A luxury retirement home in Kent, Coopers Chase offers endless amenities to its residents.  Besides enjoying the lush, pastoral grounds, you can swim in the pool, read in the library, Zumba in the gym, and solve murders in the Jigsaw Room.  While the Thursday Murder Club isn't exactly the kind of thing Coopers Chase advertises in its glossy brochures, it's an entertaining diversion that helps four septuagenarians wile away empty hours while keeping their minds sharp.  

The club's focus has always been cold cases, but when a local land developer is killed, they jump at the chance to involve themselves in a real, live murder investigation.  After some top secret finagling, the club members manage to snag themselves a police liaison in the form of a young constable named Donna De Freitas.  Before she knows what's happening, the bewildered policewoman is a full-fledged member of the club, swapping clues and theories with her new Thursday Murder Club BFF's.  Together, they have to ask some tough questions—Why was Tony Curran murdered?  What was meant by the photo left next to the corpse, which features the son of one of the club members?  Will the killer strike again?—and together, they just might solve a puzzling murder.

A debut novel and the first in a planned series, The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is just as charming as it sounds.  It's a fun read, with plenty of humor to keep it entertaining, although it also has some poignant moments.  The characters are colorful, creating an appealing cast.  Although The Thursday Murder Club isn't exactly a serious murder mystery, it's still twistier than I expected it to be.  I really thought I had the killer pegged, only to find out I was wrong.  A surprise ending (as long as it's also a logical one) is my favorite kind when it comes to mystery/thrillers.  While the novel does get chatty, making it a bit slow in places, I still very much enjoyed this engaging romp.  Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the next installment in this delightful new series.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths)

To the FTC, with love:  Another library fine find