57 pages • 1 hour read
Richard OsmanThe Thursday Murder Club
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Book Club Questions
Themes
Feminism: The Need to Prove Oneself
The women in The Thursday Murder Club are strong, and many of them are the reason that the murder case is able to be solved. Elizabeth holds power over almost everyone in the novel, having more connections and being owed more favors than even the police. Within the police force, women are also more formidable than their male counterparts. The phone logs, showing the mysterious number, are left unsolved until Donna discovers the connection to Jason, because of Jason objectifying her and pulling a stereotypical move of a man trying to get a girl’s phone number. While the strength of the women, and their obvious objectification by the men, is seen several times in the story, the true depth of the feminist lens lies in the need to prove oneself. There has always been a need for women to prove themselves as individuals and in the workplace.
There are two significant narrative threads that focus this: first, in the similarities between Penny and Donna when working at the police station, and second, in the narrative of Joyce and her desire to become more than what people assume she is. This reveals itself in her diary entries gushing over how exciting her life is getting, as well as the relationship with her daughter, who sees her mother as a new independent woman by the end. Both of the women suffered gender bias when it came to their lack of promotions; Penny’s struggles are explained to Donna by Elizabeth (186). Penny takes matters into her own hands, and without her promotion, she secretly proves to herself that she can solve the mysteries and overcome the failure of the justice system by taking care of the guilty herself. Although it is never proven if she killed more than one person, Elizabeth assumes she did. After meeting Penny, Donna felt a connection to her, another woman from the force, and she says to herself that solving the case is partly for Penny now. Donna dreams of being the one to solve the case—not because of her need to find justice, but because of her need to prove herself to the team and Chris.
Joyce’s narrative shows a different approach to having to prove oneself. She is seen by most as sweet and quiet, having lived a simple boring life with her husband for years until her passed. Her daughter feels that her mother’s move into the retirement home is simply the natural next stage of life at Joyce’s age. Joyce craves the life she imagines in her head, wanting to shed the image of the quiet introverted woman people seen her as. By the end of the novel, Joyce has changed, and her growth is obvious in the reaction from her daughter.
Ageism and Underestimating the Elderly
Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu says that “there is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent,” which is a phrase the police should have taken more seriously when it came to dealing with the residents at Coopers Chase Retirement. The Thursday Murder Club members use many tactics to figure out the murder cases; however, one of the most effective ones plays into the ageist ideals held by those younger than them. By using the assumptions put on their age, the group is able to manipulate those around them into doing things for them that shapes their ability to continue investigating the case. The Thursday Murder Club group was able to: place who they wanted on the police team investigating the murder, manipulate a detective into getting the information they wanted, and get away with any consequences of stepping over the line, all because of the way they were underestimated by those younger than them.
The chapters where Elizabeth and Joyce lie their way into speaking with Donna at the police station, and where Ron and Ibrahim work the other end of the plan with Chris back at Coopers Chase, show how easily the elderly manipulate the young. Elizabeth and Joyce are able to get into the back room and speak with Donna, through playing the role of an elderly woman whose purse was stolen. The moment the two are left alone in the room to wait for Donna, they drop the scared and weak act, with Elizabeth ending her tears and Joyce looking around in excitement. When Elizabeth promises to get Donna on the force, it seems impossible, but the way becomes clear in the chapter where Chris goes to visit Ron. Ibrahim is there and Ron is acting as if he is senile, taking on the mannerisms of someone that Chris pitied. Even though Ron was not acting this way before, Chris easily believes that it must be because of his old age and never questions it further. Neither of those attempts would have been successful if it were not for those around them underestimating the group’s intentions.
When walking into Joyce’s living room and being surrounded by the group on the couch in a way that makes him feel very uncomfortable, Chris is under the impression that they are doing this because they are trying to be kind. However, the Thursday Murder Club is doing it intentionally, hoping to make the detective so unnerved that he will give up the information they need without knowing he is doing it. He just assumed that this is customary seating when being hosted at the retirement home.
Eye for an Eye: The Justification of Murder
The question of justice versus morality comes in to play as an overarching theme for the duration of the novel. The characters carry out justice by taking it into their own hands and killing people because of the people they murdered. For three of the murders in the story—Tony, Gianni and the man Penny killed—all were done with the murderer having the goal of enacting revenge for someone innocent that was killed. The fact that many of the murderers get away with what they have done—Bogdan never being turned in, and John dying by suicide peacefully at home—has one asking themselves if perhaps their actions were justified.
Tony may have tried his best to start living a better life without crime, but he showed his true colors when thinking that he was going to kill Ian for firing him. Tony died before attempting it, but the man was still the same person he was before. When Jason recalls one of his nights with him, Tony had ordered the killing of a young boy who got mixed up with the wrong crowd, and then he ordered the murder of the cab driver who helped move the body. Bogdan killed Tony in revenge for his friend, feeling that in doing so, he had sought justice for something that the courts were unable to address. Seeking out justice is the same reason that Bogdan killed Gianni as well. Even though the murder happened years ago, the story describes how Bogdan told the victim that it was for his friend that he is being killed. For the most part, Bogdan is portrayed as a kind character; Elizabeth speaks fondly of him when he talks with her about the body he found, saying she imagines she would have been happy to have a son like that. Joyce, in her final diary entry, says how she believes that Bogdan killed Tony, but that she didn’t want to bring it up in case he got upset and didn’t finish her renovations.
Bogdan may be the main murderer of the story besides John, but he is not the villain, nor does it feel that the story is rooting for him to be brought to justice. Instead, the story plays out as if the villains are the ones who have been killed. Even with Penny and the skeleton of the man who killed his girlfriend, her actions—although morally wrong—felt acceptable because the boyfriend was a murderer himself. Once the reasoning behind the murders is explained, mostly by Bogdan to Stephan, it becomes apparent that those who were killed were not good people, nor were they people that others truly grieved. Joyce at one point says she was not sad Ian or Tony died. The story takes an alternate approach to most mystery narratives by not bringing the murderers to justice, because the true justice comes from the act of killing already guilty people.
Related Titles
By Richard Osman
