The Man Who Died Twice

Seventy-six-year-old Elizabeth Best is the unofficial leader of the Thursday Murder Club. A former spy, she enjoyed an eventful career with MI5 and is considered a “legend of the Service” (415). In The Man Who Died Twice, we learn that she is a Dame but has not told her friends.

Elizabeth acts as Joyce’s foil in the novel, displaying contrasting traits to her friend. Steely, fearless, and fiercely intelligent, she is the character who devises plans and efficiently assigns tasks to the group’s members. However, the qualities that make her an ideal leader and spy mean that she sometimes lacks empathy.

In The Man Who Died Twice, Elizabeth undergoes a notable character arc. She realizes that her background as a spy has led her to overintellectualize the investigation. Acknowledging that “sometimes, things are exactly what they seem” (383), she becomes more open, trusting, and appreciative of her friendships.

Ibrahim is a retired psychiatrist from Egypt who is cerebral, dignified, and cautious. At 80 years of age, he is the oldest member of the Thursday Murder Club. Early in the novel, Ibrahim is assaulted by teenager Ryan Baird. This attack drives one of the subplots as Ibrahim’s friends seek justice on his behalf. Ibrahim remains largely absent from the group’s investigations. His moral integrity makes him conflicted over their plan for revenge.

Ibrahim undergoes a gradual character arc during the novel. At the beginning of the story, he regrets his cautious approach to life and is determined to seize opportunities while he still can. However, after he is attacked, he becomes more withdrawn than ever, sinking into a reclusive depression. Ibrahim’s rehabilitation occurs slowly, with the help of his friends. A key stage in his recovery occurs at the end of the novel when he drives Joyce to the animal shelter.

Seventy-five-year-old Ron is the only working-class member of the Thursday Murder Club. A former trade union leader, he proudly displays his left-wing political views with a Chairman Mao tattoo. Now divorced, Ron has an adult son and daughter as well as a grandson, Kendrick. His son Jason is a former boxer turned minor TV celebrity. Tough, no-nonsense, and spontaneous, Ron acts as a foil to the cerebral, cautious Ibrahim. However, he reveals a sensitive side when he sheds tears at Ibrahim’s hospital bedside and supports his traumatized friend.

Police Constable Donna De Freitas is a friend and ally of the Thursday Murder Club. In the series’ first novel, she transfers from London to the Fairhaven police force to escape unhappy memories of a former relationship. Meeting with reductive gender stereotypes at the station, she got to work on a murder case only with the help of Elizabeth and Joyce.

Donna’s loneliness and isolation are explored in The Man Who Died Twice. Besides Chris Hudson and the Thursday Murder Club, Donna has no friends in the area. Her sense of being “the new girl in town” is exacerbated as she is a Black woman in a uniformly white seaside resort (267). Donna’s loneliness makes her desperate, and she embarks on a succession of unfulfilling one-night stands that leave her feeling worthless. However, a counseling session with Ibrahim improves her mental well-being, and she becomes more discriminating. The end of the novel hints at a future romantic relationship with Bogdan.

Chris is a detective chief inspector (DCI) in the Fairhaven police force. In The Thursday Murder Club, he was an established bachelor who forged a friendship with Donna as they worked on a murder case. During their discussions, Donna often encouraged Chris to take better care of his health and appearance. In The Man Who Died Twice, 51-year-old Chris is dating Donna’s mother. His eagerness to impress Patrice has prompted him to lose weight, just as Donna advised.

Like Donna, Chris views the members of the Thursday Murder Club as friends. He helps them several times by contravening legal regulations. Although this makes him uncomfortable, he views his actions as necessary in the face of an ineffective criminal justice system.

Bogdan is a Polish builder who was revealed to be a murderer in The Thursday Murder Club. Having trusted his secret to Elizabeth and Stephen, he is intensely loyal to the couple, declaring, “You know you just ask, and I do whatever” (130). He acts as an unofficial fixer for many of the challenges the Thursday Murder Club encounters, taking “everything in his stride” (107). He takes on the role of a savior when he dispatches three armed men and shoots Sue.

A man of few words, Bogdan gives nothing away about his private life, causing speculation between Elizabeth and Stephen. Near the novel’s end, he shows the first sign of emotional vulnerability as he nervously prepares to ask Donna on a date.

Stephen is Elizabeth’s third husband, and their marriage is happy. Like his wife, he has a brilliant mind, but dementia often impairs his cognitive processes. Although Stephen frequently forgets day-to-day details (people’s names or where Elizabeth is), he also has moments of great clarity. As Bogdan observes, he still plays a “brutal game” of chess. He also remembers where Elizabeth and Joyce hide the diamonds. Stephen embodies the figurative form of death explored in the novel’s title. As his condition worsens, he sleeps more often and “shuts down further and further still” (109).

Douglas is an active MI5 agent and one of Elizabeth’s ex-husbands. An aging James Bond caricature, he has formerly thrived by exploiting his good looks and superficial charm. However, his outdated attitudes have become glaringly out of tune with modern society, causing the intelligence service to send him on “a Gender and Sexuality Awareness course” (113).

