“Le Pont Noir is what they call a gastropub. Ron had to scan the whole menu twice before he saw there was a steak. Even then, it said “bavette” of steak, but it came with chips, so he was hoping it was going to be safe.”
~ from The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman
The octogenarian detectives are back in this third installment of the Thursday Murder Club series (there are five books in all to date…this is just where I am at the moment), and each one has topped the last. I found myself laughing right out loud within the first few chapters of The Thursday Murder Club (Book 1), grew to just adore each of them in The Man Who Died Twice (Book 2), and now just chat about them randomly as if they are people who are a part of my everyday life.
Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim are an unlikely group of friends who live in a retirement community called Cooper’s Chase, somewhere amid England’s beautiful countryside. Every Thursday at 11am, the foursome meet up in the Jigsaw Room under the guise of hosting a discussion about Japanese Opera…to make certain that no one else will care to join them. Within the walls of the Jigsaw Room, they pore over any number of cold case files in search of one that captures their interest enough to begin working out possible solutions.
Each of the four characters brings something to the table, as you would imagine, and each has a rather storied past from which they can draw some helpful expertise. Elizabeth is a former spy with MI6, Ron is a retired trade unionist and activist, Ibrahim is a retired psychiatrist, and Joyce…beloved Joyce, is a widow and former nurse. Each of the characters has also taken a turn at being my favorite for a period of time, to be sure, but Joyce holds a special place in the reader’s heart. It is perhaps by design, as Joyce is the only character within the pages to ever speak in the first person perspective (we are privy to her journal entries, which are priceless).
Other rather entertaining and insightful characters are introduced at the onset of each book, and in The Bullet That Missed, Ron’s new girlfriend Pauline makes a small comment in passing that completely captured my attention. Pauline is a makeup artist at the TV station where the group is investigating, and it seems she has won over Ron’s somewhat surly heart. She even talked him into getting a couple’s massage, which he enjoyed…though Ron being Ron it is likely he will never been found near a spa again. I don’t think he ever admitted to Elizabeth and the others that he’d gone in the first place. But Pauline is a smooth-talker, and we surely haven’t seen the last of her as the pages draw to a close.
At any rate, early on there is a discussion with Pauline about the murdered woman and her rival, both of whom were big names in the television industry. Pauline knew them both and at one point offhandedly remarks, “I don’t think jealousy is the right word. They were both strong women. And in those days people liked to make strong women compete with each other. Like you couldn’t have two strong women in the same room at the same time. The world would explode.”
I don’t know if you remember those times, but I remember them vividly. The author, Richard Osman, makes an astute observation here about times past. Times when society didn’t know what to do with us, they didn’t know how to handle women with unwavering opinions and demands of equity. And what a beautiful thing to live now in a world where strong women cheer one another on, hold each other up, and who encourage other women to find their voices as well. The days when society would pit one strong woman against another have all but passed. And even when society falters and still tries to drag all our progress down, the strongest women out there simply won’t allow it.
It is, in fact, a fabulous time to be a woman in this world, and it will just keep getting better.
In the novel, Pauline is both a strong character and a strong woman, though I do think there are some secrets about her yet to be revealed. Time will tell! The end of the third book leaves many, many loose ends to be explored in The Last Devil to Die, which is the next in the series.
In the meantime, try this recipe for Steak Bavette inspired by the gastropub date Ron and Pauline shared. Even the highly opinionated and sometimes overly candid Ron Ritchie had to admit that it was quite tasty…
Hillary Danaher 