The last devil to die

A murder on Boxing Day strikes close to home for the Thursday Murder Club. Antiques dealer Kuldesh Sharma knows some of his transactions are shady, including his purchase of a box, contents unknown, that he's warned not to open. He suspects his shop has become a drop-off for drugs. Following Kuldesh's murder, the box and its contents, which turn out to be heroin, go missing. The local police are thrown off the case so a national force can search for the killer and the drugs. Meanwhile, a local dealer is frantically looking for the box too. Thankfully, the four senior sleuths from Coopers Chase are already on the job. Kuldesh was involved in their last adventure, and he was a friend of Elizabeth's husband Stephen. Elizabeth is preoccupied at the moment, as Stephen's dementia worsens, so Joyce steps up to lead the case. By the time there are a couple more murders, several tragic deaths, and a computer crime or two, the club members are once again cognizant of their own mortality. VERDICT Osman follows The Bullet That Missed with a bittersweet mystery about the problems facing many older people: dementia, computer fraud, death. Humor does, however, alleviate the poignancy in this strongest, most emotional book in the best-selling series.--Lesa Holstine

The Thursday Murder Club is so busy solving crimes that they don't even have time for their weekly meetings. Osman's series about a group of four British old-age pensioners and the helpful friends--police officers, cocaine dealers, former KGB operatives--who help them solve crimes has been so popular that, in this installment, the author barely bothers to fill in the background for new readers, so we'll give you a helpful primer: Former spy Elizabeth Best, retired nurse Joyce Meadowcroft, psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif, and longtime union organizer Ron Ritchie live at the seemingly peaceful but surprisingly deadly Coopers Chase retirement community, where they started off meeting every week in the Jigsaw Room to solve cold cases--but now find that the murders are hot and coming directly to them. In their last outing, they were helped by antiques dealer Kuldesh Sharma, an old friend of Elizabeth's husband, Stephen, and now they're devastated to learn that Kuldesh has been murdered, shot in the head while parked at the end of a dirt road. A missing shipment of heroin seems to have been involved. This gives the gang another chance to fearlessly poke their noses into places you wouldn't expect to find people their age as the body count grows by leaps and bounds. In a moving subplot, Elizabeth and Stephen come together to face his advancing dementia. Other than that, the characters feel a bit more quickly sketched than usual, though the strands of the plot multiply entertainingly and get tied together in the usual satisfying way. Perhaps Osman knew he needed a break; in the acknowledgments, he promises that this won't be the last Thursday Murder Club book, but he says his next novel will be about a father-in-law--daughter-in-law pair of detectives. There's something to look forward to. Osman serves up another delightful mystery even if he's not at the top of his game. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.