I heard about this book when Em from A Geeky Jock reviewed it and since I am a sucker for cosy mysteries, I decided that I really want to read it.

As you can guess from the title, the stars of this book are the members of the Thursday Murder Club. Initially, Elizabeth, Ibrahim, Ron, and Joyce (who replaced Penny) came together to discuss cold cases, but when someone dies in their retirement village, they simply cannot resist the chance to investigate an active murder. And honestly, they do a better job than the police (though to be fair, the police aren’t that incompetent – they just aren’t a group of wily elderly folk).

Overall, I thought that this was a very fun book. It did take me some time to get into the book, possibly because the book is in present tense and that somehow stopped me from being immediately immersed, but I was quickly won over by all the characters. Elizabeth, in particular, is extremely charming and a force to be reckoned with.

Although it’s a fun read, there were a few parts of the book that didn’t make sense to me. Firstly, why is Joyce’s diary entries part of the narrative? They are fun to read, but in the initial few chapters, it was a bit weird to go from third person present to first person past tense, especially since all the chapters are fairly short.

Another thing that didn’t make much sense to me was the murder mystery. I didn’t quite fully understand the resolution until I read this blogpost (warning, the post contains spoilers). Perhaps this is part of the writing style, since the entire group seem to have the habit of going off tangent, but it did make the mystery part feel slightly unsatisfying.

These two minor criticisms aside, I really enjoyed this book! The characters are extremely charming and I think it’s refreshing to see the detectives be a group of retired people. I heard that there’s a second book coming out and I would definitely be interested in reading it!