{"id":449703,"date":"2025-09-25T05:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T05:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/449703\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T05:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T05:54:11","slug":"crime-comedy-and-pensioners-richard-osman-on-the-fifth-book-in-the-thursday-murder-club-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/449703\/","title":{"rendered":"Crime, comedy and pensioners | Richard Osman on the fifth book in The Thursday Murder Club series"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Richard<\/p>\n

\n Richard Osman (seated) with actors (L-R) Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren and Celia Imrie, the star cast of the Netflix adaptation of \u2018The Thursday Murder Club\u2019.\n <\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a good year for Richard Osman\u2019s bestselling series\u00a0The Thursday Murder Club. The fifth instalment in the murder mystery,\u00a0The Impossible Fortune\u00a0(published by Penguin Random House), is just out, and a screen adaptation of the first novel began streaming on Netflix in August. Starring Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan, the film \u2014 which revolves around four pensioners who solve crimes from their swanky retirement home in England \u2014 might have worked better as a series, allowing more time to explore the sweet subplots and avoid a rushed resolution. But Osman has no complaints. \u201cI just sat back and enjoyed watching those wonderful actors at work,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ahead of his new book\u2019s release, with Osman \u201cin the middle of signing 10,000 books\u201d, we catch up with the author and TV presenter to learn what\u2019s in store for\u00a0The Thursday Murder Club. Edited excerpts:<\/p>\n

\"\"Q:\u00a0\u2018The Impossible Fortune\u2019\u00a0begins with a wedding and a best man in trouble. What drew you to this setting?<\/p>\n

A:<\/b>\u00a0I wanted something to get Elizabeth out of Cooper\u2019s Chase. She\u2019s had a year of grief. A wedding would be something where she would get back in the saddle. I wanted the book to start with somebody sitting next to Elizabeth on a bench and telling her that somebody was trying to kill him. I love writing Joyce and her daughter Joanna as well. So, I had my first four or five chapters lined up instantly. The second I knew that Joanna was getting married, I knew exactly how the book was going to start.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0How do you keep the voice fresh and funny while still revealing plot and character?<\/p>\n

A:<\/b>\u00a0I prefer the laughs coming from the character. I try not to write jokes or a one-liner or punchline. I hope that everything that makes readers laugh comes from the truth of the characters and how they react in certain situations.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0Food is a very powerful emotion in\u00a0\u2018The Thursday Murder Club\u2019. Do you use food to create a sense of comfort?\"Celia<\/p>\n

\n

Celia Imrie in a promotional still for the \u2018The Thursday Murder Club\u2019 movie.\n <\/p>\n

A:<\/b>\u00a0No, when people wake up in the morning, even if they\u2019re in a great work of literature, they\u2019re usually not thinking deep thoughts. They\u2019re thinking about what they\u2019re going to have for breakfast, or what\u2019s on the radio. I like to write about the normality of life. I like extraordinary things to happen in the plot and ordinary things to happen in people\u2019s lives. I like to mix up the world of murder and intrigue with the day-to-day.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0How do you strike a balance between comedy, grief and murder?<\/p>\n

A:<\/b>\u00a0Striking a balance between comedy and grief is easy, because they\u2019re two sides of the same coin. In one of the books, Joyce says, \u201ctears are just your pain laughing\u201d. For murder, I throw a plot at my characters. For me, everything comes from character. Are these people real? And then what can I throw at them? And the thing that I throw at them is always murder.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0Between books four and five, you gave\u00a0\u2018The Thursday Murder Club\u2019\u00a0a year off and introduced Amy and Steve in\u00a0\u2018We Solve Murders\u2019. What prompted the break?\"\"<\/p>\n

A:<\/b>\u00a0I wanted to write new stories.\u00a0We Solve Murders\u00a0has the same sort of humour and British sensibility as\u00a0The Thursday Murder Club, but it is a much more global story, and I was able to do things that\u00a0The Thursday Murder Club\u00a0wasn\u2019t able to do. My next is another\u00a0We Solve Murders\u00a0book. I love writing about both groups. I\u2019m now in a position where I\u2019m excited to get back to the characters in\u00a0We Solve Murders\u00a0in the same way that Agatha Christie switched between Miss Marple and Poirot.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0How involved were you with the making of\u00a0\u2018The Thursday Murder Club\u2019 movie?\"Steven<\/p>\n

\n

Steven Spielberg, Richard Osman, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan at the U.K. premiere of \u2018The Thursday Murder Club\u2019 movie, August 21, 2025.
\n | Photo Credit:
\n Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

A:<\/b>\u00a0Not at all. My job is to write books. I\u2019ve done my version of\u00a0The Thursday Murder Club\u00a0story, that came from my heart and my head. I went down to set a couple of times. You\u2019ve got to go and have a bit of fun. I met Steven Spielberg [producer] when he came down there and chatted with all the actors. It was incredibly exciting. The one thing I didn\u2019t do was give notes or opinions, because the last thing anyone wants is the writer leaning over their shoulder.<\/p>\n

Chris Columbus [director] would ring up and tell me what was going on. I was very happy to let him get on with it. And, of course, when Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie are starring, I\u2019m not going to complain! I just sat back and enjoyed watching those wonderful actors at work.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n

A still from The Thursday Murder Club.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0Do you think seeing these iconic actors might shift how readers imagine the characters?<\/p>\n

A:<\/b>\u00a0The characters are fairly well established for anyone who\u2019s read the first four books. Some people will think that Helen is exactly how they saw Elizabeth, or that Celia is exactly how they saw Joyce. Fans of the books will have an idea of what those characters look like and who they are. For people who come to the books through the film, however, the characters will be these four actors.<\/p>\n

mini.chhibber@thehindu.co.in<\/p>\n

Published – September 25, 2025 09:50 am IST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Osman (seated) with actors (L-R) Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren and Celia Imrie, the star cast…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,77,151276,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-449703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-interview-richard-osman-author-the-thursday-murder-club-new-book-netflix-movie","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115263390626631050","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}