(graceful orchestral music) - They begin to realize that there isn't a time limit or an age limit on making friends.

And so, you know, suddenly I've got this gang of people, and then I throw murder into the mix, and, you know, you've got a hit on your hands.

(graceful orchestral music continues) - Well, hello and welcome to the PBS Books Readers Club.

- Today we welcome bestselling author, Richard Osman, to discuss "The Thursday Murder Club" This cozy mystery follows four unlikely friends in a quaint retirement village who like to meet up every Thursday to try and solve cold cases.

But when a murder takes place close to home, they get their first real chance to solve a live case.

With the reluctant help of their local detectives, can this oddball crew find the killer before it's too late?

Well, "The Thursday Murder Club" has everything we love about a cozy murder mystery, witty, puzzling, and entertaining.

It's also a thought-provoking and heartwarming story, shedding light on what it really means to grow older in style.

- Just us.

(Lauren, Princess, and Heather-Marie laugh) - Hi, I'm Fred Nahhat here with Lauren Smith, joined by literary expert and award-winning writer Princess Weekes and librarian and PBS Books National Director Heather-Marie Montilla.

- Before we crack this book wide open, we wanna hear from you.

Share your thoughts on "The Thursday Murder Club" in the comments.

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We love reading and responding to your comments in the chat.

- And join the PBS Books Readers Club Facebook group to connect with other book enthusiasts, share recommendations, and discuss your favorite reads all month long with us.

- No mystery here.

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- [Fred] All right, so let's discuss Richard Osman's delightful murder mystery, "The Thursday Murder Club."

What y'all think?

- You first.

- All right.

Well, you know, we've read so many amazing mysteries and each time I get sucked into the relationship between the characters.

I really enjoyed watching these four characters bond and develop.

And it just makes me so optimistic about getting older, you know?

Like, I love seeing all these older characters just really live.

- I love the characters.

And his book made me laugh.

It truly just like made me laugh and enjoy and fall in love with these amazing women, who, you know, to have a nurse hang out with a former spy, with, you know, just there's so much going on.

And also you had the elements of caregiving woven in, and I know that's something we've been talking more and more about too.

I loved it.

- To me, just plain fun, a really creative and entertaining mystery.

I, too, like you loved, loved these characters.

- [Heather-Marie] Yes.

- I am really looking forward to talking with Richard.

I hope he's just as funny as his writing is.

And I always love talking to mystery writers because some have it all plotted out, others are just making it up as they go, and I can't wait to hear what this one is all about.

- All right, Richard Osman, author of "The Thursday Murder Club," is standing by to join us in just a moment.

But first, before we dive in, we invite you to be part of our PBS Books community.

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- [Lauren] Every donation counts, especially in this critical time for PBS.

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There you can support PBS Books directly by selecting one of our special gifts, like the PBS Books Readers Club book bag.

This convertible tote is the perfect size to fit an armful of books, your e-reader, and it's even got pockets on the sides for your phone and, for me, usually snacks for the kiddos, and myself obviously.

- [Fred] Well, we also have the official PBS Books Readers Club mug, just like the ones we have here on the set.

And on the back, it says, "My Weekend is Booked," which is just the way we like it.

- [Lauren] The fun doesn't stop there because PBS members get access to PBS Passport, the member exclusive section on the PBS app, where you can stream full seasons of incredible PBS shows, including Masterpiece mysteries like "The Marlow Murder Club."

If you love a cozy and charming mystery series, this is for you.

The story kicks off when 77-year-old Judith discovers a murder while swimming in the river, nude, mind you, and she forms an impromptu club with two other women, each with their own unique set of skills.

With a perfect blend of suspense, humor, and heart, "The Marlow Murder Club" delivers an unforgettable and delightful whodunit.

You can stream both seasons now on pbs.org and the PBS app.

- And now let us turn the page to our book choice for this month, "The Thursday Murder Club," as we welcome in guest author Richard Osman.

Welcome to the PBS Books Readers Club.

- Hey, everybody.

Lovely to see you all.

- Hi.

- We are so happy to have you here.

Let's start at the beginning.

Thanks, first of all, for your book.

We loved it.

Tell us a little bit about the inspiration for this story.

- The inspiration.

Well, my mum lives in a retirement community in the south of England.

And really it's a very beautiful place, okay?

So, you know, there's trees, there's lakes, you can hear the birds and the trees.

And because I'm English, I was down there at one point and I looked around me all this beauty, and I thought, "Well, this would be an amazing place for a murder."

- Because... (Lauren, Princess, and Heather-Marie laugh) - I mean, listen, we're brought up on Agatha Christie over here.

So I thought, "This would be an amazing place for a murder."

And then every time I would go down and see my mum, we would chat to people.

And everyone there is 75 or above.

And you'd hear all these stories and you'd hear all these incredible kind of experience that these people had and the things that they'd done in their lives.

And so at one point, I thought, "You know what, if there was a murder here, I bet you lot would solve it."

And then I'm looking at their bulletin board, and they have these clubs every day.

You know, they have Tuesday Knitting Club or Wednesday French Conversation Club.

And just the phrase Thursday Murder Club came into my brain, and I went home that evening and started writing.

- Wow, that's perfect.

And you sort of touched on this, but you have such a great lineup of quirky sleuths in this story.

How did you go about developing this cast of characters?

- Really they introduced themselves to me.

Funnily enough, I wanted two women and two men.

Because I'm British, I wanted two middle-class characters and two working-class characters because, you know, we can't write anything unless class is involved somewhere.

And so I started something previously where someone had been a spy or had worked in the security services, and I was thinkin', "That's a great character to hack," it's an interesting backstory, also, you know, you have access to all sorts of interesting things that can help in an investigation.

I wanted to have a labor activist, 'cause that's sort of my family background.

I thought that's a fun thing to have.

I wanted a psychiatrist because they're very kind of right-brained person, someone who would, you know, make lists and laminate all of those lists.

And then I thought about my mum, and my mum is, where she lives, there are a lot of people there are much richer than her, have had sort of much more high-paying jobs than her.

My mum, she was a teacher for very young children.

And so like, "Well, I'll have a nurse," because the thing with my mum is she's in there with all these kind of high court judges and all these kind of high-powered people.

But if they're having a meeting, my mum is the one who gets her own way.

My mum, she's the only sensible one there.

(hosts laugh) And so I thought, well, there's my four people.

And I had them chatting to each other and, you know, enjoying each other's company.

And, you know, the idea of "The Thursday Murder Club" is it's a gang, and it's a gang who wouldn't necessarily have met in real life.

They meet because they're in this village.

And suddenly they're thrown in with these people who they don't know, and they understand, begin to realize they've got complementary skills.

They begin to realize that there isn't a time limit or an age limit on making friends.

And so, you know, suddenly I've got this gang of people, and then I throw murder into the mix, and, you know, you've gotta hit on your hands.

- So I'm always intrigued by process, and I'm really interested in terms of mystery, your writing process.

In the beginning, do you know who gets killed and whodunit?

- No, I really don't, which really upsets some people.

(Lauren, Princess, and Heather-Marie laugh) You know, I always have like an idea of what might happen, or a crime, or just a little hook.

Just something that I know, you know, a little kind of grain of sand in the oyster.

I've got something.

But no, by and large, I start with my characters just talking to each other.

And I write quite short chapters.

I mean, I really kinda move the story along as quickly as I can.

So I'm always starting new things in new places.

And then I just think, "Oh, who it would be fun to bring in now?"

And so I love creating characters.

I love creating worlds.

I love creating new people.

And so I bring in people, I bring in ideas, and the story starts telling itself, you know?

And then I'll murder somebody, like you do, and I think, "Who on earth has killed them?"

I can't think for a second who might've done it.

But, you know, the further and further I go, the story reveals itself to me.

But, you know, sometimes I'll talk to people, you know, in the streets, and they'll say, "Oh, I worked out who did it in the first 10 pages."

And I'm like, "Well, that's well done, because I haven't worked it out.

So that's very impressive."

No, so yeah, I don't plan, I don't plot, I don't have, you know, big spider diagrams on the wall of every single thing that's gonna happen.

And anytime I see another writer who does that, like Lee Child, for example, he's the same.

He'll just start from the start and see where it takes him.

And I always feel mightily relieved when someone else says that they don't plot as well because it makes me feel less fraudulent.

(Lauren, Princess, and Heather-Marie laugh) - So my mother-in-law is in a retirement community, I spend a lot of time there, I know these characters.

It feels like, to me, people in their 70s or mid-70s are like the middle schoolers of the elderly.

How much fun was it to put these characters together?

They're thrown together by circumstance, and they've been around long enough to have some wisdom and some snark, but also they can still get up and down a bit.

- Yeah, you're absolutely right.

You know, I really take advantage of who I've got there.

You know, I've got these incredible people who have skills, but I've got to the stage of life where they are overlooked and they become invisible.

And certainly they're underestimated.

So I've got a group of people who are both invisible yet wise, which makes them perfect detectives.

But the thing I love most about it is the friendship, it's the gang.

And as you say, everyone's got such a long and detailed backstory, and everyone has learned so much over the years.

So you have these characters, they're with people they wouldn't ordinarily be with, they are at an age where there are fewer consequences for them in terms of what they do.

They can knock on any door.

You know, in Thursday Murder Club, you know, they infiltrate police investigations because people see them as harmless.

And people who've read "The Thursday Murder Club" books will know that these four are not harmless.

They are far from harmless.

But I try and write the truth about aging as well.

So I get all the benefits of having their wisdom.

But, you know, I also try and write about dementia, about grief, about bodies failing and ailing.

And often young people say to me all the time, when young people read the books, they say, "Thank you for making older people heroes."

And whenever older people talk to me about the books, they will say, "Thank you for not making us heroes.

Thank you for showing that we are flawed and naughty and mischievous and in pain," and all of these, "Thanks for making us real," essentially.

So I try and, you know, get everything I can out of what it is like to be older.

And when people say, "Yeah, but how can you, you know, get inside of the brain of an 80-year-old woman?"

And the truth is, everyone's brain is the same, right?

I'll say to all four of you now, I bet you've got a number in your head.

How old do you actually feel?

You know, I talk to my mum, and she says- (Lauren, Princess, Heather-Marie laugh) - 14.

- Hence the grandpa sweater.

(laughs) - When you're 80, you don't suddenly have an 80-year-old brain.

You've got the same brain you had.

You've got a different body, and that's an issue.

So I get the benefit of understanding that they're exactly the same as they've always been, it's just they are around, you know, they have a very keen sense of their own mortality and the mortality of people around them.

- I wanna dive into that a little bit more, because you had to sort of balance those stories about, you know, the truth around aging and sort of the personal lives of these people and what they're dealing with, with the murder case.

How did you balance that storytelling?

- It's such a good question.

My main thought is this.

