WARNING: Spoilers ahead!
Before commencing this review, I would like to state one giant disclaimer, and that is this: I live for the Thursday Murder Club franchise, and Richard Osman can do no wrong in my eyes, so take my opinions with the teeniest, tiniest pinch of salt, if you must.
Where do I begin with The Impossible Fortune, the fifth instalment in the Thursday Murder Club book series? Well, I can confidently say reading it felt like a warm hug from old pals I haven't caught up with in a while.
I am by no means a speed reader (if you don't believe me, you can check my Goodreads, which will confirm I have just finished book #6 of my 25-book target for 2025), but I flew through the pages of The Impossible Fortune like my life depended on it.
I started the book on a Wednesday evening - a missed opportunity, I realise - and had finished it by the Friday morning, and when I put it down for sleeping and working purposes, I felt a void.
Pic: Viking Books
My favourite foursome, Elizabeth Best, Joyce Meadowcroft, Ron Ritchie, and Ibrahim Arif, were exactly where I'd left them almost two years ago.
A wedding gets the gang back together, and though the vivacious and crafty Elizabeth has lost the pep in her step after the death of her beloved husband, Stephen, it's soon restored when a new mystery worth solving lands in her lap.
I love nothing more than a good whodunit, and while that's something Richard Osman does impeccably well, it's his precision and delicacy in crafting his characters' individual personas, mannerisms, and storylines that make the Thursday Murder Club books such enjoyable reads.
The Impossible Fortune is no different. In my opinion, the series took a bit of a hit (nothing major, in the grand scheme of things), with book three, The Bullet That Missed, but Osman redeemed himself with book four, The Last Devil To Die.
And the renowned author definitely seems to have gotten his groove back with The Impossible Fortune, which tugged at my heart strings, made me smile, laugh out loud, perplexed me, and brought a tear to my eye.
Pic: Viking Books
As with every new instalment, new characters are introduced to the fictional world, and though they typically don't make a lasting impression, the addition of youngster Tia Malone was welcomed.
Also welcomed was the character development of people such as Ron's grandson, Kendrick, and morally-confused drug dealer Connie Johnson. That being said, I wasn't expecting there to be a lack of two arguably main characters: DCI Chris Hudson and PC Donna De Freitas.
The colleagues, who often team up with the fearsome foursome (who make a habit of outsmarting the police), were sorely missed on my part in this book, though they make fleeting appearances.
While The Impossible Fortune is as equal parts witty, suspenseful, and mysterious as its predecessors, it felt more rooted in reality than the first four books.
Perhaps, this is due in part to the fact we've come to believe Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim are borderline undefeatable, and Osman wants to knock that narrative out of us, because, at the end of the day, these are pensioners that have arthiritis, family drama, health concerns, and could, one day, meet an unfortunate fate because of the Thursday Murder Club.
The realisation that this book series can't continue forever because of the elderly residents of Coopers Chase was a sad slap in the face, and I suppose I've come to accept that inevitably, I'll be hit with a fictional death that cuts just as deeply as Dumbledore's...
A line from Joyce at the end of the novel sums this point up perfectly: 'We were all looking at the bomb. All that heat and all that noise. So we missed what was important.
'When things are noisy, and everyone is asking you to look at something right this instant, we mustn't forget all the things still going on in quiet corners. There's the news, and then there's life.'
Pic: @adiinthelife/Instagram
Osman has constructed the framework of the Thursday Murder Club's friendship, and while drug lords, serial killers, bomb threats, you name it, come and go, it's the bond between the friends that will stand the test of time.
A joyous read as always, The Impossible Fortune finds itself at #3 in my ranking of the Thursday Murder Club book series.
