★★★☆☆ Elizabeth's past

The Man Who Died Twice

Richard Osman

In the the first installment of Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club we learned about Ron, Ibrahim, and Joyce, three of the four septuagenarians who are members of the club. Elizabeth's past, however, was shrouded in mystery. It was obvious that she had been some sort of spy and had retained her connections with that world.

Installment 2, The Man Who Died Twice is all about Elizabeth's past catching up with her, in the form of an ex-husband who was also a professional colleague. It becomes obvious that Elizabeth was an MI5 operative or Mi6 operative or most likely both, and that she left a reputation behind her. (For US readers, Mi5 and MI6 are, very very roughly, the UK's FBI and CIA equivalents, by which I mean the agencies that do domestic and foreign spying.) Her ex has stepped in something stinky involving the theft of some diamonds and wants Elizabeth's help is cleaning it off his shoes. (I speak figuratively, of course.) There's also some business involving a local thug and a local drug dealer.

Elizabeth and Joyce are as implausibly clever as ever, running rings around current MI5 ops and assorted criminals. Bogdan, too, is implausibly competent. Ron is his usual weird and mostly useless self. Ibrahim mostly sits this one out for reasons that will become apparent. There seems to be no limit to the amount of illicit activity they can get away with.

This is my third Osman novel (the other was We Solve Murders), and while they're fun, I think I'm getting a little tired of Osman's schtick, hence the three-star rating.

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