I’m not talking about murder, but about character description.

A witty, twisting book with such lovable characters it makes us ask: how did he do it?

A murder has taken place in the serene retirement village of Coopers Chase … where the Thursday Murder Club gathers weekly in the Jigsaw Room to delve into unsolved crimes. I love that the timeslot is designated to Japanese Opera – A Discussion. So that noone will show up. Yet it’s only a matter of time until a new resident does? The plot thickens when a local developer is discovered dead, with a mysterious photograph left beside the body, propelling the club into their first real-time investigation. The story alternates between first-person narratives from Joyce, one of the protagonists, and third-person perspectives on the other characters. Richard Osman’s clever storytelling, reminiscent of a TV show, blends suspense, humour, and camaraderie as the group races to solve the murders ahead of the detectives.

The suspects are:

Elizabeth Best

Ex-spy and the founder of the Thursday Murder Club. Elizabeth is portrayed as a strong, determined woman who uses her espionage skills to lead the group’s investigations. Despite her tough cookie cutter exterior, she is also dealing with her husband’s dementia. A very touching portrayal of an aging couple.

Richard introduces Elizabeth via another character. Through the account of Joyce we learn:

I knew who she was, of course; everybody here knows Elizabeth. She has

one of the three-bed flats in Larkin Court. It’s the one on the corner, with the

decking? Also, I was once on a quiz team with Stephen, who, for a number of

reasons, is Elizabeth’s third husband.

 

I was at lunch, this is two or three months ago, and it must have been a

Monday, because it was shepherd’s pie. Elizabeth said she could see that I was

eating, but wanted to ask me a question about knife wounds, if it wasn’t

inconvenient?

So here we get a sense that Elizabeth is wealth (3-bedroom flat), that her husband is/was smart. Elizabeth then asks some more graphic details, which shows that she’s very interested in murder. His writing is influenced by writers like PJ Wodehouse and Marian Keyes.

Joyce Meadowcroft

A former nurse and the newest member of the club. Joyce is kind and calm, often providing a warm counterbalance to Elizabeth’s intensity. She wanders off at times and shares her opinions of modern life.

Joyce introduces herself by her responses to Elizabeth, then states:

By the way, I realize I should have mentioned that I was a nurse for many

years, otherwise none of this will make sense to you. Elizabeth would have

known that from somewhere, because Elizabeth knows everything.

It’s a warm narrative voice of a woman who likes to be around people, and she goes about telling the story in her own way. And you can forgive her for it.

Ibrahim Arif

A retired psychiatrist who is the quiet, analytical member of the group.

‘Guess how old I am?’ challenges Ibrahim.

Donna hesitates. Ibrahim has a nice suit, and he has great skin. He smells

wonderful. A handkerchief is artfully folded in his breast pocket. Hair thinning,

but still there. No paunch, and just the one chin. And yet underneath it all?

Hmmm. Donna looks at Ibrahim’s hands. Always the giveaway.

‘Eighty?’ she ventures.

She sees the wind depart Ibrahim’s sails. ‘Yes, spot on, but I look younger.

I look about seventy-four. Everyone agrees. The secret is Pilates.’

The tech savy member of the group always there to explain what the Cloud means, or keen to share his workings out.

Ron Ritchie

A former union activist known for his headstrong and sometimes abrasive nature as he defends … anything worth saving really.

The man sitting next to him, wearing shorts, flip-flops and a West Ham

United shirt, took this opportunity to stand up and stab a finger in no particular

direction, ‘It’s thanks to Thatcher that, Ibrahim. We used to own it.’

Immediately in this scene, told via PC Donna’s arrival, we have class hints and political values given to us through dialogue.

Bernard

A resident at Coopers Chase that sits on a bench every day, remembering his deceased wife. Potential love interest of Joyce, but he doesn’t seem to know it.

Bernard Cottle was very kind to me when I first arrived at Coopers Chase.

He brought me a clematis cutting and explained the recycling timetable. They

have four different coloured bins here. Four! Thanks to Bernard, I know that

green is for glass, and blue is cardboard and paper. As for red and black, though,

your guess is still as good as mine.

Through Joyce’s intro, we can see he likes plants, and is particular about looking after it. He’s also meticulous, and there is a paragraph before this that mentions he sits on his own quietly. Clearly by choice, not because he has brain cells missing or anything like that. These are not stereotypical characters and that’s why as readers we can love them.

PC Donna De Freitas

PC drawn into the world of the residents after staying for lunch.

PC Donna De Freitas would like to have a gun. She would like to be

chasing serial killers into abandoned warehouses, grimly getting the job done,

despite a fresh bullet wound in her shoulder. Perhaps developing a taste for

whisky and having an affair with her partner.

 

But for now, twenty-six years old, and sitting down for lunch at 11.45 in the

morning, with four pensioners she has only just met, Donna understands that she

will have to work her way up to all that.

Fantasy mixed with reality adds a spark to the description. And the writer is stating “she doesn’t want to be there” while avoiding those direct words. It might be worth going back through something you have written and finding such a sentence to edit?

