In one word: Humanity
Cannonball Read Bingo: Time
Squeeeeeeeal. I LOVE YOU FOREVER RICHARD OSMAN. Never ever ever EVERRRRR stop writing these books or it will break my heart.
I couldn’t believe my fortune when I saw this book on the “hot picks” shelf at my library, thus allowing me to skip the line of who knows how many people to get it into my eager hands. Once you pick up an Osman book, time is of the essence, in that you will want to do nothing else other than sit and read. This is an “oh would you look at the time, I’ve been sitting here for three hours” sort of book. Pick up at your own peril!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This series is like if Murder She Wrote’s Angela Lansbury had 3 friends who were as interested as she was in solving crimes, but with different skill sets suited to the task. There’s the brain (Ibrahim), the brawn (Ron, sort of, though his knees give him trouble), the heart (Joyce, who is a sort-of narrator as we get to read her journal entries), and the retired MI5 agent who has endless tricks up endless sleeves (Elizabeth).
I love returning to this world with these kind and delightful septuagenarian sleuths, who are just as likely to make you a warm mug of tea as they are to slip a bit of poison in it if the situation calls for it. How Osman can balance such a clever mystery with laugh-out-loud humor and an impressively long cast of rich characters, I don’t know. It’s not just that there are a lot of characters, but that each of them is so well defined and intricate and in each book, each character is on their own path of self-discovery. These books will make you smile, but they’ll also make you think more about friendships and the ties that bind us and I cannot wait to read the next one… once he finishes writing it (sob).