This book fell below my expectations :( I’d heard about it a lot before I started reading it and so was expecting a gripping, thrilling story with a lot of mystery, surprises, elusive clues. Instead, it was like a mellow, flat, didn’t-quite-scratch-the-itch version of a murder mystery. Perhaps it is because of the tone - I sense that the writer wanted to give the murder story a quirky, light-hearted voice… To establish humour..? I didn’t find it funny though.

The story follows 4 elderly in a retirement village who meet up every Thursday to solve murders! Contrary to the title, Thursdays aren’t mentioned that often in the book, and the club doesn’t stick to murder-solving on Thursdays. And instead of solving case after case of individual murders, the book presents multiple murders concurrently, and suggests that they may be related (but they also may not be). I found this to be very confusing. I struggled to remember names, roles each character played in each different murder, and failed to see how each murder was a necessary plot point for the novel as a whole.

I thought the personalities (or lack thereof) of the characters took a lot of thrill out of the mystery. Apart from Joyce writing in first person in some chapters, the lack of insight into what the other characters were thinking contributed to them seeming one-dimensional. Perhaps a different first person narrative for each chapter could’ve been adopted. Additionally, because all the characters seemed so aloof, there seemed to be no consequence of any sort that might happen- so there would be no catharsis for anyone. Not for the characters, not for the readers.

I will be reading Osman’s second book after this. I hope it will be better!