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An instant #1 New York Times bestseller!

A new mystery is afoot in the fourth book in the Thursday Murder Club series from million-copy bestselling author Richard Osman

It’s rarely a quiet day for the Thursday Murder Club.

Shocking news reaches them—an old friend has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing.

The gang’s search leads them into the antiques business, where the tricks of the trade are as old as the objects themselves. As they encounter drug dealers, art forgers, and online fraudsters—as well as heartache close to home—Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim have no idea whom to trust.

With the body count rising, the clock ticking down, and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out?

And who will be the last devil to die?.

Review:

Dear Richard Osman,

I was so happy when this book landed on my kindle. The gang is back indeed and as always a new investigations fall in their lap.  We also see some relationships stories come to their end and while others are just beginning.

I had to laugh when, in the beginning of the story, there was a small chance that the only investigation they would be doing was someone scamming a man by pretending to be a romantic pen pal and trying to get as much money as possible out of him. Ibrahim thinking that it may be nice to investigate something non-murderous for a change (paraphrase).  Of course readers know right away that this will either turn into something more murderous or our Fabulous Four will have some other murders falling in their lap.

They indeed have something falling in their lap. As the blurb tells you someone they know (this person appeared rather briefly in one of the previous books) has been killed. One murder eventually becomes many, drugs become part of the deadly mix, so the investigation does become rather twisty, although they do investigate the romance fraud problem, too.

I have to say that I thought that the investigation of the main murder (so to speak) was great and to me at least the villain was a surprise almost till the very end, but unfortunately with the rest of the murders the resolution reminded me a little bit of the book one where author showed us a lot of murders and left an impression that he was not quite sure what to do with those.  The reveal of the killer for the rest of the dead characters in this book felt a little bit like – oh we need to find somebody to pin those murders on, why don’t we choose this person simply because it is necessary. I am not quite sure how to explain it, but I guess even after the explanation given I was still not sure why the killer actually *needed* all of that, all the circumstances considering. Oh well, at least we did not have

resolving it as in book one.

Honestly though, I am still giving the book a high grade because of how much I was impacted by the personal stories in this book. Those who read the previous entries really won’t consider the following a spoiler I would think?

Elisabeth and Steven’s story comes to the conclusion in this book. I mean we expected it sooner rather than later right, considering what Steven and those around him had been dealing with right? But I have to say the way author chose to conclude their storyline was both expected and took me by surprise. I really liked that everyone acted the way they would act according to their personalities if that makes sense. Especially Elisabeth was so very Elisabeth till the very end.

We also discover some new things about Ibrahim, which I hope will be properly developed in the next books.

Despite this book being sad in parts, parts of it were also very very funny, which I really appreciated.

 

I cannot wait for the book five, which author said will come eventually even if not right away, because he has plans to start new series as well.

Grade: B+

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