You know, we understand when we read a murder mystery, and therefore we understand when we write a murder mystery, that I'm gonna set you an impossible challenge at the beginning, something's happened and we can't work out what's happened, and at the end we're gonna solve it.

Okay, that's the contract we all sign when we read crime and when we read murder mysteries.

But the joy of all my favorite crime novels is character.

You know, this is the thing that I spend my time on.

And when people ask me about, "How do you come up with plots," I say, "Look out the window, there's a million plots."

What you actually need is character.

It's not what happens in this book, it's why do I care what happens in this book.

So my starting point is always character.

Always, always, always.

Spending time with these four people and the people who come the world, seeing how they interact with each other, having fun with that, letting them talk to each other, letting them experience things they haven't experienced before.

And then the murder plot.

You know, if I asked you the last 10 crime books you read, and I said to you, "Describe to me the plot," you would not be able to do it, I'm betting.

Occasionally some people can, but most people don't remember plots but they do remember how a book made them feel.

So start always, always, always with character.

And then you make sure the plot is absolutely tight, and you're not cheating, and, you know, it all worked, it's satisfying.

And the answer was in (audio warps) all along.

You know, you make sure you do all that stuff.

But the key all the way through is you wanna spend time with the character.

So always, always, always, I'm writing from character.

And when I'm editing, often I'm editing through plots.

- My 25-year-old brain really appreciated this line that Joyce writes, where they go, "It's beginning to feel this isn't all just a jolly lark."

I think that really grounds the story, like the seriousness within that cozy nexus.

What led you to kind of include that line, and how did you sort of process the balancing of the character sort of like sense of play with the weight of the reality as they kind of realize there is a dead body that we need to also keep in mind?

- Well, yeah, I think that, you know, my guiding principle is it has to be real or it has to be a possibility that it is real.

And I don't wanna write a fantasy, and I don't want to write a cozy thing where everyone's, you know, drinking cups of tea and, you know, everyone's happy, and there's just, you know, an inconvenient murder.

I try and write what would really happen in this situation.

And if you do that, you have to go, "Well, this is quite a stressful thing for them."

You know, there is a dead body.

And, you know, obviously it's fun to try and work out who did it, but there has been a murder.

And, you know, in various of the books, these Thursday Murder Club are threatened by other people as well.

So all the way through I'm just trying to think, "What would actually happen," or, "Could this happen?

How would they be feeling if this actually happened?"

I'm not allowed to do fantasy world.

I'm not allowed to do superhero world.

I have to think- (hosts laugh) - Who's stopping you?

- Exactly.

What would happen is the question.

- [Princess] Yeah, mm-hmm.

- Other than Joyce, who obviously was the lead and we often heard from her point of view, your other leading lady is a Elizabeth, and she is the leader of the Thursday Murder Club.

How did you find this amazing woman?

And you've left breadcrumbs to us.

But can you even tell us, is there more to her, 'cause I feel like there is.

- Well, I love reading spy fiction, you know, I love John le Carre and writers like that, but I also love reading nonfiction about spies.

There's a wonderful author called Ben Macintyre, who writes about the British Secret Services mainly, a little bit about the American Secret Services as well across the '50s, '60s, '70s, and onwards.

And often in those books, which were necessarily 'cause of when they're about, they're dominated by men, you know, they're dominated by white men of a certain age, who went to a certain school, and those were our spies.

But always, always in the background there'd be just the odd woman here and there doing interesting things.

And I'd always thought, "I wonder what their story is.

I wonder where they came from."

And then I thought, "Well, you know, if they were young and spying in the 1970s, that means they're 80 and no longer spying now."

So that's where the idea of Elizabeth came from.

Literally, I was thinking forward, I was reading those Ben Macintyre books and thinking, "I wonder what those women are doing now.

I wonder where they are," 'cause they must be incredibly fearsome.

You know, the intellect must be crazy, the bravery must be crazy, and that would be a great character for me to have.

And so she is the de facto leader of the group of course because of that experience she's got, but you soon very, very quickly realize that the other three have got her number in a way that no one's ever got her number before in her life.

And in some ways Joyce is the leader, and then some days Ron is the leader, and very occasionally Ibrahim is the leader.

But it came, again, from thinking of real-life examples and thinking, "I wonder who she is now and where she is."

- Mm-hmm.

In my head, I kept picturing Mrs.

Peel from "The Avengers."

(laughs) Like, she's always my go-to for like older, like female spies.

That's who I was thinking of during that.

- I love that.

- Well, there's murder, there's dementia, there's aging, there's all these serious issues.

And then what makes this so fun, at least for me, is the occasional drop the mic one-liner, getting into that dialogue of humor.

"I'm not in therapy, because who wants to undo all of that knitting?"

One of my favorite lines.

One was, "It must be a man.

Because what woman would bludgeon someone?

Unless it was a Russian woman."

Again, I'm dying laughing.

Talk about punctuating the serious topic, the murder, the mystery, with these great lines.

- Yeah, it comes back to the same thing really.

I mean, my natural instinct is comedy.

I've been a comedy writer my whole life.

That's where I come from really.

But the one thing I told myself right at the beginning, when I thought, "I should write.

I want to write a novel.

I want to write something," I thought, "Don't make it funny.

Whatever you do, you know what your instinct is, and that's joke, joke, joke.

That's your instinct."

I thought, "Do not make it funny."

So I'm writing away the first book, and suddenly the characters are making me laugh.

And suddenly something is happening, and Elizabeth says something that makes me laugh.

You know, like, "What woman would bludgeon someone, other than a Russian woman?"

(hosts laugh) So that makes me laugh.

And then I worked out, okay, I can do this, but I have one rule, which is the author is not telling any jokes at any point in this book.

The author does not tell a joke.

The characters are making us laugh.

The characters are saying things in character that are funny and the juxtaposition between the two are funny.

But at no point am I allowed to do a joke.

You shouldn't ever be reading the book, hear a joke, and imagine the author.

Because the second you imagine the author, you know, you're out of the story.

So all of my jokes, I love the humor of the book.

I mean, it's my absolute favorite thing.

You know, I love it.

I love it when the characters are making me laugh.

But yeah, my only rule is they can do jokes, I'm not allowed to do jokes.

- I think one of the funniest parts of the book was getting to read Joyce's journal, or her diary.

Because she revealed a lot about her own personality and her thoughts, but she does it in this very charming, witty little way that you do in a journal.

How'd you decide to go about it that way and do some of the chapters as her diary entries?

- I mean, sort of, in a way... And people will be sitting at home thinking, you know, just started writing novels or thinking they'd like to write a novel.

So this was sort of accidental, because I remember the very first day I sat down to write and, you know, I was thinkin', "Well, who am I to describe what the sky looks like," or, you know, "What someone's wearing?

I mean, who am I," you know?

I can't put myself on the page.

And the second I thought, "Oh, you know, I'll get someone else to tell the story."

Then it absolutely unlocked the whole thing.

So I just wrote a chapter as Joyce, and suddenly Joyce can describe what the sky looks like, and Joyce can describe what people look like, and things like that because she's not me.

And so I sorta hid behind her for a chapter.

And at the end of the chapter, I thought, "Oh my God, you're amazing.

I want to hear more from you."

She has absolute stream of consciousness, which means I can go from very serious with Joyce to very trivial.

I can get away with dropping little clues and red herrings in Joyce's chapters because we're used to her sort of straying from the point quite a lot.

So it's a really good place to hide things.

And also her brain works very much like mine, which is, you know, big things, small things.

"Oh, I wanna watch something on television."

"Oh, I must remember tomorrow I've got to do this, I've got to do that."

So she just unlocks a lot for me.

And if ever I've got writer's block, and occasionally you do, I will always just type the word Joyce at the top of a piece of paper and then write her next diary entry.

Because Joyce, when I've run out of things to say, Joyce has always got something to say.

- Oh, that's so excellent.

Well, kind of tying back to what you said previously, like a lot of murder mysteries hinge on like all those subtle details and you are, as you described it, a character-first writer.

So when you're editing the plot afterwards, how do you ensure that those details are both hidden in plain sight so that it all comes together at the end, but then still allows like the puzzle to form?

How do you strike that balance in the editing process?

- Yeah, it's a really tricky one, that, you know?

And ever since I started writing crime fiction, I now read crime fiction differently 'cause I'm trying to, you know, work out what they're hiding and where.

That bit comes quite naturally to me 'cause I've had a lifetime of reading crime fiction.

And you realize that, you know, the absolute best school you can go to if you want to write crime fiction is to have a love of crime fiction and have read a lot of it.

So I can usually work out when a piece of information is useful to me.

I always know, in any story, there are maybe five things I have to say, I have to say in order for you to get to the end of the book and go back and go, "Oh yeah, fair enough.

Absolutely, he did tell us," and, "Oh, of course it was there the whole time."

There's lots of information like I have to give to take you through the story.

But in terms of when we get to the end, there's maybe five, what you call clues, five things I have to hide.

So where do you hide them?

I mean, we're also wise to, you know, crime fiction and how it works.

So we all understand the tropes of it.

We all understand often where things are hidden.

If ever we're reading a piece of crime fiction and there seems to be a line out of place, and you think, "Oh, that's unusual that that's in that scene," then that's usually a clue.

Now the good fortune that I have if I have the, I have these four characters who can talk about anything and everything all the time.

So we're sort of used to them going off on tangents.

And if you do that, it is much easier to hide what you do.

If someone says something and you are laughing, and you're just going, "Oh, that's typical Joyce," or, "Oh yeah, that's typical Ibrahim," but I've just given you a clue.

You didn't spot the clue because you just think, "Oh yeah, I know why that line's there.

It's 'cause, you know, Ibrahim's trying to make us laugh."

So it's always, every time a crime fiction reader reads something, (audio warps) a line they're quite forensic on.

And so you just need to make a scene somewhere.

You need to sorta make a noise somewhere else so it passes them by.

And humor is often a very, very good way of doing that.

But four or five things you need.

And then you do go back at the end because, you know, I'll change who the killer is right at the last minute sometimes.

And when you do that, if you have written it properly, which is everyone is a suspect, you know, everything is shown throughout, you don't have to change much.

You don't have to reverse-engineer an awful lot to completely change who your killer is.

And so if you read crime fiction and love crime fiction and it's in your DNA, it's easier than it would appear.

And I would say to people struggling with this at home, now don't just simplify your plot, don't worry so much about your plot.

You can make it all the red herrings as complicated as you want, but the actual plot, the actual who did it and why that you're telling us, you can make that as simple as possible, and think maybe five things I need to say and then work out the best place to hide them, and then you've got yourself a plot.

- The tone of this is brilliantly done, because in so many ways we're laughing and we're exploring and we're getting to know these amazing characters.

Were there any sections that you had to go back and redo and maybe use different characters or even bring in ancillary characters along the way to make the tone right for you?

- As I say, I love introducing new characters.

