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lonemagpie6) THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB by Richard Osman
OK… Obviously you can ignore all the enthusiastic endorsements printed in the book bay assorted other celebs and tabloids- they print that stuff to persuade you to buy something written by somebody famous for something else. (And I have a long-standing problem with the industry now only giving decent book contracts to people already famous for something else instead to actual writers.) Does this mean the people who said to me that they hated it and gave up cos it was rubbish and boring are right? Well, no. What it is is… mild and harmlessly OK. Among other things.
I’d expected snarky wit from him, but really just got the occasional faint smile. There’s also the occasional deep line, but they’re few and far between, and the padding doesn’t help. The actual plot is fair enough, and the main characters are fun enough that you can tell which of Osman’s mates is meant to play them. Everybody has a secret, though some of them are just tagged on as afterthoughts.
There’s something lacking though, and that’s focus and pacing. The book mostly flows along nicely when reading it, but when you’ve put it down there’s no real urge to pick up again in a hurry. The main reason is because it’s about 150 pages too long, and there’s so much drifting along. The worst thing is that every time there’s about to a revelation it has a character going “there’s a revelation”, then switches to another, and another, each in a separate chapter, before getting round to actually giving whatever the revelation is. This is incredibly frustrating- it didn’t make want to find out what’s on the next page, it made me yell “get fucking on with it you cunt!” repeatedly. Especially in the “Joyce” first-person chapters, which seem to be less a viewpoint character and more a device for treading watcr while getting paid by the word.
One of the glowing endorsements says Osman’s done a proper Agatha Christie- bullshit, Agatha would have done the whole damn thing in under 200 pages.
Yeah, so… Not actually bad, Elizabeth’s a good (oviously Judi Dench) character, and the plot works, but far too long and too artificially slow. Basically, the ideal book for a long flight or train ride, where you won’t have to stop and therefore take days to get motivated to pick it up again. And disappointing on the snarky wit front.
OK… Obviously you can ignore all the enthusiastic endorsements printed in the book bay assorted other celebs and tabloids- they print that stuff to persuade you to buy something written by somebody famous for something else. (And I have a long-standing problem with the industry now only giving decent book contracts to people already famous for something else instead to actual writers.) Does this mean the people who said to me that they hated it and gave up cos it was rubbish and boring are right? Well, no. What it is is… mild and harmlessly OK. Among other things.
I’d expected snarky wit from him, but really just got the occasional faint smile. There’s also the occasional deep line, but they’re few and far between, and the padding doesn’t help. The actual plot is fair enough, and the main characters are fun enough that you can tell which of Osman’s mates is meant to play them. Everybody has a secret, though some of them are just tagged on as afterthoughts.
There’s something lacking though, and that’s focus and pacing. The book mostly flows along nicely when reading it, but when you’ve put it down there’s no real urge to pick up again in a hurry. The main reason is because it’s about 150 pages too long, and there’s so much drifting along. The worst thing is that every time there’s about to a revelation it has a character going “there’s a revelation”, then switches to another, and another, each in a separate chapter, before getting round to actually giving whatever the revelation is. This is incredibly frustrating- it didn’t make want to find out what’s on the next page, it made me yell “get fucking on with it you cunt!” repeatedly. Especially in the “Joyce” first-person chapters, which seem to be less a viewpoint character and more a device for treading watcr while getting paid by the word.
One of the glowing endorsements says Osman’s done a proper Agatha Christie- bullshit, Agatha would have done the whole damn thing in under 200 pages.
Yeah, so… Not actually bad, Elizabeth’s a good (oviously Judi Dench) character, and the plot works, but far too long and too artificially slow. Basically, the ideal book for a long flight or train ride, where you won’t have to stop and therefore take days to get motivated to pick it up again. And disappointing on the snarky wit front.