The Bullet That Missed: (The Thursday Murder Club 3)

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I managed to steel myself to all the Twixes, but the throwaway reference to chocolate fingers on p284 nearly broke me.

Even when an armed and angry New York mafioso turns up, no reader need worry that Joyce or Elizabeth will accidentally receive a fatal crossfire bullet to the head. The Man Who Died Twice” picked up where its predecessor left off and proved to be another skillfully constructed and brilliantly entertaining tale packed with intrigue, humor and adventure. The women’s exchanges are studded with witty repartee and reveal Elizabeth to be queen of the dry reply: Joyce asks her whether she has ever been on TV; “I was once in a hostage video,” answers Elizabeth. I'd love one of those books that's a caper around the world, but that also has some truth about the world, and also makes you laugh and has also has some of the aesthetic of Thursday Murder Club, but it's Da Vinci Code. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, the members of the Thursday Murder Club start to ingratiate themselves with key players in the case.No-nonsense, go-getting Elizabeth leads the way, armed with tradecraft gleaned from her previous secret life and her trusty handbag: “A gun, a pen, some lipstick and a crossword book.

It’s this self-awareness that grounds Osman’s characters, and makes us look forward to seeing them again.

It helps that their leader, Elizabeth Best, is ex-secret service, and is always having hilarious flashbacks to East Berlin in 1970. Clearly no other novelist ­working today can come up with anything to match the pleasure of spending time with Joyce, Elizabeth, Ibrahim and Ron as they pore over the details of unsolved murders in the Jigsaw room at Coopers Chase retirement village. If there is fault to be found, it is a recurring one throughout the series — namely that Osman’s two men have less to do than his two women, and as a result feel like extras around the main double-act.