Why do people dislike Richard Osman books?

[poppymango]

I've read a couple of the Thursday Murder Club books, and I did enjoy them, though I do think they are slightly overrated. Certainly not the worst novel I've ever read, though (that honour goes to Dawn O'Porter!)

I've seen a lot of people saying that his books are just awful, and I'm wondering why. I wouldn't call myself a prolific reader and I'm not educated beyond secondary school level so I thought perhaps I'm missing something other people can see... something in the structure, character, writing style, plot? I'm really curious to know what it is that bothers people so much. I thought they were fun but harmless - and sometimes that's what you want in a book - but would love a perspective on this from someone who knows more about literature than I do.

My favourites of his are the Charles Paris books but I've recently read some of the Decluttering series and if he has not lived with someone with serious MH issues he is an amazing researcher. He writes a lot for radio and TV as well - he is behind some of my favourite comedy dramas. Genre fiction does have a formula, the skill of the writer is to make you forget that and engage with the characters.

I take your point and for sure within genres there will always be authors people disagree on. However its equally tedious to be told "oh you just think its big and clever to dislike a book with a famous author". Not every celeb with a pen is a good writer and few of them would have made print without being a name first. Osman is in that category for me - a setting with great potential but more focus on the set up than the characters.

That's just how I felt. My friend enthused about them but I just didn't get it.

I well I like them. Like others have said not great works of literature but easy to read and not violent.
Reminds me of my mum.

I was very amused by Osman’s own mother’s comment “They would be very good for people learning English”……….

I write literary fiction for a living. I’m not competing with RO, obviously (different genre, different publisher, entirely different sales expectations etc), but the fact is that his predictably high sales are bankrolling his publisher (which is an imprint of Penguin Random House) taking a risk on much more niche stuff by debut authors, or lit fic midlisters who don’t make anywhere near his money. His kind of sales fund riskier decisions elsewhere.

And the ones I’ve read, while not my thing, particularly, strike me as amiable enough stuff, with a definite feelgood factor in their ‘Old people can be very cool’ and ‘You can be someone obsessed with pub quizzes, cardigans, visiting new branches of Costa coffee, and reruns of Antiques Roadshow, and still be interesting and unpredictable’ messages.

There was one good joke about it being easier to shoot someone because he was wearing a Coldplay T-shirt.

Well they are very popular so someone likes them!!

Anything popular will get some pushback.

Some people are just against celebrities turning into writers and they suspect they wouldn't be published if they were just ordinary people.

I read the first one and it was OK (I read//have read a lot of crime, including a lot of Golden Age stuff, so I’ve got a lot to compare it to). It was competent, I thought.
The next one - not so good. Gave up pretty much after that. Meanwhile he sold them as a major TV series, star casting etc etc. He’s a big player in the media world and he’s become very rich off the back of them. But style-wise they’re not literature; they’re totally formulaic. All those short sentences. That end on a punchline. Because that’s what he does.
It sells.
A lot.

Isn't the Coldplay joke the equivalent of the comments on this thread about RO?

As in, people are suggesting he's disliked because he's popular. I didn't like the book because I didn't like the book, I thought I would!

I'm not a fan of Coldplay, but I'm aware that it's trendy not to like them..... because they're popular. James Blunt appears to suffer a similar fate.