We Solve Murders - am I just not in the mood?

[Oricolt]

I liked the Thursday Murder Club books. They were fun.

I'm struggling to get into We Solve Murders. There are so many characters and I can't keep track.

If you liked Thursday Murder, did you like We Solve Murders too?

Yes, he does a book a year, and now he’s quit RO’s House of Games as well as Pointless to concentrate on writing and doing book tours to promote the books.

I liked the Thursday Murder Club books, but found We Solve Murders a bit boring. It felt like it was trying to ride the success of the earlier books as I don’t think it would have stood up on its own.

I am afraid that I had to return it to audible. I just couldn't get into it.

That is largely true of the whole “cozy crime”/“light detective”/“historical detective” genre though. It was traditionally a genre written and read mostly by women and whilst plots are often predictable the popular writers succeeded with engaging characters and likeable settings. I have a fondness for some writers in this genre for light reads but there are plenty of truly bad attempts.

Since the genre became a money spinner (and supplier of source material to TV) it seems every other celeb, especially male celebs, are cashing in the the genre. I thought Osman had found a good schtick with the retirement village setting but apart from the first the books are not the best - I suspect if Fred Jones had written them we would never have heard of them.

I think all those books are so overrated and I quite like cozy crime