4th July 2021

I picked this up based on recommendations that it’s similar to other mysteries I’ve recently read - and it definite feels at first glance just from the title that it’s deliberately trying to market off the back of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club.

This is the tale of an elderly crossword setter who is unwillingly drawn into investigating a crime she overhears while skinny dipping, which the police seem to show no interest in solving. Like any other mystery story, the plot only becomes more complicated from there.

The book is well put together, but felt for the most part a bit bland - the characters weren’t quite as rich as they could have been, and the plot felt quite slow until fairly close to the end.

I felt that there was almost overuse of red herrings - there were multiple places where the novel was clearly heading in the direction of an obvious misleading secret, and it just became frustrating that they kept going, rather than entertaining when the reveals arrived.

I don’t feel like I’ll be motivated to pick up another book in this series when one comes along.

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