(no subject)

[skygiants]

In a lot of ways I think the second Thursday Murder Club book, The Man Who Died Twice -- in which our cheery gang of murder-invested pensioners get embroiled in a crime of convenience committed by Elizabeth's vaguely slimy ex -- is even better than the first, with a few medium-sized caveats.

reasons I found The Man Who Died Twice even more charming than The Thursday Murder Club:


- retired spy Elizabeth really shines in this book -- there's a lot of really nice passages about what her friendship with the rest of the Murder Club means to her and it's so cute. also the fact that her horrible ex is still very hung up on her is very funny
- relatedly, the book does I think a much better job than the first at making Steven, Elizabeth's beloved husband with increasing dementia, a real person on the page whom I care about very deeply
- Joyce is so PROUD whenever she solves something and it's so CUTE
- also Ron's seven-year-old grandson is there for a big chunk of the book and has some really delightful scenes with both Ron and Ibrahim; I would read five hundred more pages of this alone
- at least one of the eventual murder victims is someone we all feel sad about, which ... I mean, not that I like being sad, but I do actually prefer feeling like murder/death genuinely matter to feeling like murder is a fun plot engine
- I still think Donna is WILD for setting her mom up with her boss but the fact that they then lean on it to troll the Thursday Murder Club is extremely cute and funny
- I also like -- mostly -- the way that the book handles both Donna and Ibrahim's emotional arcs, and that neither of them are fine or 'fixed' at the end of the book but are taking baby steps as they can; more on this below

and my medium-sized caveats:


- it feels like this book has a LOT more 'let's utilize the police as an instrument of revenge by framing people we don't like for crimes we can't prove they committed' and, you know, probably it's just the particular moment in which we live, but I genuinely feel like I'd have fewer ethical qualms about this if the Murder Club just attacked their villains themselves! I realize you're eighty and this is difficult but still can we please not!!
- ok that's really the big one
- but I do also thing there was a missed opportunity, in bringing Donna and Ibrahim together to talk about feelings of isolation and helplessness, to explicitly bring up the fact that they are the only two non-white people included in the main cast -- race isn't mentioned at all either in context of Donna, a black woman, having a hard time feeling at home in Kent, or in context of Ibrahim, an Egyptian man, being afraid of unprovoked attacks on the street, and these do feel like, you know, relevant factors

Such an entertaining reading experience, though -- Osman is both a very funny prose stylist and really good at juggling a large cast in a tight space and taking them all through relatively coherent arcs while keeping up the pacing of the plot, a writing gift I covet deeply

Comments

[whimsyful]

I also had mixed feeling along similar lines as you about this book. On one hand, super charming characters both old and new, and I much preferred the mystery in this one since it relied on misdirection instead of having a crowd of suspects that were eliminated one by one in a way that wasn't really clued fairly. I also really appreciated that all the times that Elizabeth called in favors from various personages in the first book actually had consequences in this one! On the other hand, yeshhh the whole police frameup plotline was Not Great (I was also scratching my head a little because by the end

spoilers

they manage a set up where the guy is legitimately committing a crime and they catch him red-handed doing that, so was the earlier frame-up really necessary? I feel like Osman could have eliminated the first frame-up and it would have worked out better).

[skygiants]

Oh, yes, I also loved that all Elizabeth's string-pulling turned out to have consequences for her! In general I think we get more of a complex and fallible view of Elizabeth in this one and I appreciated that a lot. BUT ALSO, OH BOY. (It made me think a bit about Leverage and heist and con stories, and the commonly-held wisdom that it's much harder to grift a person who's not already committing crimes to begin with -- and they do often set those people up to be caught by the police, but it does feel like it makes a difference not to be actively working with the police already as they do it.)

[raven]

I was also Quite Side-eye about the police frame-up plot. It makes sense in the sense that it's what these characters would do, but also... no. Could've done without it. Oddly though for once in my life I didn't think the book should have engaged more on race! It's definitely a missed opportunity in some ways as you say - god knows being brown in mouldering Brexity seaside towns is not a fabulous experience - but I love these books because they're such delightful cosies and honestly it was quite lovely to me that race wasn't a thing? Donna absolutely should be having a much more racist experience than she is but I'm very happy for her that she isn't, and also that Ibrahim seems to have a role quite like my dad's as extremely awkward pillar of the mouldering-seaside-town community.

[skygiants]

Yeah, I believe it from all the characters, who have this combination of patronizing affection for the police and brutal practicality about their goals that makes this all very plausible -- but it's still quite possible I think to raise questions about something in a book that all the characters think is Just Fine, and the book does not in any way do that.

And that makes perfect sense! I hadn't want it at all either tbh until Donna and Ibrahim were placed in conversation about it, at that point it just struck me that the book had sort of gone out of its way to build a relationship between these two people in particular without acknowledging the one thing they have in common. But I too am delighted that Donna and Ibrahim aren't having a miserable time on the basis of this, and the extremely endearing role that Ibrahim plays as sort of the emotional pillar of the community; I am tremendously fond of him.