In the main, I’ve enjoyed the Thursday Murder Club books. However, having just finished book four, I’m left with the feeling that it has no relation to books one through three. Were I being cynical, I would say it was ghostwritten.
The characters have changed. Elizabeth plays a tiny part, and the plot now seems to revolve around Joyce and Ron. There is nothing wrong with this, but these two characters are imbued with traits unmentioned in the first three books.
Sorry if this is a spoiler for those who haven’t read book four. In my opinion, the plot is weak. Nick Silver has no reason to encode his messages to Paul, and the book is primarily built around the fact that he does.
That the team happily shelter and assist an armed robber and laugh off Wavy Davy’s culpable murder admission seems incongruous with the characters of the first three books.
Ibrahim, once the clever, thoughtful one, is now a buffoon, and Bogdan loses all the nuances that made his earlier appearances intriguing.
I may be wrong, but I believe that Richard Osman was too busy to do more than spawn an idea. As so often happens today with celebrity novels, Book four was written by another hand.
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