The Man Who Died Twice

Another fantastic book by Richard Osman, sometimes sequels fall a bit flat and have lost the magic of the first book, but not this one. 

We start not long after the last book finished, the following Thursday in fact. Elizabeth has been invited round to a flat in the retirement village, but the letter inviting her has been signed off by a dead man. All becomes clear as soon as Elizabeth goes to meet him, and it her ex-husband, Douglas. He tells her he is in trouble and needs her help. Elizabeth being Elizabeth agrees to help, but only if she can enlist the help of The Thursday Murder Club.

Elsewhere, Ibrahim is happily going about his business when he is violently mugged. This leads to the book touching on agoraphobia and how people deal with things after a violent attack, whilst pretending to everyone around them that they are perfectly fine. 

Donna and Chris are back, with Chris dating Donna’s mum and making Donna a little uncomfortable. She also begins to question her own loneliness and it is interesting to watch how she tries to combat it, without succeeding. 

As the book goes on, the situations get more and more ridiculous (but this never had me questioning if it could really happen, as I just enjoyed the ride) and once one mystery is solved, two or three more crop up! I definitely didn’t guess the ending, and 70 pages from the end I was sure that I knew how it ended, but I was extremely wrong. 

I also didn’t guess where the money would end up either, but I’m extremely pleased with the ending and I feel that it changed the ending from something a little obvious to something no one would guess. 

I have been enjoying this series so much, that the next release cannot come soon enough for me! I very rarely understand the hype around books, especially ones written by celebrity authors, but this one has lived up to the hype and more in my eyes.