month.
Steve is very busy. Amy tells him to get some fresh air. He says he’s got the window open. He should go for a walk. “I walked to the shop to get this Scotch egg and I walked home again.” Amy admonishes that Scotch eggs are “not real food. They’re ultra-processed.”
“That’s why they’re so delicious.”
By way of some convoluted plotting, Steve ends up joining the ladies on their capers. He hates abroad. He ends up capering across South Carolina, etc. You lose track. You don’t much care. This is a very silly book. That’s why it’s so delicious.
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (Viking, $38) is available now.
