'We Solve Murders' by Richard Osman

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Richard Osman’s newest mystery, We Solve Murders, is the start of a new series. Amy Wheeler is a bodyguard, the kind you’d want, particularly if you were in a movie: a martial arts and firearms expert. She travels the world, protecting the rich and famous and is married to a lovely money manager. They give each other freedom to pursue their careers.

Amy’s best friend is her father-in-law Steve Wheeler, a widower and retired police detective. Steve is ensconced in a sleepy English village where he solves small local mysteries and talks into his dictaphone to his dead wife, whom he misses dearly. He loves his routine, particularly Wednesday-night quiz at the pub, and has a cat called Trouble.

Amy is protecting the second-best-selling author in the world, Rosie D’Antonio, when things go awry. She goes on the run with the freewheeling and ebullient Rosie in tow and drafts Steve to help her.

Plot twists ensue for the book’s collection of offbeat characters, most of whom are untroubled by the kinds of things that would scare the heck out of most of us. I loved that about his Thursday Murder Club series, and I love it about this bunch too.

Ossman does a good job of leaving false trails, including having a character employ ChatGPT, but when it finally comes to sorting out who the bad guys were, my reaction was, “of course.”

Maybe that’s how it should be. I had trouble keeping track of characters, but I will blame my issues with the book on the digital galley not playing nicely with my Kindle; I found the formatting issues maddening.

A fine start to a new series by a delightful author. I predict fun times ahead.