The Thursday Murder Club is a 2020 murder mystery novel, the debut novel by British television presenter Richard Osman. It is the first installment in his Thursday Murder Club series. It was published on 3 September 2020 by Viking Press, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House, and also released in 2020 as an audiobook, read by Lesley Manville.[1]
A group of pensioners (Elizabeth Best, Ron Ritchie, Joyce Meadowcroft and Ibrahim Arif)[2] set about solving the mystery of the murder of a property developer[3] in the luxurious Cooper's Chase retirement village near the fictitious seaside village of Fairhaven in Kent.[2]
Background and publication
Osman's inspiration for the book came from a visit he made to an upmarket retirement village.[2] The premise and title bear clear similarities to Agatha Christie’s The Tuesday Club Murders, which also features a protagonist called Joyce.[4]
Osman wrote the book over 18 months in secret.[3] At 400 pages, the text is structured as 115 short chapters.
After a 10-way publishing auction,[2]Penguin Random House acquired the rights to The Thursday Murder Club and its sequel The Man Who Died Twice for a seven-figure sum[5] in 2019.[6] The book was published on 3 September 2020. It sold 45,000 copies in its first three days on sale[6] and became a Sunday Times number one bestseller.[7] As of 8 September, it had been sold in 16 countries.[6] In the week leading up to 19 December, it sold 134,514 copies, making it the first debut novel ever to be Christmas number one in the UK.[8]
Reception and sequels
In The Times, Christina Hardyment said the book has an "ingenious plot".[9]The Guardian described it as the "fastest selling adult crime debut" in recorded history.[2] The audiobook, one of 10 nominees, received the Sounds of Crime Award at Crimefest in 2021.[10]
The sequels, The Man Who Died Twice, The Bullet That Missed, and The Last Devil to Die, were published in the Septembers of 2021, 2022, and 2023 respectively.[6] A fifth book in the series is planned for release in 2025.[11]
Adaptations
An abridged version of the book was read by Haydn Gwynne and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in early 2021. The reading took two hours and twenty minutes.[12][13]
↑ Abridged: Sara Davies; Reader: Haydn Gwynne; Producer: Mary Ward-Lowery; Music: Tom Constantine (25 January 2021). "The Thursday Murder Club: Episode 1". The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. BBC. BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
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