And, you know, I always knew this was gonna be a series, "The Thursday Murder Club."

And I knew I had my four main characters, I knew I had a couple of police officers in this first book, Chris and Donna, and, you know, there are various other people.

There's Bogdan, who's sort of the fifth member of the Thursday Murder Club, a Polish builder.

And by Book Two, I'm bringing in more and more characters, and people who say, "Oh, we love this character," "We love that character."

By Book Four, I've got so many characters.

You know, they've snowballed.

And, you know, everyone who hasn't been murdered kinda comes back for the next book.

So I've got a big cast of characters.

But the main thing is I've got these four primary characters.

And my thought always is on a new chapter, I'm always in someone else's perspective, I'm always in someone else's head.

And so I can go from Joyce to Ibrahim, to Elizabeth, to Ron.

And so what you're saying there about tone, so, for example, in one of the books, there's a discussion about assisted dying.

There's a plot line about assisted dying.

And I'm very aware I can write two chapters in a row, one from the perspective of someone who is in favor of assisted dying and one from someone who is against assisted dying, both for their own compassionate reasons.

But you're right, I'm always on the lookout.

I'm thinking, "What is the tone of this book?

How is it feeling?

Was that quite a serious chapter?

Was that quite a funny chapter?"

Next chapter, okay, I need to make a slight change.

I need to make a slight turn.

I need to tighten something here.

I need to loosen something here.

And when you've got a whole bunch of characters, all of whom can narrate, it makes it slightly easier.

But that, again, for people writing at home, that's a feel thing.

That's somebody reading this, how are they currently feeling?

At the end of that chapter, how are they feeling?

What would they like next?

Do they need a bit of light relief, or do they need a little bit more tension, a little bit more jeopardy?

And so at the start of the next chapter, I'm always, "How is my reader feeling at the end of the previous chapter, and what can I do about that?"

- Oh, well, I am so glad you mentioned Bogdan, 'cause I love that character, the personal development, very interesting to me.

But also the idea that the character is an activator and also a connector between characters.

Talk about the character as a vessel in storytelling, but also just its backstory.

- Bogdan is, you know, I love Lee Child's novels, so I love the "Reacher" novels.

And one of the things about Reacher, and Lee Child knows it very well, is he's omnicompetent, right?

I mean, he has his flaws, of course.

But if you're in trouble, Reacher can get you out of trouble.

And, you know, I'm writing a much more suburban book than "Reacher," but I like the idea of having somebody who's omnicompetent.

And a Polish builder just seemed like the perfect person for me 'cause, well, he can do anything.

He could get you anything, he could fix anything.

You know, you'd say, "Oh, the reef is falling," he goes, "Yeah, that's no problem at all."

"Oh, you know, the cat just got out."

"Oh, I'll go and get the cat."

Just someone- - That's this one right here.

- Yeah, exactly.

(Lauren laughs) - Someone who can do everything.

So I've got that lovely character.

But then, look, the second of course you write a character who's omnicompetent, any writer is thinkin', "Yeah, but what's up," you know?

"Where's the sadness?

Where are the flaws?

Where are the things he's hiding?"

And so you get the fun of writing that.

But as you say, having a character who can have their own individual relationship with all of the other characters, it just means, 'cause we find out a lot about the Thursday Murder Club when they're talking to each other, of course.

But having a character who can have a relationship outside of that and who can bring different things to them and bring unusual things to them, the idea of having some connective tissue that ties everyone together is great.

And Bogdan is just, you know, I love writing him.

Every woman who reads it falls in love with him.

I mean, he's, "Oh."

And I've tried, over the series, to, you know, his story becomes deep and we hear an awful lot more about him.

There are, you know, his love life, who he's gone into.

But yeah, that idea.

And Lee Child has as much fun with Reacher, you can tell.

When Reacher goes soft or, you know, when Reacher shows a flaw, it's such a joyful thing to see because you just see this incredibly, the competence of this guy, but you see he's just like the rest of us.

- So, Richard, you sat down to write Book One and you already had it in your head that this was gonna be a series?

That must've been a little bit overwhelming to get started.

How did that play out in your head?

- Well, when I say I had it in my head to be a series, that's only if anyone had read the first book.

I was very prepared for no one to read the first book and for it to disappear.

I just wanted to have written one.

I wanted, you know, for my own peace of mind, to have done that.

As a writer, that's the sort of Everest to my novel, and I always wondered if I could.

But I think because, you know, I have a background in other areas of entertainment as well, in television particularly, television is not a first series business, it's a second series business.

That's where the fun and the money and the improvements all come in.

So I was never gonna be someone who wrote one book and then it was successful, and I have to write an entirely different one.

Like a whole... If I've got these characters, who I love, and who speak to readers, then of course I'm gonna bring them back.

I mean, it wouldn't make any sense for me just to do 350 pages of these characters.

If you watch a TV series and you love it, the first thing you're thinkin' is, "When's the next series of this?"

And so I think that was just a natural thing for me.

I wasn't kind of thinking, "Oh, this is clever," I was just thinkin' there's nothing else I would've done.

You know, you look at something like "Lessons in Chemistry" by Bonnie Garmus, and it's such a huge hit and so loved by so many people, but Bonnie's gotta follow that up, you know, and with a completely different book.

Whereas, I was able, literally, even before the first one came out, I'd pretty much finished the second one.

So before all the kind of hoopla about the first book and the sales figures and everything came through, I'd already dug back in and written a second one without any of that expectation or any of that pressure and I think that was incredibly useful to me.

- That's fascinating.

- That's so good.

And it was a huge hit.

- It was.

- And when this was published, it was your debut novel and it was this huge hit, but you've also had success in so many other areas.

So how was the success as an author?

How has that been different from the other places in entertainment that you've been before?

- Yeah, I think, honestly, the rest of my career has sort of been hiding.

So a little bit of my career has been in television, behind the camera, for many, many years.

Producing shows, creating shows, and then latterly, completely accidentally, presenting shows as well.

And I love doing it.

I love working with teams and I love connecting with people.

You know, it's my absolute favorite thing.

But this is the gig for me.

This is my head and my heart.

This is me absolutely laid bare on these pages.

This is me as a human being.

And I've never been able to do that before.

And I'm sort of glad I waited 'till my late 40s to do it 'cause I think I've got a bit more to say and, you know, I've got more interesting stories to tell.

But this is the thing I've been waiting for.

This is the thing that represents me.

You know, in 100 years' time, if someone wants to know me, they can read one of those books and they will know me.

And I've never been able to say that before, I've never been able to do that before, it's all out there.

It's the perfect form for me.

And I still do a little bit of television, not as much, because, you know, I'm trying to write a book a year.

But these books are me, these books represent me.

And so when people talk to me about the books, and I talk to people about the books, I know I go into the room proud and I go into the room wanting to talk about it and I go into the room feeling comfortable.

I don't have to set it or spin it, or anything like that.

I just have to talk about it.

- I love that.

- That's it's so beautiful.

- My head and my heart.

- I know- - That's really sweet.

- That's so good.

- Really nice.

This book was recently adopted into a film, and you were the executive producer.

Can you talk about the experience of crafting a 350-page novel and more than 12 hours of an audiobook into a two-hour film?

- You know, the (audio trails off) really, because I was very aware that they're two completely different beasts.

And as I say, I've told my version of this story and it's the book.

And that's me, you know?

I've done it.

And so the moment we sold it, and we sold it to, funnily enough, before it even came out, the first book, and Spielberg's company bought the rights to it, and, you know, via COVID and actor strike, it's taken five years to get on screen.

But right from the start, I just let them do their version of it because my job is to write the next book.

That's my world.

That's the world I've created.

And you have to let brilliant people do their thing.

'Cause as you say, if you'd asked me to turn a 12-hour audiobook into two-hour film, it would've been awful.

I'd have made a terrible mess of it.

And (audio warps) about so many things.

And also it's not how I feel, not how I see things, you know?

It's a completely different creative sphere.

So right from the beginning, I thought, "No, I just have to trust other people and let them get on with it."

And it's like, you know, the books are my children and the film, it's like a grandchild.

So, you know, I just get to have all the fun and then hand it off.

- I love that.

- Yeah, it's hard to let go of your baby, though.

I imagine that must be, that takes some strength to say, "Here my baby, take care of it."

- I thought it's kinda fun in a way because, you know, I like watching adaptations of books.

As I say, I'm not gonna do it myself, but at some point somebody, you know, was going to.

So I sort of thought, well, you know, in for a penny, in for a pound.

I might as well just let them do it.

And, you know, last year, when we were filming it, we had great fun.

You know, I went down to set, I only went twice 'cause literally nobody wants the writer of the book to be there.

I mean, no one wants the writer of the script to be there, let alone the writer of the book.

So I went down twice.

I went down on the day Steven Spielberg turned up in his helicopter.

I turned up that day.

- That's a good day.

- I let them get on with it, and I let Chris Columbus get on with it.

And he's the nicest man you're ever gonna meet in your whole life.

And, you know, I'm very glad I did.

- Okay, Richard, we have a couple of fun questions for you now.

Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes?

- Oh, Agatha Christie.

Every day of the week.

Isn't that funny?

I've never really got on with Sherlock Holmes, but Agatha, I love.

A more interesting question, question would be Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers, and that's a harder question.

- What is your ideal writing setup?

Are you a morning person, a night owl?

How do you get into the murder writing zone?

- How do I get into the murder zone is your question.

Honestly, I would do anything other than write.

I will do every single household chore possible.

You know, I will take the trash out four times before I actually write.

You know, this, honestly, chatting to you guys is so amazing because I'm supposed to be writing this afternoon.

And every minute we spend, I know is a minute where I'm not writing, which is a joy.

But once I'm up there, once I've gone up there, yeah, sat down, turn the computer on, that's it, that's me.

There's no distractions, no phone, no internet or anything like that.

But anything to distract me from going, it's like going to the gym.

It's the exact same thing.

Anything to stop you.

But as soon as you put your sneakers on, you know you're heading there.

- What is the most challenging part about being an author and what is the most fun?

- The most challenging part is right now actually, I'm writing the second book in the "We Solve Murders" series.

And my books, most books, commercial books, are about 90,000 words, something like that.

And I'm on 3,000 words.

And it feels like you're at the bottom of a mountain staring at the very top where you think always, "I'm never gonna get anywhere near it."

And the most fun part is the exact other end of it, which is when you're at the top of the mountain, you're looking at that lovely view and everyone's reading the book and, you know, enjoying it.

But then, of course, a month later, you're back at the bottom again for another mountain.

- Wondering if you have time to do any reading on your own.

And have you read anything good lately?

What's your recent favorites?

- Yeah, you have to read, don't you?

I think, I'll tell you, I read an American book recently, which I should've read before but never had, which was "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry, which I just thought was just, it was genius.

I loved it so much.

I was just in his world for so long.