Penny Gray

Ex-Thursday Murder Club member, now in a coma.

Penny Gray also used to be part of it, but she is now in Willows, that’s the

nursing home. Thinking about it now, I fitted right in. I suppose there had been a

vacancy, and I was the new Penny.

There’s something sad in that line, like Joyce is not sure of her welcome … has she really being welcomed or a standin for someone better? Or did she truely step in, feel right at home, and sad not to have met Penny. Or as a nurse, perhaps she’s just being realistic about it? We have so many possible interpretations of this quote, it just leaves us guessing and wanting to know more.

Chris Hudson

Donna’s boss, lets her shadow him when pressured into it by the Thursday Murder Club.

DCI Chris Hudson is addressing the team. He always seems nice enough.

He once opened some double doors for her without looking like he wanted a

medal for it.

Nice, quiet Chris, carrying a bit of extra weight and fighting against his urge to eat and losing makes this a very likable character.

Capturing that moment when you reach for another chocolate and just can’t help yourself. His characters have common flaws, easily relatable.

Ian Ventham

Wealthy owner of Coopers Chase retirement home.

The Waitrose in Tunbridge Wells has a café. Ian Ventham parks his Range

Rover in the last empty disabled bay outside, not because he’s disabled but

because it’s nearest to the door. […] As he drives, Ian listens to a motivational

audiobook called Kill or Be Killed – Using the Lessons of the Battlefield in the

Boardroom.

Clearly we’re not meant to like him. A cut-throat business man letting nothing get in his way. And there’s some irony here, once you’ve read the book.

Bogdan

A Polish builder living in the UK and doing jobs for Ian Ventham. For cheap. Plays chess exceptionally well, and anything that needs fixing, shovelling or filling in, he’s your man.

Walking in, he spots Bogdan by the window. Ian owes Bogdan £4,000. He

has been stalling for a while, in the hope that Bogdan is thrown out of the

country, but thus far, no luck. Anyway, he now has a real job for him, so it’s all

worked out OK. He gives the Pole a wave and approaches the counter. He scans

the chalkboard, looking for a coffee. […] Bogdan is drinking from a two-litre bottle of

Lilt he has smuggled in. ‘Four thousand. Is pretty cheap to retile a swimming pool.

Saving money by smuggling in a drink, this is the perspective of Ian who underestimates this man’s street smarts, labelling him as Polish.

Tony Curran

Fellow businessman of Ian Ventham.

Ian did the sums and realized this was a leap worth taking. But Tony had done the sums too, and decided to make a leap of his own. Which is why Tony Curran now owned twenty-five per cent of everything that he built at Coopers Chase. Ian had felt compelled to agree to the terms because Tony had never been anything but loyal to him, and also because Tony had made it clear he would break both of Ian’s arms if he refused.

Clearly a man to be scared of.

Short summary

How does Thursday Murder Club introduce characters in the text?

Through a mixture of dialogue and description through the eyes of other characters. A diverse picture of each is formed depending on what each character knows, thinks and feels. The author says he wrote them (interview in audio book) by throwing the modern world at the residents and seeing how they would react. Plus a pinch of the accents of his childhood growing up (Ron and Joyce, for example), plus the idea that folk are at heart pure even when they rub each other the wrong way, and rather than looking at people as “old” or “elderly” might we consider them as they are? People with a whole wealth of experience, regrets/peace and things they want to do.

Set in the cosy crime genre, which basically means relatable. The BBC states

cosy crime is more about the thrill of the investigation, generally carried out by an amateur sleuth or sleuths such as Christie’s Miss Marple or in Osman’s case, the residents of sleepy countryside retirement village. And the murder mysteries are often set against a typically English backdrop […] Police are generally baffled, suspects are bountiful, and murders are imaginative. […] leave the reader with the sense that crime does not pay and ultimately, all is well with the world. […] Often ‘cosy’ simply means we care about the characters

If you are reading this you might also find Osman’s writing tips helpful. Top quote from this page for me is: “Writing in the voice of a character helps you get unstuck”

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Surprised I managed to finish it, what with juggling work and writing and some time for relaxation and mental health, but this month I read the above novel. And I am struck by the characterisation of The hippopotamus, and thus delved deeper into Stephen Fry’s writing psyche. But not that deepily; at least, not to the depths of a hippo with a cocktail on its nose.

I had just been sacked from my paper, some frantic piffle about shouting insults from the stalls at first night.

my wet turd of an editor had shrilled

the kind of anile little runt who, in foyers and theatre bars the West End over, can be heard bleating into their gin and tonics

The absolute rightness and holiness and perfection and beauty of life charged through him. In this position he could stay for ever, he and the whole kingdom of life

He thought of a circle and within that circle, another circle […] The technique came from a book on yogic mediation he had bought last holidays

L’article The hippopotamus by Stephen Fry est apparu en premier sur Emma Parfitt Proofreading Editing Services.