The Thursday Murder Club by Richard OsmanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I picked this one up after seeing the later books in the series vaguely out of the corner of my eye on Lucky Day shelves at different Fort Vancouver Regional Library branches, and also after hearing that Chris Columbus was going to be directing a film adaptation for Netflix with Steven Spielberg producing. I didn't really pay much attention to the cast announcement at the time, other than remembering that Helen Mirren would be in it. After reading the book, I can see where they got the right idea with Pierce Brosnan as the obnoxious Red Ron (who definitely lives up to the stereotype of aging leftist agitators as verbally pugnacious and lowkey racist, but Brosnan, I'm sure, will easily be able to pull it off) and Ben Kingsley as Ibrahim (though, before I saw that Kingsley would be playing him, I pictured Ibrahim to be a Black man.) Some of the characters in the titular club are definitely more likable than others (Ibrahim and the enigmatic Elizabeth were instant faves of mine, while Ron...ehh, as you can imagine, he was not my favorite.) And there were quite a ton of characters to go around as well, but this book is generally a lot bigger and more ambitious than it lets on. The inclusion of international intrigue, with a lot of backstory rooted in Cyprus, really makes me wonder if Tess Gerritsen didn't read this book before getting inspired to write The Spy Coast (though she definitely played things differently, with a primary setting in America and an international setting in Malta.) Needless to say, I've already got Book 2 on order at the library. But I do have to wonder...what did the real Tony Curran, the actor, do to Osman to make him name the book's first murder victim after him?
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