I'd recently read "Middlemarch," which I'd never read before, and I have a theory that "Lonesome Dove" is the American "Middlemarch."

It turned to this incredible story, this episodic thing, and these people.

And, you know, I loved it so much.

And I've just finished a book.

If you like short books, I just read a short book, it's called "Seascraper" by Benjamin Wood.

It's been nominated for the Booker Prize over here.

So after a very, very long book, Larry McMurtry, I enjoyed a very, very short book, "Seascraper" by Benjamin Wood.

- Tana French loved "Lonesome Dove."

So there's something about mystery writers and "Lonesome Dove."

- [Lauren] Yeah.

- [Richard] Oh really?

Ah, that's good.

- Yeah.

Richard, do you have a favorite book from childhood that sort of inspired your love of stories?

- I think so.

I don't know if Enid Blyton made it across the Atlantic.

But she wrote a series of books about a little gang called "The Famous Five."

And the famous five were two girls, two boys and a dog, and essentially they would have kind of mystery adventures on their summer holidays.

And it was a couple of years ago, in fact, someone asked a question in a book event I was doing, and said, "But you do realize that you've essentially recreated 'The Famous Five,' but for people in their 80s?"

You've got two women, two men, and there's a dog now, Alan, as well.

And until that point, I haven't realized that I'd been rewriting "The Famous Five" all along.

- Love that.

- That's perfect.

- That's very funny.

- If you could invite a character from any book to dinner, who would you invite and why?

- That's such a great question.

I love that.

Any character.

I mean, it would probably be, it would either be Miss Marple.

Miss Marple always rather than Poirot.

I think Poirot would be a very difficult dinner guest, whereas Miss Marple would be so polite and would probably bring some gorgeous cake with her as well.

But yeah, maybe, oh, I'll tell you who I'd, I know who I'd invite, just because I'd like to spend the evening with him and see what makes him tick.

Tom Ripley.

- [Princess] Oh.

- [Richard] The murderer, Patricia Highsmith novels.

- [Princess] Yes.

- [Richard] I'll tell you, Tom Ripley and Miss Marple at dinner together.

- [Princess] Oh, that'd be so good.

That'd be so good.

- So I am a librarian.

And so I have to ask, do you have a favorite library either now or as a child?

- Yeah, as a child, I grew up in a low-income household, so we were in our library all the time.

I grew up in a little town called Haywards Heath, which is in Sussex, just outside Brighton, where all my family are from.

And yeah, we would always go to Haywards Heath Library.

And, you know, when you're a little kid, they've got these incredible picture books.

Then you get a little bit older, and they've got all those famous five books as well.

But, you know, libraries, I don't know what it's like in the US, but over here they're under pressure, they are underfunded, and they are just the greatest places.

If we want people to grow up with empathy, if we want people to grow up understanding that the world is bigger than the world they're shown, then libraries are the absolute key.

Books can't just be for people with money, libraries are the key to our future.

So from me to you, I wanna say thank you for everything you do.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

That's beautiful.

Libraries are so important.

What is the best advice you've ever received, either about writing or just life?

- My grandfather was a cop.

When he said to me, "If you're ever called to a fight in a pub, make sure you're second through the door," and I think that's very good advice for life.

First person gets beaten up, the second person's the hero.

- It's like I don't have to outrun the bear, I just outrun you.

- Exactly.

(all laugh) - Second mouse gets the cheese.

- Exactly.

- Yeah.

- How do you hope people feel after completing one of your novels?

- The only thing I hope is that I entertained them.

You know, I hope that you can open it, page one at the start of a long flight, and at the end of a flight, you know, you've read the whole thing, that every single page you just kept turning over and I made the flight go incredibly quickly.

I hope I've entertained you.

I hope I've made you laugh.

I hope I've made you cry.

I hope I've outwitted you.

Or if I haven't outwitted you, I hope you feel good for outwitting me.

So it's entertainment, entertainment, entertainment.

- Love it.

- Okay, well, I've been dying to know, we've spoken with authors Anthony Horowitz, Robert Thorogood, both who wrote books, and their shows aired on PBS.

Now we are so lucky to get to speak with you, and you're so clever and witty, and what I'd like to know is, is there a Cozy Murder Mystery Writers Club in England?

And do you belong?

Like, do you guys hang out?

Do you know each other?

- There is not a Cozy Mystery Writers Club.

I know Robert Thorogood, he's a terrific writer.

But I'll tell you one thing, is no one who was in that club really writes cozy mystery.

They're all writing like pretty, in the same way that Agatha Christie never wrote cozy mystery.

They're dressing it up cozily so that no one knows what they're doing, but readers know what they're doing.

So if there was a Cozy Mystery Writers Club, one of us would be murdered at the very first meeting, I know that.

(hosts laugh) - Love that.

- I think Robert's like, "I want a dead body and I want it right away."

- Yeah.

- For sure.

- Love that.

- Preferably nodded.

- Yeah.

(Lauren, Princess, and Heather-Marie laugh) Finally, Richard, anything that you'd like to say to your readers?

- Just that my books feel, to me, very, very English and I always worried that they wouldn't travel.

And one of the greatest joys of the last five years is seeing how these books have flown in America and being on The New York Times Best Seller List.

It's lovely to be in the UK and be on the bestseller list.

But to be on The New York Times Best Seller List and to be in US libraries and US bookstores, to me, it's the dream.

I grew up just adoring America.

I'm a huge America follower.

And every time I come over, I'm blown away by the audiences and I'm blown away by the fact that these characters resonate with people in other countries.

And often, as I sit there writing, I'll write a Joyce chapter, and I'll say to her, "You know that people in China, Brazil, and America are reading you and loving you, Joyce?

Congratulations."

- Oh, that's so beautiful.

Thank you.

- We feel the same way about all of you.

You're very cool.

We like to listen to you talk.

- Yes.

- Absolutely great.

- Thank you so much.

- Oh, a wonderful conversation.

Richard Osman, thank you so much for joining us today on the PBS Books Readers Club.

We are grateful.

- It's been my absolute pleasure.

Thanks, everybody.

- [Princess] Thank you.

- [Lauren] Oh my goodness, thank you.

- What an amazing conversation with Richard Osman.

What'd you guys think?

- I loved him.

What did he say?

People won't remember the plot, but they'll remember how the book makes you feel.

- [Heather-Marie] Absolutely.

- He made us feel great.

What a delightful guy.

- Yeah, he was just so personable, so kind.

I love the thought that goes into his writing style.

I always love the writers that don't plot.

'Cause I'm just like, "But yet it doesn't feel that way when you read it in the end."

And it did make me feel like, between the four of us, we could also solve a murder.

- Yes.

- I think we could do that.

- We might need a dog.

- Well, yeah.

(Lauren and Heather-Marie laugh) We have Miley.

- [Fred] We sure do.

- I love that the book is so character-centric, and that came through as I was reading.

But to hear that the characters really define where we go, that was really interesting.

I loved hearing about his process.

- Mm-hmm.

- I just feel like, at so many points, it was laugh-out-loud funny.

I mean, to me, just busting out laughing.

And he was talking about, well, he lets the characters tell the joke, but he is a very, very interesting and talented writer that brings out the humor at just the precise moment.

And I love to hear from him about that.

And I also just loved it in the book.

- No age limit, I'm making friends.

I love that.

And thank you, book friends, for joining us for such a brilliant discussion.

If you're itching to solve another case, PBS Masterpiece has you covered.

"The Marlowe Murder Club" recently released its second season.

Judith, Becks, and Suzie jump back into action after a new unsettling crime befalls the town of Marlow.

Assisting DCI Tanika Malik, the trio of oddball sleuths are back on the case to find the killer.

PBS members can watch both seasons now on the PBS app and on pbs.org.

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I am obsessed right now with the PBS Books Readers Club book bag.

I use it all the time.

I was toting it to the airport.

I bring it to work with my laptop and my notebook to the library.

It's so perfect.

- You can also get the official PBS Books mug "My weekend is booked," which is all too true.

- It's just the way we like it.

Plus, as a member of your PBS station, you'll also get access to PBS Passport and the incredible shows there like "The Marlow Murder Club" on PBS Masterpiece, and so much more.

- And now it's time to reveal our next PBS Books Readers Club pick.

Heather, please do the honors.

- Thank you.

Well, next month, we begin our countdown to America's 250th birthday with an untold story of our nation's founding in, dun-da-ra-ra, "America's First Daughter," co-written by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie.

- "America's First Daughter" is a sweeping tale of Thomas Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson, who bore witness to the birth of a nation while guarding and influencing her father's legacy.

- Based on thousands of actual letters, this heartfelt historical fiction novel sheds light on the sacrifices and struggles of a strong woman in a time when women's voices were not entirely welcome in the world of politics.

- And wait, many of you know I love historical fiction, so there's another book in the bag.

It's "My Dear Hamilton."

Double the books for double the authors.

- Another fantastic historical piece written by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie, which brings to life the extraordinary story of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton.

Not just the wife of Alexander Hamilton, but a revolutionary woman who stood at the center of America's founding.

- Now without giving too much away, what y'all think?

- I'm looking to you, 'cause you're the historical figure- - I really liked it.

I didn't know what I was going to think.

And I loved how they weave in primary source material into it.

You get a real sense of what was going on at that time.

And in fact, this was my favorite of the two.

But they both were like nail-biters and I enjoyed them both very much.

- They're hard stories to tell.

And I think that the writing handles all of these very complex issues in a very earnest and meaningful way, and it left me having a lot of deep thoughts about the founding of this country and the women involved in it.

- Absolutely.

And I'm really excited to talk to the authors and learn more about the research and everything that went into this.

- [Princess] Absolutely.

- Yeah, it was really incredible.

And you know me, I always wanna pull that thread all the way through.

So whether it's gender politics, whether it's race relations, whether it's shenanigans around elections, this one has it all, almost to the current time.

It's really incredible.

Well, there is so much more to discuss about "America's First Daughter" and "My Dear Hamilton," but we will do that on November 19th.

RSVP now to our Facebook Live event by searching for PBS Books on Facebook and looking under Events.

- [Princess] And sign up for our e-newsletter at pbsbooks.org/subscribe and we'll send you lots of book recs, exclusive interviews, and more delivered right to your inbox.

- And join the PBS Books Readers Club Facebook group to find book recommendations and chat with other book lovers.

- Also subscribe to our YouTube channel to discover an incredible collection of author interviews.

Kristin Hannah, Shelby Van Pelt on "Remarkably Bright Creatures."

The gang is all there on YouTube.

- Well, thank you for being part of the PBS Books Readers Club.

We'll see you next month.

Happy reading.

(graceful orchestral music) (graceful orchestral music) - They begin to realize that there isn't a time limit or an age limit on making friends.

And so, you know, suddenly I've got this gang of people, and then I throw murder into the mix, and, you know, you've got a hit on your hands.

