Presently, four mysteries make up this series: The Thursday Murder Club, The Man Who Died Twice, The Bullet That Missed, and The Last Devil to Die. These are known as “cozy” mysteries, since sex and violence are normally referred to but not seen by the reader, the language is not course, and the detective is often an amateur. Think Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple novels, for example, or more recently, The Maid, by Nita Prose. Richard Osman is writing a series that is funny, with wonderful characters, plenty of unexpected twists, and absolutely delightful. He promises more beyond these four, thank goodness.

Our four main sleuths are residents of a comfortable retirement community called Coopers Chase, near the village of Fairhaven in Kent, southern England. Each is a colorful personality, who have a shared penchant for solving crime. They meet in the community jigsaw puzzle room each Thursday, working on a cold murder case file from the stash of a former club member, who is now dying in the nursing home. When working on one such case, an actual murder takes place, the manager of their community. So begins this series. The club members include Elizabeth Best, retired spy for MI6, who also cares for her husband Stephen, a retired antiquities professor suffering from dementia; Ron Ritchie, a former trade union leader and father of former celebrity professional boxer Jason Ritchie; psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif; and Joyce Meadowcroft, a widow and retired nurse, who maintains an amusing memoir of the club’s activities, threaded through the narrative. Each member brings their former professional strengths and personal foibles to the task, and their pasts have a way of both helping and bringing more death and complications to their sleuthing.

Osman can rely on the comedic qualities of aging while never losing respect for, or mocking his characters. They deal with the loneliness of losing friends and spouses, the indignities of diminishing physical or mental capabilities, and the undeniable fact that they are each day much closer to death, a reminder each time the ambulance arrives to take a resident away, with lights off and no hurry. This emboldens them to take some risks in their crime-solving efforts, using the stereotypes that old people are harmless against the criminals they seek to prove guilty. Pulled into their orbit are Fairhaven detectives Donna De Freitas and Chris Hudson, who are tricked and manipulated by the team to assist with the access to information only the police can provide— in return, the club’s effectiveness at solving crime helps these police. Donna and Chris also find that they enjoy working with the club in spite of themselves, and wind up in their friendship web as well.

Osman deals very tenderly with issues affecting these seniors, a time of life marked at every turn by loss of companionship, loss of love, loss of capability— but never a loss of hope. Hope that something interesting will happen each day, every season, even if it is only the joy of sharing a meal with a friend, walking the dog, or sharing a laugh. So much wicked and warm humor wrapped in these stories. Do enjoy them, and experience the richness in the last chapters of life.