Murder and New Friends
I don’t quite remember how The Marlow Murder Club first crossed my radar, but it had been there for a while. I bought the book last summer, and then learned that it had been turned into a mini-series that was going to air on PBS. I went ahead and watched the mini-series, and I enjoyed it. Naturally, that meant I wanted to read the book, but I waited just a bit so it wouldn’t be fresh in my mind. Still, I was worried that knowing how the story ended would make it so I struggled with this book.
The book takes place in the British village of Marlow. As the story opens, we meet Judith Potts, a seventy-seven-year-old widow living in the mansion she inherited from her great-aunt. Among her pleasures in life is her evening swim in the Thames, which runs right outside her mansion. On this particular night, Judith hears a gun shot near her neighbor’s house while she’s out swimming. She hurries home to call the police, but the officer doesn’t find anything amiss.
Judith goes over and investigates the next day to find her neighbor’s dead body in his garden. Not trusting the police to successfully investigate this crime, she begins poking around. Along the way, she meets Becks, the wife of the local vicar, and Suzie, a dog walker. Can the three of them figure out what happened?
As I said, I was worried that having watched the mini-series would ruin the book since the story was fresh in my mind. No, I didn’t remember all the twists of the plot, but it turned out that it didn’t matter. I had fun with this book.
Much of that comes from the characters. Judith has been a loner before this book starts, so we are watching the beginnings of these friendships here. And that is something I particularly enjoyed. Maybe since I knew it would take a bit of time before Judith met the other two, I was more patient here than I was in the series. And it was worth it. The three are very different, and all of them contribute something to solving the case. Of the three, I found Becks a little annoying at times, but this was a minor issue. All three of the leads grow, and that growth for Becks helps to make me like her.
While the three leads shine, we get to meet plenty of other characters who are just as charming. When they aren’t being mysterious, of course.
Knowing much of what was coming, I was able to sit back and enjoy the mystery. I loved how the clues and red herring were planted. And yes, the things that I didn’t remember compelled me to keep reading. Everything was satisfactorily explained at the climax. Was the climax a little over the top? Probably, but I didn’t mind because it had such fun with it.
And the fun from the series came through in the book as well. While this wasn’t a laugh a page mystery, there were several laugh out loud funny scenes.
Now that I’ve read The Marlow Murder Club, I’m looking forward to visiting the characters again to find out what happens to them next. If they are all this good, I’m in for a treat going forward.
Here are the rest of the Marlow Murder Club Mysteries.
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