The fourth in the series of the Thursday Murder Club books, THE LAST DEVIL TO DIE, is to die for. And there are plenty who do.
Compassionate and brilliantly exciting, not to mention laugh out loud funny, THE LAST DEVIL TO DIE mixes murder and mayhem with antiques and dementia, pitting the old familiar gang of senior citizen sleuths against a number of ne’er do wells searching for a missing consignment of illicit drugs.
The first homicide victim, Kuldesh Sharma, is an acquaintance of the Thursday Murder Club, which brings a personal aspect to their point of business. It doesn’t do for the devil to be prowling God’s waiting room.
The aged antiquarian’s assassination plunge the amateur mystery solvers into a vortex of vexation and a cascade of cadavers involving fraudulent artefacts, forgeries, facsimiles and fakes that fulminate in more murder and a marvellous McGuffin.
Amidst this investigation, there is a sidebar story of a long distance romance scam with internet dating, a case of phishing and baiting for a gullible new found friend, as well as a life altering dilemma to be faced by a couple of the series’ central characters.
Lumps in the throat and tears in the eyes come from both the tragic and the magic, situations of sadness and silliness nicely intertwined.
Richard Osman’s plotting, as usual, is first class, his narrative full of humour and heart, his characters, friends or foe, finely defined and human, with foibles and strengths, their idiosyncrasies scrutinised without malice, indeed viewed with a mercy cup of comedy splendidly rendered. Every member of this cast is well worth meeting, even those with errant moral compasses, a Goliath sized Canadian psychopath named Garth of particular piquant interest.
THE LAST DEVIL TO DIE is a charm offensive crime caper, off beat and upbeat, unafraid of the poignant being given free reign amongst the cosy and the comfortable, a novel that is emblematic of an enabling and ennobling elder cohort, a dotage defying addition to a trio of deserved best sellers.
Very well played indeed, Mr. Osman.
THE LAST DEVIL TO DIE by Richard Osman is published by Penguin.