(graceful orchestral music continues) - Well, hello and welcome to the PBS Books Readers Club.

- Today we welcome bestselling author, Richard Osman, to discuss "The Thursday Murder Club" This cozy mystery follows four unlikely friends in a quaint retirement village who like to meet up every Thursday to try and solve cold cases.

But when a murder takes place close to home, they get their first real chance to solve a live case.

With the reluctant help of their local detectives, can this oddball crew find the killer before it's too late?

Well, "The Thursday Murder Club" has everything we love about a cozy murder mystery, witty, puzzling, and entertaining.

It's also a thought-provoking and heartwarming story, shedding light on what it really means to grow older in style.

- Just us.

(Lauren, Princess, and Heather-Marie laugh) - Hi, I'm Fred Nahhat here with Lauren Smith, joined by literary expert and award-winning writer Princess Weekes and librarian and PBS Books National Director Heather-Marie Montilla.

- Before we crack this book wide open, we wanna hear from you.

Share your thoughts on "The Thursday Murder Club" in the comments.

What did you think of the book?

Was it better than the movie?

We love reading and responding to your comments in the chat.

- And join the PBS Books Readers Club Facebook group to connect with other book enthusiasts, share recommendations, and discuss your favorite reads all month long with us.

- No mystery here.

It's the best book club ever.

These folks give such amazing recommendations.

And if you haven't yet, please share this event.

Click Share on Facebook or YouTube right now, friends.

Do not let friends miss out on great books or great book discussions.

- [Fred] All right, so let's discuss Richard Osman's delightful murder mystery, "The Thursday Murder Club."

What y'all think?

- You first.

- All right.

Well, you know, we've read so many amazing mysteries and each time I get sucked into the relationship between the characters.

I really enjoyed watching these four characters bond and develop.

And it just makes me so optimistic about getting older, you know?

Like, I love seeing all these older characters just really live.

- I love the characters.

And his book made me laugh.

It truly just like made me laugh and enjoy and fall in love with these amazing women, who, you know, to have a nurse hang out with a former spy, with, you know, just there's so much going on.

And also you had the elements of caregiving woven in, and I know that's something we've been talking more and more about too.

I loved it.

- To me, just plain fun, a really creative and entertaining mystery.

I, too, like you loved, loved these characters.

- [Heather-Marie] Yes.

- I am really looking forward to talking with Richard.

I hope he's just as funny as his writing is.

And I always love talking to mystery writers because some have it all plotted out, others are just making it up as they go, and I can't wait to hear what this one is all about.

- All right, Richard Osman, author of "The Thursday Murder Club," is standing by to join us in just a moment.

But first, before we dive in, we invite you to be part of our PBS Books community.

Sign up for our e-newsletter at pbsbooks.org/subscribe for exclusive book recommendations, author interviews, and the latest updates delivered right into your inbox.

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- [Lauren] Every donation counts, especially in this critical time for PBS.

Pbsbooks.org/donate will take you right to your local station's giving page.

There you can support PBS Books directly by selecting one of our special gifts, like the PBS Books Readers Club book bag.

This convertible tote is the perfect size to fit an armful of books, your e-reader, and it's even got pockets on the sides for your phone and, for me, usually snacks for the kiddos, and myself obviously.

- [Fred] Well, we also have the official PBS Books Readers Club mug, just like the ones we have here on the set.

And on the back, it says, "My Weekend is Booked," which is just the way we like it.

- [Lauren] The fun doesn't stop there because PBS members get access to PBS Passport, the member exclusive section on the PBS app, where you can stream full seasons of incredible PBS shows, including Masterpiece mysteries like "The Marlow Murder Club."

If you love a cozy and charming mystery series, this is for you.

The story kicks off when 77-year-old Judith discovers a murder while swimming in the river, nude, mind you, and she forms an impromptu club with two other women, each with their own unique set of skills.

With a perfect blend of suspense, humor, and heart, "The Marlow Murder Club" delivers an unforgettable and delightful whodunit.

You can stream both seasons now on pbs.org and the PBS app.

- And now let us turn the page to our book choice for this month, "The Thursday Murder Club," as we welcome in guest author Richard Osman.

Welcome to the PBS Books Readers Club.

- Hey, everybody.

Lovely to see you all.

- Hi.

- We are so happy to have you here.

Let's start at the beginning.

Thanks, first of all, for your book.

We loved it.

Tell us a little bit about the inspiration for this story.

- The inspiration.

Well, my mum lives in a retirement community in the south of England.

And really it's a very beautiful place, okay?

So, you know, there's trees, there's lakes, you can hear the birds and the trees.

And because I'm English, I was down there at one point and I looked around me all this beauty, and I thought, "Well, this would be an amazing place for a murder."

- Because... (Lauren, Princess, and Heather-Marie laugh) - I mean, listen, we're brought up on Agatha Christie over here.

So I thought, "This would be an amazing place for a murder."

And then every time I would go down and see my mum, we would chat to people.

And everyone there is 75 or above.

And you'd hear all these stories and you'd hear all these incredible kind of experience that these people had and the things that they'd done in their lives.

And so at one point, I thought, "You know what, if there was a murder here, I bet you lot would solve it."

And then I'm looking at their bulletin board, and they have these clubs every day.

You know, they have Tuesday Knitting Club or Wednesday French Conversation Club.

And just the phrase Thursday Murder Club came into my brain, and I went home that evening and started writing.

- Wow, that's perfect.

And you sort of touched on this, but you have such a great lineup of quirky sleuths in this story.

How did you go about developing this cast of characters?

- Really they introduced themselves to me.

Funnily enough, I wanted two women and two men.

Because I'm British, I wanted two middle-class characters and two working-class characters because, you know, we can't write anything unless class is involved somewhere.

And so I started something previously where someone had been a spy or had worked in the security services, and I was thinkin', "That's a great character to hack," it's an interesting backstory, also, you know, you have access to all sorts of interesting things that can help in an investigation.

I wanted to have a labor activist, 'cause that's sort of my family background.

I thought that's a fun thing to have.

I wanted a psychiatrist because they're very kind of right-brained person, someone who would, you know, make lists and laminate all of those lists.

And then I thought about my mum, and my mum is, where she lives, there are a lot of people there are much richer than her, have had sort of much more high-paying jobs than her.

My mum, she was a teacher for very young children.

And so like, "Well, I'll have a nurse," because the thing with my mum is she's in there with all these kind of high court judges and all these kind of high-powered people.

But if they're having a meeting, my mum is the one who gets her own way.

My mum, she's the only sensible one there.

(hosts laugh) And so I thought, well, there's my four people.

And I had them chatting to each other and, you know, enjoying each other's company.

And, you know, the idea of "The Thursday Murder Club" is it's a gang, and it's a gang who wouldn't necessarily have met in real life.

They meet because they're in this village.

And suddenly they're thrown in with these people who they don't know, and they understand, begin to realize they've got complementary skills.

They begin to realize that there isn't a time limit or an age limit on making friends.

And so, you know, suddenly I've got this gang of people, and then I throw murder into the mix, and, you know, you've gotta hit on your hands.

- So I'm always intrigued by process, and I'm really interested in terms of mystery, your writing process.

In the beginning, do you know who gets killed and whodunit?

- No, I really don't, which really upsets some people.

(Lauren, Princess, and Heather-Marie laugh) You know, I always have like an idea of what might happen, or a crime, or just a little hook.

Just something that I know, you know, a little kind of grain of sand in the oyster.

I've got something.

But no, by and large, I start with my characters just talking to each other.

And I write quite short chapters.

I mean, I really kinda move the story along as quickly as I can.

So I'm always starting new things in new places.

And then I just think, "Oh, who it would be fun to bring in now?"

And so I love creating characters.

I love creating worlds.

I love creating new people.

And so I bring in people, I bring in ideas, and the story starts telling itself, you know?

And then I'll murder somebody, like you do, and I think, "Who on earth has killed them?"

I can't think for a second who might've done it.

But, you know, the further and further I go, the story reveals itself to me.

But, you know, sometimes I'll talk to people, you know, in the streets, and they'll say, "Oh, I worked out who did it in the first 10 pages."

And I'm like, "Well, that's well done, because I haven't worked it out.

So that's very impressive."

No, so yeah, I don't plan, I don't plot, I don't have, you know, big spider diagrams on the wall of every single thing that's gonna happen.

And anytime I see another writer who does that, like Lee Child, for example, he's the same.

He'll just start from the start and see where it takes him.

And I always feel mightily relieved when someone else says that they don't plot as well because it makes me feel less fraudulent.

(Lauren, Princess, and Heather-Marie laugh) - So my mother-in-law is in a retirement community, I spend a lot of time there, I know these characters.

It feels like, to me, people in their 70s or mid-70s are like the middle schoolers of the elderly.

How much fun was it to put these characters together?

They're thrown together by circumstance, and they've been around long enough to have some wisdom and some snark, but also they can still get up and down a bit.

- Yeah, you're absolutely right.

You know, I really take advantage of who I've got there.

You know, I've got these incredible people who have skills, but I've got to the stage of life where they are overlooked and they become invisible.

And certainly they're underestimated.

So I've got a group of people who are both invisible yet wise, which makes them perfect detectives.

But the thing I love most about it is the friendship, it's the gang.

And as you say, everyone's got such a long and detailed backstory, and everyone has learned so much over the years.

So you have these characters, they're with people they wouldn't ordinarily be with, they are at an age where there are fewer consequences for them in terms of what they do.

They can knock on any door.

You know, in Thursday Murder Club, you know, they infiltrate police investigations because people see them as harmless.

And people who've read "The Thursday Murder Club" books will know that these four are not harmless.

They are far from harmless.

But I try and write the truth about aging as well.

So I get all the benefits of having their wisdom.

But, you know, I also try and write about dementia, about grief, about bodies failing and ailing.

And often young people say to me all the time, when young people read the books, they say, "Thank you for making older people heroes."

And whenever older people talk to me about the books, they will say, "Thank you for not making us heroes.

Thank you for showing that we are flawed and naughty and mischievous and in pain," and all of these, "Thanks for making us real," essentially.

So I try and, you know, get everything I can out of what it is like to be older.

And when people say, "Yeah, but how can you, you know, get inside of the brain of an 80-year-old woman?"

And the truth is, everyone's brain is the same, right?

I'll say to all four of you now, I bet you've got a number in your head.

How old do you actually feel?

You know, I talk to my mum, and she says- (Lauren, Princess, Heather-Marie laugh) - 14.

- Hence the grandpa sweater.

(laughs) - When you're 80, you don't suddenly have an 80-year-old brain.

You've got the same brain you had.

You've got a different body, and that's an issue.

So I get the benefit of understanding that they're exactly the same as they've always been, it's just they are around, you know, they have a very keen sense of their own mortality and the mortality of people around them.

