The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

So August was a bumpy month to say the least, but I did achieve my goal of finishing The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman before the movie adaptation hit Netflix. Earlier this year, I read his book We Solve Murders and really enjoyed it. Would I enjoy his most famous work? That was a mystery that didn’t take four senior citizens to solve.

There are three bodies and two murders vexing our Thursday Murder Club, but for me, it wasn’t the mysteries that hooked me. It was the character work. Frankly, I found pieces of the mystery plot lacking just a bit, including the resolution to one of the cases. In the end, it didn’t matter, though. I had so much fun hanging out with the four main characters that I would have read a book where they did almost anything. I’ll definitely be back for the next book in the series. Four and a half outta five stars.

(Fingers crossed the movie is good! The trailer has me a little nervous now that I’ve finished the book.)

The last couple of weeks, I’ve been dealing with what I'll call Life Events. It’s really thrown my writing and reading schedules off track. I finally managed to finish The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch last night. This is one of the most recommended fantasy books out there, and it lived up to the hype.

                  This is a very intricately plotted novel, and it feels daunting to try to do a summary. The setting is Camorr, a duchy in a fantasy world with roughly Renaissance level technology that seems lightly based on Venice. Our hero is Locke Lamora, leader of a band of good-hearted thieves who only target the rich nobles of the city-state.  We pick things up with the start of a new heist plot that would feel right at home in the Ocean’s 11 cinematic universe. There are also flashbacks sprinkled throughout the book that tell how Locke and his friends became a team. Just as we start feeling welcome and settled in his world, things in Lamora’s life quickly start to fall apart, and soon, instead of pulling off a long con, the group must save their own lives and perhaps those of Camorr’s citizens.

                  I’ll reach into my bag of cliches and pull out “heartfelt” and “rollicking” to best describe this one. It’s a long book, but it never feels like one. Lynch has the skill to write chapter endings that make you want to ignore the clock and keep reading. I wish I’d read this at a better time of year for me. It might have been an early contender for my book of the year. This can be read as a standalone even though it’s the first in a series, and I will definitely be back for the sequel. A solid five outta five stars.