⭐⭐⭐ 3/5 Stars – Something was missing from this one.
I have really enjoyed the Thursday Murder Club series so far, and especially the last two books. The previous book, book 4 (The Last Devil To Die), I gave the full five-star rating, so it was always going to be very difficult to match, nevermind top… and this one does not have the juice.
The biggest problem is that this one is missing the crucial element that makes these books so captivating – there is no heart in it. This story is missing its emotional core despite the number of times the author explicitly tells us what it is. These books always have the murder mystery as the A plot, but the real story is always the B plot that focuses on one of the TMC quartet dealing with a personal issue.
In this one, this is supposed to be Ron dealing with family issues. His daughter, Susan (Kendrick’s mother), has finally left her abusive, cocaine-abusing, drug-dealing husband and said husband poses a serious threat to the lives of Jason and even Ron. Osman made a really weird choice in deciding to tell this story. Susan, the victim around whom this all revolves, is absent from the story. We get a brief introductory chapter where she leaves, and after that, we do not see her again. Instead, the story becomes about her brother Jason, her young son and her father… and her soon-to-be ex. Basically, it becomes about how her abuse affects the men in her life. This is told from the POV of Ron, who actually doesn’t know what is going on for most of the book because Jason is trying to keep him in the dark, and nobody ever talks about their feelings on the matter. This made it really difficult to care about this plot line because I felt like most of the story was missing! Why didn’t we ever hear from Susan?
Instead of Susan, we get Joanna (Joyce’s daughter) as a POV as she settles into newly married life with a man she met less than a year ago. He is the best friend of the missing man at the centre of the A plot. This was fine, and there were some nice meditations on finding love later in life, but I was also wondering why we were not hearing from Susan (Susan, who I don’t remember even being mentioned in the previous book, other than as being Kendrick’s Mum in a bad marriage)!
The A plot mystery was also a bit lacking. It focused on bitcoin, and it was very easy to see where the twists were going to be, so it turned out to be really anticlimactic. I’m never reading these books for the mystery plotting, so normally I don’t care too much about that, but in this case, since the entertaining emotional core of the story was also missing, it annoyed me.
All the best side characters were also missing – Donna, Bogdan (criminal lack of Bogdan), and Chris basically just get token mentions.
There is a lot of Connie Johnson, and I struggle with her as a character. She is a ruthless and violent criminal; I don’t want to have to follow her on a redemption arc.
All in, this one is fine but definitely feels half-baked. Hopefully, the next one will be better.
REVIEW SUMMARY
I LIKED
- I always enjoy spending time with these characters.
I DIDN’T LIKE
- Everything felt half-baked, and the story lacked heart. There was no emotional core to it.
- The mystery was lacklustre and easily predicted.
- Criminal lack of Bogdan.