- I wanna dive into that a little bit more, because you had to sort of balance those stories about, you know, the truth around aging and sort of the personal lives of these people and what they're dealing with, with the murder case.

How did you balance that storytelling?

- It's such a good question.

My main thought is this.

You know, we understand when we read a murder mystery, and therefore we understand when we write a murder mystery, that I'm gonna set you an impossible challenge at the beginning, something's happened and we can't work out what's happened, and at the end we're gonna solve it.

Okay, that's the contract we all sign when we read crime and when we read murder mysteries.

But the joy of all my favorite crime novels is character.

You know, this is the thing that I spend my time on.

And when people ask me about, "How do you come up with plots," I say, "Look out the window, there's a million plots."

What you actually need is character.

It's not what happens in this book, it's why do I care what happens in this book.

So my starting point is always character.

Always, always, always.

Spending time with these four people and the people who come the world, seeing how they interact with each other, having fun with that, letting them talk to each other, letting them experience things they haven't experienced before.

And then the murder plot.

You know, if I asked you the last 10 crime books you read, and I said to you, "Describe to me the plot," you would not be able to do it, I'm betting.

Occasionally some people can, but most people don't remember plots but they do remember how a book made them feel.

So start always, always, always with character.

And then you make sure the plot is absolutely tight, and you're not cheating, and, you know, it all worked, it's satisfying.

And the answer was in (audio warps) all along.

You know, you make sure you do all that stuff.

But the key all the way through is you wanna spend time with the character.

So always, always, always, I'm writing from character.

And when I'm editing, often I'm editing through plots.

- My 25-year-old brain really appreciated this line that Joyce writes, where they go, "It's beginning to feel this isn't all just a jolly lark."

I think that really grounds the story, like the seriousness within that cozy nexus.

What led you to kind of include that line, and how did you sort of process the balancing of the character sort of like sense of play with the weight of the reality as they kind of realize there is a dead body that we need to also keep in mind?

- Well, yeah, I think that, you know, my guiding principle is it has to be real or it has to be a possibility that it is real.

And I don't wanna write a fantasy, and I don't want to write a cozy thing where everyone's, you know, drinking cups of tea and, you know, everyone's happy, and there's just, you know, an inconvenient murder.

I try and write what would really happen in this situation.

And if you do that, you have to go, "Well, this is quite a stressful thing for them."

You know, there is a dead body.

And, you know, obviously it's fun to try and work out who did it, but there has been a murder.

And, you know, in various of the books, these Thursday Murder Club are threatened by other people as well.

So all the way through I'm just trying to think, "What would actually happen," or, "Could this happen?

How would they be feeling if this actually happened?"

I'm not allowed to do fantasy world.

I'm not allowed to do superhero world.

I have to think- (hosts laugh) - Who's stopping you?

- Exactly.

What would happen is the question.

- [Princess] Yeah, mm-hmm.

- Other than Joyce, who obviously was the lead and we often heard from her point of view, your other leading lady is a Elizabeth, and she is the leader of the Thursday Murder Club.

How did you find this amazing woman?

And you've left breadcrumbs to us.

But can you even tell us, is there more to her, 'cause I feel like there is.

- Well, I love reading spy fiction, you know, I love John le Carre and writers like that, but I also love reading nonfiction about spies.

There's a wonderful author called Ben Macintyre, who writes about the British Secret Services mainly, a little bit about the American Secret Services as well across the '50s, '60s, '70s, and onwards.

And often in those books, which were necessarily 'cause of when they're about, they're dominated by men, you know, they're dominated by white men of a certain age, who went to a certain school, and those were our spies.

But always, always in the background there'd be just the odd woman here and there doing interesting things.

And I'd always thought, "I wonder what their story is.

I wonder where they came from."

And then I thought, "Well, you know, if they were young and spying in the 1970s, that means they're 80 and no longer spying now."

So that's where the idea of Elizabeth came from.

Literally, I was thinking forward, I was reading those Ben Macintyre books and thinking, "I wonder what those women are doing now.

I wonder where they are," 'cause they must be incredibly fearsome.

You know, the intellect must be crazy, the bravery must be crazy, and that would be a great character for me to have.

And so she is the de facto leader of the group of course because of that experience she's got, but you soon very, very quickly realize that the other three have got her number in a way that no one's ever got her number before in her life.

And in some ways Joyce is the leader, and then some days Ron is the leader, and very occasionally Ibrahim is the leader.

But it came, again, from thinking of real-life examples and thinking, "I wonder who she is now and where she is."

- Mm-hmm.

In my head, I kept picturing Mrs.

Peel from "The Avengers."

(laughs) Like, she's always my go-to for like older, like female spies.

That's who I was thinking of during that.

- I love that.

- Well, there's murder, there's dementia, there's aging, there's all these serious issues.

And then what makes this so fun, at least for me, is the occasional drop the mic one-liner, getting into that dialogue of humor.

"I'm not in therapy, because who wants to undo all of that knitting?"

One of my favorite lines.

One was, "It must be a man.

Because what woman would bludgeon someone?

Unless it was a Russian woman."

Again, I'm dying laughing.

Talk about punctuating the serious topic, the murder, the mystery, with these great lines.

- Yeah, it comes back to the same thing really.

I mean, my natural instinct is comedy.

I've been a comedy writer my whole life.

That's where I come from really.

But the one thing I told myself right at the beginning, when I thought, "I should write.

I want to write a novel.

I want to write something," I thought, "Don't make it funny.

Whatever you do, you know what your instinct is, and that's joke, joke, joke.

That's your instinct."

I thought, "Do not make it funny."

So I'm writing away the first book, and suddenly the characters are making me laugh.

And suddenly something is happening, and Elizabeth says something that makes me laugh.

You know, like, "What woman would bludgeon someone, other than a Russian woman?"

(hosts laugh) So that makes me laugh.

And then I worked out, okay, I can do this, but I have one rule, which is the author is not telling any jokes at any point in this book.

The author does not tell a joke.

The characters are making us laugh.

The characters are saying things in character that are funny and the juxtaposition between the two are funny.

But at no point am I allowed to do a joke.

You shouldn't ever be reading the book, hear a joke, and imagine the author.

Because the second you imagine the author, you know, you're out of the story.

So all of my jokes, I love the humor of the book.

I mean, it's my absolute favorite thing.

You know, I love it.

I love it when the characters are making me laugh.

But yeah, my only rule is they can do jokes, I'm not allowed to do jokes.

- I think one of the funniest parts of the book was getting to read Joyce's journal, or her diary.

Because she revealed a lot about her own personality and her thoughts, but she does it in this very charming, witty little way that you do in a journal.

How'd you decide to go about it that way and do some of the chapters as her diary entries?

- I mean, sort of, in a way... And people will be sitting at home thinking, you know, just started writing novels or thinking they'd like to write a novel.

So this was sort of accidental, because I remember the very first day I sat down to write and, you know, I was thinkin', "Well, who am I to describe what the sky looks like," or, you know, "What someone's wearing?

I mean, who am I," you know?

I can't put myself on the page.

And the second I thought, "Oh, you know, I'll get someone else to tell the story."

Then it absolutely unlocked the whole thing.

So I just wrote a chapter as Joyce, and suddenly Joyce can describe what the sky looks like, and Joyce can describe what people look like, and things like that because she's not me.

And so I sorta hid behind her for a chapter.

And at the end of the chapter, I thought, "Oh my God, you're amazing.

I want to hear more from you."

She has absolute stream of consciousness, which means I can go from very serious with Joyce to very trivial.

I can get away with dropping little clues and red herrings in Joyce's chapters because we're used to her sort of straying from the point quite a lot.

So it's a really good place to hide things.

And also her brain works very much like mine, which is, you know, big things, small things.

"Oh, I wanna watch something on television."

"Oh, I must remember tomorrow I've got to do this, I've got to do that."

So she just unlocks a lot for me.

And if ever I've got writer's block, and occasionally you do, I will always just type the word Joyce at the top of a piece of paper and then write her next diary entry.

Because Joyce, when I've run out of things to say, Joyce has always got something to say.

- Oh, that's so excellent.

Well, kind of tying back to what you said previously, like a lot of murder mysteries hinge on like all those subtle details and you are, as you described it, a character-first writer.

So when you're editing the plot afterwards, how do you ensure that those details are both hidden in plain sight so that it all comes together at the end, but then still allows like the puzzle to form?

How do you strike that balance in the editing process?

- Yeah, it's a really tricky one, that, you know?

And ever since I started writing crime fiction, I now read crime fiction differently 'cause I'm trying to, you know, work out what they're hiding and where.

That bit comes quite naturally to me 'cause I've had a lifetime of reading crime fiction.

And you realize that, you know, the absolute best school you can go to if you want to write crime fiction is to have a love of crime fiction and have read a lot of it.

So I can usually work out when a piece of information is useful to me.

I always know, in any story, there are maybe five things I have to say, I have to say in order for you to get to the end of the book and go back and go, "Oh yeah, fair enough.

Absolutely, he did tell us," and, "Oh, of course it was there the whole time."

There's lots of information like I have to give to take you through the story.

But in terms of when we get to the end, there's maybe five, what you call clues, five things I have to hide.

So where do you hide them?

I mean, we're also wise to, you know, crime fiction and how it works.

So we all understand the tropes of it.

We all understand often where things are hidden.

If ever we're reading a piece of crime fiction and there seems to be a line out of place, and you think, "Oh, that's unusual that that's in that scene," then that's usually a clue.

Now the good fortune that I have if I have the, I have these four characters who can talk about anything and everything all the time.

So we're sort of used to them going off on tangents.

And if you do that, it is much easier to hide what you do.

If someone says something and you are laughing, and you're just going, "Oh, that's typical Joyce," or, "Oh yeah, that's typical Ibrahim," but I've just given you a clue.

You didn't spot the clue because you just think, "Oh yeah, I know why that line's there.

It's 'cause, you know, Ibrahim's trying to make us laugh."

So it's always, every time a crime fiction reader reads something, (audio warps) a line they're quite forensic on.

And so you just need to make a scene somewhere.

You need to sorta make a noise somewhere else so it passes them by.

And humor is often a very, very good way of doing that.

But four or five things you need.

And then you do go back at the end because, you know, I'll change who the killer is right at the last minute sometimes.

And when you do that, if you have written it properly, which is everyone is a suspect, you know, everything is shown throughout, you don't have to change much.

You don't have to reverse-engineer an awful lot to completely change who your killer is.

And so if you read crime fiction and love crime fiction and it's in your DNA, it's easier than it would appear.

And I would say to people struggling with this at home, now don't just simplify your plot, don't worry so much about your plot.

You can make it all the red herrings as complicated as you want, but the actual plot, the actual who did it and why that you're telling us, you can make that as simple as possible, and think maybe five things I need to say and then work out the best place to hide them, and then you've got yourself a plot.

- The tone of this is brilliantly done, because in so many ways we're laughing and we're exploring and we're getting to know these amazing characters.