Douglas lacks moral integrity in both his private and personal life. His spur-of-the-moment decision to steal Martin’s diamonds during an MI5 search drives the novel’s action and eventually leads to his death. Douglas’s lasting affection for Elizabeth prompts him to leave an elaborate trail of clues for her to follow to the diamonds.

As the killer of Douglas and Poppy, Sue is the novel’s main antagonist. An MI5 agent, she resembles a younger version of Elizabeth in her looks and no-nonsense manner, causing Elizabeth to describe them as “peas in a pod” (308). Sue’s similarities to Elizabeth give her insight into how the older woman’s mind works. This allows her to exploit Elizabeth’s tendency to seek the most complicated explanation for a mystery. Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s identification with Sue prevents her from seeing that she is the most obvious suspect.

Martin is one of the antagonists of the novel. A middleman for international criminals, he acts as their banker, holding valuable assets as security for deals between criminal organizations. When Douglas steals diamonds worth £20 million from his property, Martin is desperate to retrieve them to save his own life.

By providing access to Martin’s thought processes in certain chapters, the narrative allows readers to comprehend his moral bankruptcy. His reflections before a garden party demonstrate the extent of his criminal activities as he attempts to remember the location of dead bodies and buried weapons in his yard. Martin’s beautiful home and grounds are shown to have been built on the suffering of others. When mafioso Frank Andrade Jr. shoots him, his death is presented as deserved and justified.

Andrade is a member of the New York mafia. His family owns the diamonds stolen by Douglas, and he travels to the United Kingdom to get them back. Connie Johnson kills him during the shootout at Fairhaven pier.

A former teaching assistant, Connie is Fairhaven’s “queenpin,” overseeing a successful drug operation. The police surveillance of her activities drives the novel’s subplot involving Chris and Donna.

Although Connie is one of the novel’s antagonists, she initially presents herself as a friendly, relatable character, causing Donna to warm to her. Subverting the trope of the femme fatale, Connie’s attempts to seduce Bogdan are depicted as hopelessly ineffective, suggesting a vulnerable side to her character. However, Connie reveals her ruthless nature when she threatens the lives of Donna, Chris, and Patrice. Although Donna and Chris frame her with the help of the Thursday Murder Club, Connie’s eventual arrest represents justice.

Eighteen-year-old Ryan is a minor criminal in comparison to the other antagonists of the novel. A combination of “acne and bravado,” he is a “child, really. A lost boy” (68). Nevertheless, when Ryan assaults Ibrahim and steals his phone, the effects are shown to be devastating. With one brutal act, Ryan traumatizes Ibrahim, causing him to fear the outside world.

Like the other villains of the novel, Ryan is greedy and remorseless, congratulating himself on “probably making more money than his old teachers” from his crimes (97). After evading prosecution for the attack, he becomes the target of a revenge campaign by the Thursday Murder Club.

Poppy is an inexperienced intelligence officer from MI5. Freshly recruited from university, her first assignment is to protect Douglas during his stay at Coopers Chase. She succeeds in saving Douglas from the first attempt on his life by shooting Andrew Hastings. However, both she and Douglas are killed by Sue in the safe house at Hove.

During her time at Coopers Chase, Poppy bonds with Joyce and admits she doesn’t “have the temperament” for espionage (73). Her sensitive nature is revealed in the daisy tattoo commemorating her grandmother and her desire to be a poet. Of all the characters who die in the novel, Poppy is the only innocent victim. Unable to accept the tragedy at face value, Elizabeth becomes convinced that Poppy faked her death in a plan to steal the diamonds.

Lance is a former member of the Special Boat Service who is seconded to work for MI5. Throughout most of the novel, he is a potential murder suspect as he was present went Douglas stole the diamonds from Martin’s home. Forty-two-year-old Lance is single, lonely, and feels a failure after a breakup with his girlfriend. Financial difficulties mean he struggles to afford his one-bedroom apartment, giving him a motive to want the diamonds. Although Lance is not involved in the murders, he takes advantage of the chaos at the shootout to steal two diamonds. He uses the money to buy an apartment and a hair transplant.

Siobhan’s character creates confusion in the novel, as she is not who she purports to be. By posing as Poppy’s mother, she gains the trust of the Thursday Murder Club, ruling her out as an obvious suspect. Toward the novel’s end, Siobhan is exposed as Sally Montague, Douglas’s second wife, and Sue Reardon’s accomplice.

Patrice is Donna’s mother and Chris’s romantic interest. A teacher, she lives in London but stays with Chris during half term.

Sylvia’s character frames the novel. She is introduced in the Prologue and reappears in the concluding chapter. Sylvia is a volunteer for the charity Living With Dementia. Her significance to the novel only becomes apparent when we learn that her husband, Dennis, is “the man who died twice” (419). Sylvia has experienced a double bereavement as she lost her husband to dementia some time before his death.