“On my desk. It has pieces from 6000 years ago, can you imagine? And on these pieces you can see fingerprints, you can see scratches where someone’s child has come in and distracted them. You understand that these people are still alive? Everyone who dies is alive. We call people ‘dead’ because we need a word for it, but ‘dead’ just means that time has stopped moving forward for that person? You understand? No one dies, not really.”

No big surprise here but I’m still completely feral for this series. Foaming at the mouth rabid for these pleasant, British 80 year olds. My hands shook as I opened it, as if something holy hid between the hardback shell. How have my friends been? The whole gang is back? Each with such unique and deep personalities and connections. How will we grow together this time? Richard, if I may call him Richard, writes as if we’re sitting together in nice chairs in front of a fire. It’s just me and him, and the Thursday Murder Club.

Hard to imagine that the fourth book in the series is just as good as the first, then the second, and so on; if not even more dynamic by this point. The driving force of these novels is Osman’s masterful character creation: I’ve wept genuine tears for a bunch of fictional geriatrics and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Underneath the chaos, the shenanigans, the murder, there is a deeper, thoughtful message: you’re never too old to start a new hobby, make a new friend, love and be loved. Osman assures us this series is far from over and I, for one, will patiently wait to meet them again and again.

5/5 For Joyce, Ron, Ibrahim, Elizabeth, and Stephen.