Were there any sections that you had to go back and redo and maybe use different characters or even bring in ancillary characters along the way to make the tone right for you?

- As I say, I love introducing new characters.

And, you know, I always knew this was gonna be a series, "The Thursday Murder Club."

And I knew I had my four main characters, I knew I had a couple of police officers in this first book, Chris and Donna, and, you know, there are various other people.

There's Bogdan, who's sort of the fifth member of the Thursday Murder Club, a Polish builder.

And by Book Two, I'm bringing in more and more characters, and people who say, "Oh, we love this character," "We love that character."

By Book Four, I've got so many characters.

You know, they've snowballed.

And, you know, everyone who hasn't been murdered kinda comes back for the next book.

So I've got a big cast of characters.

But the main thing is I've got these four primary characters.

And my thought always is on a new chapter, I'm always in someone else's perspective, I'm always in someone else's head.

And so I can go from Joyce to Ibrahim, to Elizabeth, to Ron.

And so what you're saying there about tone, so, for example, in one of the books, there's a discussion about assisted dying.

There's a plot line about assisted dying.

And I'm very aware I can write two chapters in a row, one from the perspective of someone who is in favor of assisted dying and one from someone who is against assisted dying, both for their own compassionate reasons.

But you're right, I'm always on the lookout.

I'm thinking, "What is the tone of this book?

How is it feeling?

Was that quite a serious chapter?

Was that quite a funny chapter?"

Next chapter, okay, I need to make a slight change.

I need to make a slight turn.

I need to tighten something here.

I need to loosen something here.

And when you've got a whole bunch of characters, all of whom can narrate, it makes it slightly easier.

But that, again, for people writing at home, that's a feel thing.

That's somebody reading this, how are they currently feeling?

At the end of that chapter, how are they feeling?

What would they like next?

Do they need a bit of light relief, or do they need a little bit more tension, a little bit more jeopardy?

And so at the start of the next chapter, I'm always, "How is my reader feeling at the end of the previous chapter, and what can I do about that?"

- Oh, well, I am so glad you mentioned Bogdan, 'cause I love that character, the personal development, very interesting to me.

But also the idea that the character is an activator and also a connector between characters.

Talk about the character as a vessel in storytelling, but also just its backstory.

- Bogdan is, you know, I love Lee Child's novels, so I love the "Reacher" novels.

And one of the things about Reacher, and Lee Child knows it very well, is he's omnicompetent, right?

I mean, he has his flaws, of course.

But if you're in trouble, Reacher can get you out of trouble.

And, you know, I'm writing a much more suburban book than "Reacher," but I like the idea of having somebody who's omnicompetent.

And a Polish builder just seemed like the perfect person for me 'cause, well, he can do anything.

He could get you anything, he could fix anything.

You know, you'd say, "Oh, the reef is falling," he goes, "Yeah, that's no problem at all."

"Oh, you know, the cat just got out."

"Oh, I'll go and get the cat."

Just someone- - That's this one right here.

- Yeah, exactly.

(Lauren laughs) - Someone who can do everything.

So I've got that lovely character.

But then, look, the second of course you write a character who's omnicompetent, any writer is thinkin', "Yeah, but what's up," you know?

"Where's the sadness?

Where are the flaws?

Where are the things he's hiding?"

And so you get the fun of writing that.

But as you say, having a character who can have their own individual relationship with all of the other characters, it just means, 'cause we find out a lot about the Thursday Murder Club when they're talking to each other, of course.

But having a character who can have a relationship outside of that and who can bring different things to them and bring unusual things to them, the idea of having some connective tissue that ties everyone together is great.

And Bogdan is just, you know, I love writing him.

Every woman who reads it falls in love with him.

I mean, he's, "Oh."

And I've tried, over the series, to, you know, his story becomes deep and we hear an awful lot more about him.

There are, you know, his love life, who he's gone into.

But yeah, that idea.

And Lee Child has as much fun with Reacher, you can tell.

When Reacher goes soft or, you know, when Reacher shows a flaw, it's such a joyful thing to see because you just see this incredibly, the competence of this guy, but you see he's just like the rest of us.

- So, Richard, you sat down to write Book One and you already had it in your head that this was gonna be a series?

That must've been a little bit overwhelming to get started.

How did that play out in your head?

- Well, when I say I had it in my head to be a series, that's only if anyone had read the first book.

I was very prepared for no one to read the first book and for it to disappear.

I just wanted to have written one.

I wanted, you know, for my own peace of mind, to have done that.

As a writer, that's the sort of Everest to my novel, and I always wondered if I could.

But I think because, you know, I have a background in other areas of entertainment as well, in television particularly, television is not a first series business, it's a second series business.

That's where the fun and the money and the improvements all come in.

So I was never gonna be someone who wrote one book and then it was successful, and I have to write an entirely different one.

Like a whole... If I've got these characters, who I love, and who speak to readers, then of course I'm gonna bring them back.

I mean, it wouldn't make any sense for me just to do 350 pages of these characters.

If you watch a TV series and you love it, the first thing you're thinkin' is, "When's the next series of this?"

And so I think that was just a natural thing for me.

I wasn't kind of thinking, "Oh, this is clever," I was just thinkin' there's nothing else I would've done.

You know, you look at something like "Lessons in Chemistry" by Bonnie Garmus, and it's such a huge hit and so loved by so many people, but Bonnie's gotta follow that up, you know, and with a completely different book.

Whereas, I was able, literally, even before the first one came out, I'd pretty much finished the second one.

So before all the kind of hoopla about the first book and the sales figures and everything came through, I'd already dug back in and written a second one without any of that expectation or any of that pressure and I think that was incredibly useful to me.

- That's fascinating.

- That's so good.

And it was a huge hit.

- It was.

- And when this was published, it was your debut novel and it was this huge hit, but you've also had success in so many other areas.

So how was the success as an author?

How has that been different from the other places in entertainment that you've been before?

- Yeah, I think, honestly, the rest of my career has sort of been hiding.

So a little bit of my career has been in television, behind the camera, for many, many years.

Producing shows, creating shows, and then latterly, completely accidentally, presenting shows as well.

And I love doing it.

I love working with teams and I love connecting with people.

You know, it's my absolute favorite thing.

But this is the gig for me.

This is my head and my heart.

This is me absolutely laid bare on these pages.

This is me as a human being.

And I've never been able to do that before.

And I'm sort of glad I waited 'till my late 40s to do it 'cause I think I've got a bit more to say and, you know, I've got more interesting stories to tell.

But this is the thing I've been waiting for.

This is the thing that represents me.

You know, in 100 years' time, if someone wants to know me, they can read one of those books and they will know me.

And I've never been able to say that before, I've never been able to do that before, it's all out there.

It's the perfect form for me.

And I still do a little bit of television, not as much, because, you know, I'm trying to write a book a year.

But these books are me, these books represent me.

And so when people talk to me about the books, and I talk to people about the books, I know I go into the room proud and I go into the room wanting to talk about it and I go into the room feeling comfortable.

I don't have to set it or spin it, or anything like that.

I just have to talk about it.

- I love that.

- That's it's so beautiful.

- My head and my heart.

- I know- - That's really sweet.

- That's so good.

- Really nice.

This book was recently adopted into a film, and you were the executive producer.

Can you talk about the experience of crafting a 350-page novel and more than 12 hours of an audiobook into a two-hour film?

- You know, the (audio trails off) really, because I was very aware that they're two completely different beasts.

And as I say, I've told my version of this story and it's the book.

And that's me, you know?

I've done it.

And so the moment we sold it, and we sold it to, funnily enough, before it even came out, the first book, and Spielberg's company bought the rights to it, and, you know, via COVID and actor strike, it's taken five years to get on screen.

But right from the start, I just let them do their version of it because my job is to write the next book.

That's my world.

That's the world I've created.

And you have to let brilliant people do their thing.

'Cause as you say, if you'd asked me to turn a 12-hour audiobook into two-hour film, it would've been awful.

I'd have made a terrible mess of it.

And (audio warps) about so many things.

And also it's not how I feel, not how I see things, you know?

It's a completely different creative sphere.

So right from the beginning, I thought, "No, I just have to trust other people and let them get on with it."

And it's like, you know, the books are my children and the film, it's like a grandchild.

So, you know, I just get to have all the fun and then hand it off.

- I love that.

- Yeah, it's hard to let go of your baby, though.

I imagine that must be, that takes some strength to say, "Here my baby, take care of it."

- I thought it's kinda fun in a way because, you know, I like watching adaptations of books.

As I say, I'm not gonna do it myself, but at some point somebody, you know, was going to.

So I sort of thought, well, you know, in for a penny, in for a pound.

I might as well just let them do it.

And, you know, last year, when we were filming it, we had great fun.

You know, I went down to set, I only went twice 'cause literally nobody wants the writer of the book to be there.

I mean, no one wants the writer of the script to be there, let alone the writer of the book.

So I went down twice.

I went down on the day Steven Spielberg turned up in his helicopter.

I turned up that day.

- That's a good day.

- I let them get on with it, and I let Chris Columbus get on with it.

And he's the nicest man you're ever gonna meet in your whole life.

And, you know, I'm very glad I did.

- Okay, Richard, we have a couple of fun questions for you now.

Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes?

- Oh, Agatha Christie.

Every day of the week.

Isn't that funny?

I've never really got on with Sherlock Holmes, but Agatha, I love.

A more interesting question, question would be Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers, and that's a harder question.

- What is your ideal writing setup?

Are you a morning person, a night owl?

How do you get into the murder writing zone?

- How do I get into the murder zone is your question.

Honestly, I would do anything other than write.

I will do every single household chore possible.

You know, I will take the trash out four times before I actually write.

You know, this, honestly, chatting to you guys is so amazing because I'm supposed to be writing this afternoon.

And every minute we spend, I know is a minute where I'm not writing, which is a joy.

But once I'm up there, once I've gone up there, yeah, sat down, turn the computer on, that's it, that's me.

There's no distractions, no phone, no internet or anything like that.

But anything to distract me from going, it's like going to the gym.

It's the exact same thing.

Anything to stop you.

But as soon as you put your sneakers on, you know you're heading there.

- What is the most challenging part about being an author and what is the most fun?

- The most challenging part is right now actually, I'm writing the second book in the "We Solve Murders" series.

And my books, most books, commercial books, are about 90,000 words, something like that.

And I'm on 3,000 words.

And it feels like you're at the bottom of a mountain staring at the very top where you think always, "I'm never gonna get anywhere near it."

And the most fun part is the exact other end of it, which is when you're at the top of the mountain, you're looking at that lovely view and everyone's reading the book and, you know, enjoying it.

But then, of course, a month later, you're back at the bottom again for another mountain.

- Wondering if you have time to do any reading on your own.

And have you read anything good lately?

What's your recent favorites?

