“Would you like the detailed answer, or the simple answer?” asks Ibrahim.
“The simple answer, please, Ibrahim,” says Elizabeth without any hesitation.
Ibrahim pauses. Perhaps he had phrased his question poorly? “But I had prepared a detailed answer Elizabeth.”
If you want a hilarious murder mystery this will be for you! I found myself laughing out loud many times. The author, Richard Osman, is a well-known comedian in Britain but I’ve never heard of him. In the book, Osman makes people in a retirement home the main investigators of the murder. They are such interesting people that you come to care for them. They are also diabolical (in the best way possible) which makes for very entertaining situations. The police help them solve the murder but are constantly thwarted by their meddlesome natures.
Chris cannot even attempt to sip his tea now, as lifting it to his lips would unbalance the cake, and lifting the cup off the saucer would tip the cake into the saucer’s center and make it impossible to put the cup back down. He feels sweat start to trickle down his back, reminding him of the time he interviewed a twenty-five-stone Hells Angels enforcer with I KILL COPPERS tattooed around his neck.
There are a lot of characters to keep track of which might be a setback for some people. I loved it because each character had their own personality and it made it harder to figure out who the murderer was. There are a lot of little mysteries that need solving along the way before the whole murder can be solved. It is important to pay attention to all of the mysteries or you will be lost at the end. To be honest, the best part of the book are the characters and less the solving of what happened. I’m not sure if the ending is as satisfactory as I would want it to be, but I can overlook it. This is the first book in a series, so if you like this then the next one is called The Man Who Died Twice. I haven’t read it so I can’t compare it to this one but on Goodreads the second one has a better rating.
Elizabeth admires suspicion above all else and invited Ron to flick through the file of a scoutmaster found burned to death in 1982 in woodland just off the A27. She soon spotted his key strength—namely, he never believes a word anyone ever tells him. Elizabeth now says that reading police files under certain knowledge that the police are lying to you is surprisingly effective.
Book It Babe 