SPOILER ALERT

Anyone who has not read The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood is hereby advised that this post may contain a few unavoidable spoilers.

I’ve always enjoyed a good cosy mystery, and recently I blew an entire book voucher on several mystery novels (which may, or may not, have something to do with the fact I’m secretly trying my hand at writing a mystery novel myself, *er-hem*) which included The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood.

I had high hopes for this book from the outset. Aside from the fact it had generally good reviews on Waterstones, it was also written by the creator of Death in Paradise, which I very much enjoy.

Like Death in Paradise, this book is terrific fun as long as you don’t think about it too hard.

The protagonist, Judith, and her two sidekicks are larger than life. They’re fun, they’re outrageous, they’ve all got their own little demons and the interplay between the three unlikely friends makes the whole book worthwhile. Which is good, because the minor characters are decidedly less developed. The only actual police officer in the story does little more than pop up at convenient moments to unintentionally provide evidence to the amateur sleuths, while wringing her hands about what a jolly difficult murder case she has to deal with, and occasionally remembering that she has a family at home.

Don’t even get me started on Beck’s husband: the trope-heavy mild mannered, middle-class, pillar of the community vicar.

As for the plot, it stretches the suspension of disbelief to its absolute limit. Fortunately, it’s a cosy mystery written by the creator of Death in Paradise, so this is perfectly okay as far as I’m concerned.

If I had one real problem with this book, it was the pacing. It hit the ground running with the first murder taking place almost instantly and Judith dashing about here, there and everywhere throwing accusations around and snatching allies for herself with barely a pause to catch my breath. The “climax” by contrast dragged on for waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long.

I mean, the guy was obviously the killer. Not only did Judith know it and explain in detail, but he had literally broken into her house and pointed the murder weapon at her with obvious intent to shoot her. Yet they stood there arguing about whether or not he was really the killer for such a long time that the supporting characters had time to get stopped by a fallen tree, run into a nearby church for help, climb the tower to ring the bell, go back outside and move the tree while the other sidekick overcame her fear of water to attempt to swim in the River Thames in the dead of night and all the while I’m screaming at the book, ‘just shoot her already!‘ which probably wasn’t the affect the author was going for.

The main thing that kept me on the edge of my seat was the subplots about the personal lives of the three main characters, particularly Judith’s mysterious past and Beck’s domestic situation. They helped to create some pretty engaging characters, though they were perhaps buried a little too deeply under the more frantic main plot. Beck’s situation in particular seemed to go largely unaddressed, with her husband barely appearing in the story at all until it was all suddenly resolved at the last minute.

All in all, if good, clean escapism is what you’re after, then I can highly recommend The Marlowe Murder Club. It’s fun and it’s exciting, with a good head scratcher of a mystery that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