- Yeah, you have to read, don't you?

I think, I'll tell you, I read an American book recently, which I should've read before but never had, which was "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry, which I just thought was just, it was genius.

I loved it so much.

I was just in his world for so long.

I'd recently read "Middlemarch," which I'd never read before, and I have a theory that "Lonesome Dove" is the American "Middlemarch."

It turned to this incredible story, this episodic thing, and these people.

And, you know, I loved it so much.

And I've just finished a book.

If you like short books, I just read a short book, it's called "Seascraper" by Benjamin Wood.

It's been nominated for the Booker Prize over here.

So after a very, very long book, Larry McMurtry, I enjoyed a very, very short book, "Seascraper" by Benjamin Wood.

- Tana French loved "Lonesome Dove."

So there's something about mystery writers and "Lonesome Dove."

- [Lauren] Yeah.

- [Richard] Oh really?

Ah, that's good.

- Yeah.

Richard, do you have a favorite book from childhood that sort of inspired your love of stories?

- I think so.

I don't know if Enid Blyton made it across the Atlantic.

But she wrote a series of books about a little gang called "The Famous Five."

And the famous five were two girls, two boys and a dog, and essentially they would have kind of mystery adventures on their summer holidays.

And it was a couple of years ago, in fact, someone asked a question in a book event I was doing, and said, "But you do realize that you've essentially recreated 'The Famous Five,' but for people in their 80s?"

You've got two women, two men, and there's a dog now, Alan, as well.

And until that point, I haven't realized that I'd been rewriting "The Famous Five" all along.

- Love that.

- That's perfect.

- That's very funny.

- If you could invite a character from any book to dinner, who would you invite and why?

- That's such a great question.

I love that.

Any character.

I mean, it would probably be, it would either be Miss Marple.

Miss Marple always rather than Poirot.

I think Poirot would be a very difficult dinner guest, whereas Miss Marple would be so polite and would probably bring some gorgeous cake with her as well.

But yeah, maybe, oh, I'll tell you who I'd, I know who I'd invite, just because I'd like to spend the evening with him and see what makes him tick.

Tom Ripley.

- [Princess] Oh.

- [Richard] The murderer, Patricia Highsmith novels.

- [Princess] Yes.

- [Richard] I'll tell you, Tom Ripley and Miss Marple at dinner together.

- [Princess] Oh, that'd be so good.

That'd be so good.

- So I am a librarian.

And so I have to ask, do you have a favorite library either now or as a child?

- Yeah, as a child, I grew up in a low-income household, so we were in our library all the time.

I grew up in a little town called Haywards Heath, which is in Sussex, just outside Brighton, where all my family are from.

And yeah, we would always go to Haywards Heath Library.

And, you know, when you're a little kid, they've got these incredible picture books.

Then you get a little bit older, and they've got all those famous five books as well.

But, you know, libraries, I don't know what it's like in the US, but over here they're under pressure, they are underfunded, and they are just the greatest places.

If we want people to grow up with empathy, if we want people to grow up understanding that the world is bigger than the world they're shown, then libraries are the absolute key.

Books can't just be for people with money, libraries are the key to our future.

So from me to you, I wanna say thank you for everything you do.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

That's beautiful.

Libraries are so important.

What is the best advice you've ever received, either about writing or just life?

- My grandfather was a cop.

When he said to me, "If you're ever called to a fight in a pub, make sure you're second through the door," and I think that's very good advice for life.

First person gets beaten up, the second person's the hero.

- It's like I don't have to outrun the bear, I just outrun you.

- Exactly.

(all laugh) - Second mouse gets the cheese.

- Exactly.

- Yeah.

- How do you hope people feel after completing one of your novels?

- The only thing I hope is that I entertained them.

You know, I hope that you can open it, page one at the start of a long flight, and at the end of a flight, you know, you've read the whole thing, that every single page you just kept turning over and I made the flight go incredibly quickly.

I hope I've entertained you.

I hope I've made you laugh.

I hope I've made you cry.

I hope I've outwitted you.

Or if I haven't outwitted you, I hope you feel good for outwitting me.

So it's entertainment, entertainment, entertainment.

- Love it.

- Okay, well, I've been dying to know, we've spoken with authors Anthony Horowitz, Robert Thorogood, both who wrote books, and their shows aired on PBS.

Now we are so lucky to get to speak with you, and you're so clever and witty, and what I'd like to know is, is there a Cozy Murder Mystery Writers Club in England?

And do you belong?

Like, do you guys hang out?

Do you know each other?

- There is not a Cozy Mystery Writers Club.

I know Robert Thorogood, he's a terrific writer.

But I'll tell you one thing, is no one who was in that club really writes cozy mystery.

They're all writing like pretty, in the same way that Agatha Christie never wrote cozy mystery.

They're dressing it up cozily so that no one knows what they're doing, but readers know what they're doing.

So if there was a Cozy Mystery Writers Club, one of us would be murdered at the very first meeting, I know that.

(hosts laugh) - Love that.

- I think Robert's like, "I want a dead body and I want it right away."

- Yeah.

- For sure.

- Love that.

- Preferably nodded.

- Yeah.

(Lauren, Princess, and Heather-Marie laugh) Finally, Richard, anything that you'd like to say to your readers?

- Just that my books feel, to me, very, very English and I always worried that they wouldn't travel.

And one of the greatest joys of the last five years is seeing how these books have flown in America and being on The New York Times Best Seller List.

It's lovely to be in the UK and be on the bestseller list.

But to be on The New York Times Best Seller List and to be in US libraries and US bookstores, to me, it's the dream.

I grew up just adoring America.

I'm a huge America follower.

And every time I come over, I'm blown away by the audiences and I'm blown away by the fact that these characters resonate with people in other countries.

And often, as I sit there writing, I'll write a Joyce chapter, and I'll say to her, "You know that people in China, Brazil, and America are reading you and loving you, Joyce?

Congratulations."

- Oh, that's so beautiful.

Thank you.

- We feel the same way about all of you.

You're very cool.

We like to listen to you talk.

- Yes.

- Absolutely great.

- Thank you so much.

- Oh, a wonderful conversation.

Richard Osman, thank you so much for joining us today on the PBS Books Readers Club.

We are grateful.

- It's been my absolute pleasure.

Thanks, everybody.

- [Princess] Thank you.

- [Lauren] Oh my goodness, thank you.

- What an amazing conversation with Richard Osman.

What'd you guys think?

- I loved him.

What did he say?

People won't remember the plot, but they'll remember how the book makes you feel.

- [Heather-Marie] Absolutely.

- He made us feel great.

What a delightful guy.

- Yeah, he was just so personable, so kind.

I love the thought that goes into his writing style.

I always love the writers that don't plot.

'Cause I'm just like, "But yet it doesn't feel that way when you read it in the end."

And it did make me feel like, between the four of us, we could also solve a murder.

- Yes.

- I think we could do that.

- We might need a dog.

- Well, yeah.

(Lauren and Heather-Marie laugh) We have Miley.

- [Fred] We sure do.

- I love that the book is so character-centric, and that came through as I was reading.

But to hear that the characters really define where we go, that was really interesting.

I loved hearing about his process.

- Mm-hmm.

- I just feel like, at so many points, it was laugh-out-loud funny.

I mean, to me, just busting out laughing.

And he was talking about, well, he lets the characters tell the joke, but he is a very, very interesting and talented writer that brings out the humor at just the precise moment.

And I love to hear from him about that.

And I also just loved it in the book.

- No age limit, I'm making friends.

I love that.

And thank you, book friends, for joining us for such a brilliant discussion.

If you're itching to solve another case, PBS Masterpiece has you covered.

"The Marlowe Murder Club" recently released its second season.

Judith, Becks, and Suzie jump back into action after a new unsettling crime befalls the town of Marlow.

Assisting DCI Tanika Malik, the trio of oddball sleuths are back on the case to find the killer.

PBS members can watch both seasons now on the PBS app and on pbs.org.

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I am obsessed right now with the PBS Books Readers Club book bag.

I use it all the time.

I was toting it to the airport.

I bring it to work with my laptop and my notebook to the library.

It's so perfect.

- You can also get the official PBS Books mug "My weekend is booked," which is all too true.

- It's just the way we like it.

Plus, as a member of your PBS station, you'll also get access to PBS Passport and the incredible shows there like "The Marlow Murder Club" on PBS Masterpiece, and so much more.

- And now it's time to reveal our next PBS Books Readers Club pick.

Heather, please do the honors.

- Thank you.

Well, next month, we begin our countdown to America's 250th birthday with an untold story of our nation's founding in, dun-da-ra-ra, "America's First Daughter," co-written by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie.

- "America's First Daughter" is a sweeping tale of Thomas Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson, who bore witness to the birth of a nation while guarding and influencing her father's legacy.

- Based on thousands of actual letters, this heartfelt historical fiction novel sheds light on the sacrifices and struggles of a strong woman in a time when women's voices were not entirely welcome in the world of politics.

- And wait, many of you know I love historical fiction, so there's another book in the bag.

It's "My Dear Hamilton."

Double the books for double the authors.

- Another fantastic historical piece written by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie, which brings to life the extraordinary story of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton.

Not just the wife of Alexander Hamilton, but a revolutionary woman who stood at the center of America's founding.

- Now without giving too much away, what y'all think?

- I'm looking to you, 'cause you're the historical figure- - I really liked it.

I didn't know what I was going to think.

And I loved how they weave in primary source material into it.

You get a real sense of what was going on at that time.

And in fact, this was my favorite of the two.

But they both were like nail-biters and I enjoyed them both very much.

- They're hard stories to tell.

And I think that the writing handles all of these very complex issues in a very earnest and meaningful way, and it left me having a lot of deep thoughts about the founding of this country and the women involved in it.

- Absolutely.

And I'm really excited to talk to the authors and learn more about the research and everything that went into this.

- [Princess] Absolutely.

- Yeah, it was really incredible.

And you know me, I always wanna pull that thread all the way through.

So whether it's gender politics, whether it's race relations, whether it's shenanigans around elections, this one has it all, almost to the current time.

It's really incredible.

Well, there is so much more to discuss about "America's First Daughter" and "My Dear Hamilton," but we will do that on November 19th.

RSVP now to our Facebook Live event by searching for PBS Books on Facebook and looking under Events.

- [Princess] And sign up for our e-newsletter at pbsbooks.org/subscribe and we'll send you lots of book recs, exclusive interviews, and more delivered right to your inbox.

- And join the PBS Books Readers Club Facebook group to find book recommendations and chat with other book lovers.

- Also subscribe to our YouTube channel to discover an incredible collection of author interviews.

Kristin Hannah, Shelby Van Pelt on "Remarkably Bright Creatures."

The gang is all there on YouTube.

- Well, thank you for being part of the PBS Books Readers Club.

We'll see you next month.

Happy reading.

(graceful orchestral music)