| Thursday Murder Club | |
| Books: |
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| Author: | Richard Osman |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Crime fiction, detective fiction, murder mystery, cozy mystery |
| Publisher: | Viking Press |
| Pub Date: | 3 September 2020-present |
| Number Of Books: | 4 |
The Thursday Murder Club is a murder mystery book series by television presenter and author Richard Osman.
The first instalment, entitled The Thursday Murder Club, was Osman's fiction writing debut, and was published in September 2020. The book received great critical and public acclaim, and was a great financial success, becoming the No. 1 bestselling Christmas title in the UK, a first for a debut novelist.[1] The subsequent entries in the series have similarly well received, with the The Last Devil To Die ending up as No.1 on the New York Times Best Seller list on 8 October 2023.[2]
The titular club consists of four elderly pensioners who reside in Cooper's Chase, a retirement village located in the fictional Kent village of Fairhaven. The club was initially formed to merely discuss unsolved cases, but the four invariably come to be involved in investigating local murders.
The group consists of former spy Elizabeth Best, union leader Ron Ritchie, nurse Joyce Meadowcroft and psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif.[3]
In August 2024, Osman announced he had started work on the fifth book in the series, which is planned for a 2025 release.[4]
See main article: The Thursday Murder Club (film). A film adaptation of the first book is in production for Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, with a script from Katy Brand, and Chris Columbus on board as director. The film features an ensemble cast led by Helen Mirren as Elizabeth, Pierce Brosnan as Ron, Ben Kingsley as Ibrahim and Celia Imrie as Joyce. The film will be released on Netflix.
On 24 May 2024, Osman announced on the podcast The Rest Is Entertainment that he was working on a Thursday Murder Club stage play with co-writer Tom Basden. Like with the film, Steven Spielberg and Amblin will produce. Instead of adapting one of the books, the play will feature an original story.[5]