The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman is not the kind of book I thought I’d enjoy – I don’t really read crime, cozy or otherwise, plus I’m generally left a bit cold by any books that do numbers. A bestseller is a book that appeals to the people who read 5 books a year; it provides the fewest amount of issues to the largest amount of people. Along with that, Osman is – technically – a celebrity author, and I’ve read enough books by people with connections to know how frequently the promise of getting promoted on their BFFs podcast can overcome issues with the text.

That is not the case here. The Man Who Died Twice – in audiobook form, read brilliantly by Leslie Manville – is terrifically fun, acutely observed, and well worth looking out for.

Picking up a few days after the end of Osman’s first book, The Thursday Murder Club, Elizabeth – a retired MI5 agent – receives a letter from an old colleague, and our gang of geriatric sleuths are soon caught up in another mystery, this one involving stolen diamonds, the mafia, and, of course, one or two murders.

The thing I particularly like about Osman’s writing is how well he understands people and tension. The highlights of his books are not the triumphant solving of the mystery, it’s in the characters and their relationships. There are moments between Joyce, an ex-nurse, and her adult daughter, a high-powered businesswoman, that could have been lifted verbatim from conversations my mother has had with my sister. Osman understands class, and navigating it, and all the invisible rules it becomes necessary to learn and to follow.

The story definitely comes second to the characters. The story itself is fine – and is an improvement on The Thursday Murder Club’s endless solving of other crimes and repeated plot points (three totally separate people dying in the same manner? And the editor didn’t point it out?) – but if I’m honest, I didn’t particularly care what the solution would turn out to be. Another of Osman’s strengths is his ability to tread the line between the reader knowing our heroes are going to triumph, and providing genuine peril and consequences. We know they aren’t going to be killed by the mafia – not quite yet, anyway, we hope – but we don’t know that they’ll get over their fear of leaving the house, and it’s this that keeps somebody like me reading: human moments.

I don’t think I would enjoy this in written form, but as an audiobook, it’s terrific, and I’ll certainly be spending an audible credit on the third book when it’s out this autumn.