The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman

This third delectable creation of The Thursday Murder club is a perfect blend of the usual ingredients: charming characters, exciting plot, and reliable touches of humour. There’s never a dull moment in the retirement community of Coopers Chase.

As always, Osman highlights the charming quirks of his elderly amateur sleuths. Though unfailingly kind and generous, they’re not above judging the people they meet as well as each other. Ron is scheduled to appear on TV with Mike Waghorn, a local TV host whose quirk is his well-cultivated image. Mike plays squash, moisturizes, and is careful not to be seen drinking cider in public, even though he enjoys it more than wine. Ron’s assessment of his host? All wag and no horn.

A former trade unions official, Ron feels he’s earned his face and wants to refuse make-up. Told being made up is a studio rule, he begins to thaw when the make-up artist admires his eyes as she works her magic, saying they’re like “Che Guevara if he worked on the docks.” Later in the story Ron is dismayed to find himself in a spa. Hardly the thing for a man who was “once locked in the back of a police van with Arthur Scargill.” But the brush with Scargill may have prepared him to play snooker with a known criminal and a retired KGB officer. Meanwhile, at the spa, he realizes that he “is going to have to relax, God help him.”

The Viking, who specializes in cryptocurrency rackets, has trouble relaxing too. Aware that he sometimes lacks self-confidence, he “curses his impostor syndrome.” He’s unusually tall, and painfully shy. A reclusive young netizen, he compensates for his shortcomings by telling himself virtual events are as good as live ones, and “Reality is for civilians.”

Of course the new criminal on the block is no match for ex MI5/6 operative Elizabeth. When she and her friends work out what to do about the person threatening them, she finds a way to get an interview with the Chief Constable. Unconcerned, she watches him “weighing her up.” All her life she’s seen people “trying to get the measure of her.” Without exception, they’ve found it “a fruitless exercise.”

She understands that the Chief Constable is no fool, but easily manages to extract what she wants to know. “We have fingers in pies,” she tells him. When he says the police did try to solve the fraud case, and they’re “not bumpkins,” Elizabeth laughs. She then points out she and her friends have “found out more about the money in two weeks than you did in your whole investigation.”

However, on this occasion, Elizabeth does have to call on an old friend for help. When she invites him to an extraordinary meeting of the Thursday Murder Club, Ibrahim complains that the group normally meets Thursdays in the Jigsaw Room. However, on learning the circumstances, he accepts that today is different, and “the remit is elastic.” Fond of routines and spreadsheets, he’d queried the unusual time and location of this meeting, but when the extraordinary circumstances are explained, he generously waives his objections. A retired psychiatrist, Ibrahim has the unusual quality of being able to accept compliments on his good looks with aplomb. He also has the charm and skill to help a prisoner who may be a psychopath.

Elizabeth’s friend and helper spends some time with Joyce and her dog Alan as their house guest. A man whose skills include money-laundering and interrogation, he gets on well with the dog. He also enjoys the delicious toast Joyce gives him from Waitrose multi-seeded bread, and speculates that she may end up as the breakfast maker in heaven.

In this book, we see a bit more romance come into the lives of our old friends. Police officers Donna and Chris have both moved out of former ruts, and one of them unexpectedly ends up with a regular TV slot with Mike Waghorn.

The irrepressible Bogdan, strongman, chauffeur and man of all work around Coopers Chase, embarks on an exciting affair that leaves him speculating about how many “verys” turn like into love. This thought makes him realize it’s time for another chess game with Elizabeth’s husband. Stephen may be a bit forgetful, but he can still play chess, and Bogdan also trusts him to advise on how to handle his new emotional adventure.

In what feels like effortless plotting, Osman keeps up the clever twists until the very end. Along with its endearing characters, this book is rife with moments of delightful humour, wisdom and humanity.