Richard Osman tells Brendan O'Connor about his new novel The Last Devil to Die, the latest in The Thursday Murder Club series. Listen back above...
Richard Osman has a hit on a winning formula with his Thursday Murder Club series, with books sales of over 5 million in the UK and 200,000 in this country. The charming combination of mischief and vulnerability continues in The Last Devil to Die; as the gang of four crime-busting pensioners attempt to solve the murder of a good friend; facing off drug dealers, dodgy antiques traders and personal challenges with equal bravery.
Richard spoke to Brendan O'Connor about creating believable characters, researching shenanigans in the antiques trade and how his grandfather's life inspired a moving plot line in his latest novel.
The Last Devil to Die is the fourth in Osman’s 'cosy crime’ series, and it opens with the murder of an antiques dealer. Richard says he enlisted the help of Antiques Roadshow presenter and auctioneer Raj Bisram when researching the industry. While pointing out that most antique dealing is "perfectly legal", the chat with Raj opened up a whole world of double-dealing and fraud, he says:
"He just for the next hour, told me stories that were so much worse; of things that had happened. You know, from auction houses, to antique shops; I mean literally the whole system of kind of forgeries, you know and dodginess. It’s a good world for criminals to get involved in; because it’s a cash world, right?"
Finding badness and mischief where you least expect it is a unique selling point of the Murder Club novels. Age acts as a kind of invisibilty cloak for his gang of four self-appointed detectives; a retired spy, nurse, psychiatrist and trade union official. Between them, they have hefty brain power, experience and contacts, but nobody suspects them of anything because they are old, Richard explains:
"I get the joy of these characters, right, and their gang, and the mischief they get up to and the lack of consequences for what they do and their invisiblity; which makes them great detectives."
Richard says there’s a quid pro quo for all the fun his characters have; there is a "tax" to be paid. He says they need to experience some of the downsides of aging, if the characters are to be believable:
"I have to show frailty, I have to show grief; you know, I have to show things like dementia. I have to see them struggling with the things that are real. Because if characters are just like superheroes, then there’s no point having them. They have to go through difficulties - we have to believe them."
There is a dementia storyline woven through the crime novel, inspired by Richard’s memories of his own grandfather; who he says swung between miserable confusion and joyful storytelling; recalling the exploits of his friends from army days with a massive smile on his face. Richard says his grandad was in his head when as he wrote:
"He was in my head as I was writing Stephen; just thinking about what the mind doing there, what the mind is trying to fetch and how it’s trying to do it."
The experience was an emotional one, Richard says:
"I was crying writing it."
The experience of older people is something we should all pay more attention to, in Richard’s view:
"Suddenly you’ve got all this wisdom, at exactly the point where our culture says 'We’re not interested in you anymore. Lock yourself away – we’re interested in Instagram influencers.’"
When visiting his elderly mum in her retirement village, Osman says he is now inundated by suggestions for ‘murders’ from her fellow residents. He says he doesn’t base any of his storylines directly on his Mum’s friends, but there is no shortage of them who would love their ideas to feature in a future Thursday Murder Club mystery:
"People pitch you murders; people say ‘you know, I’ll tell you how you could kill someone!’"
The movie version of the first book in the series, The Thursday Murder Club, is happening in spite of delays, Richard says. The rights were bought by Steven Spielberg’s film company Amblin in 2020, and while Covid and the Hollywood strikes have delayed it; filming is due to start soon.
Pointless in 2022 to focus on his writing career
Meanwhile, Osman is taking a break from the Murder Club books to work on a brand-new series about a father-in-law/daughter-in-law team:
"He’s a retired cop; he’s got a small investigation agency and she’s a close protection officer who goes around the world protecting billionaires and, you know, beating people up. Real chalk-and-cheese. But they love each other and she’s in trouble and he has to fly around the world, much to his chagrin."
Murder Club fans need not worry that Osman has abandoned the Thursday Murder Club; it will be back, he says. With former spy Elizabeth as a central character in that series, Richard wants to complete the set with a male detective, along the lines of legendary crime writer Agatha Christie:
"It will be nice to have a Poirot to my Marple."
The Last Devil to Die is published by The Viking Press. Listen back to more from Brendan O’Connor here.
