Thursday Murder Club is the series that just keeps giving and giving, and The Impossible Fortune is yet another marvelous installment.
This time, our gang is celebrating the wedding of Joyce's daughter. With so much grief in their lives recently, it's nice to see our septuagenarians come together for something joyful instead. Soon enough though, the groom's best man has disappeared, and that's just the beginning of the chaos and mayhem that awaits our group.
This was a fun little mystery, with enough components and moving parts in it to feel like a jigsaw puzzle. Steadily, the pieces come together and slot in, and it's satisfying to follow along and see how it all plays out.
But let's be real. I don't read this series for its mysteries (delightful though they may be), and neither do you. We all read it for the characters, who have slowly but surely worked their way into our hearts over the course of five wonderful books. I count Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim as old friends now, and the feeling of warmth and affection rushes back in every time I open one of these books.
Richard Osman has taken something we fear, something that's coming for us all—growing old and feeble—and written it with such sensitivity and sly humor, we have no choice but to love it. I can only hope, when I've reached this age, that I can still live with the sort of dignity and purpose and joy that Osman has so carefully sketched out for his endearing characters.
At this point, Richard Osman should be considered a national treasure, and he must never ever stop writing. Even though I've just finished this book, I'm already waiting with bated breath for the next one. It cannot come soon enough.
Readaroo Rating: 4 stars
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