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You’ve read all five Thursday Murder Club books and you’re not ready to leave the genre. Or you’ve just finished the Netflix film and want something with the same DNA. Either way, you’re looking for the same combination: wit, warmth, an amateur detective who shouldn’t really be doing this, and a mystery that’s actually worth solving.
Here are ten books that deliver exactly that.
1. Agatha Christie — A Murder is Announced (1950)
The Thursday Murder Club is, in many ways, Richard Osman’s love letter to Christie, and A Murder is Announced is one of the best arguments for why Christie still matters. When a notice appears in the local paper announcing a murder will take place at a specific address, the whole village turns up, partly curious, partly for the tea and biscuits. Then the murder actually happens.
Miss Marple, like Elizabeth and the Club, is underestimated by everyone around her and more observant than any professional on the scene. If you haven’t read Christie, start here. Our full guide to the best Agatha Christie books covers where to go next.
2. Robert Thorogood — The Marlow Murder Club (2021)
This is probably the closest contemporary equivalent to the Thursday Murder Club in structure and spirit. Judith Potts is 77, batty in the best possible way, and completely certain she witnessed a murder, despite the complete disbelief of the police. She recruits a dog-walker and a vicar’s wife and the three of them investigate.
Written by the creator of Death in Paradise, it has the same warmth and the same unlikely-ensemble energy as Osman. The community feel is strong, the mystery is well-plotted, and the series has continued to build since the opener. A natural next read.
3. Louise Penny — Still Life (2005)
The Thursday Murder Club is funny and light. The Gamache series is warmer, deeper, and a little more serious, but the community spirit is the same. Three Pines is a tiny Quebec village where everyone knows everyone, and when murders arrive they’re investigated by the thoughtful, principled Chief Inspector Gamache, who is less interested in closing cases quickly than in understanding people fully.
The writing is a step above most of the genre. The series takes a couple of books to hit its stride, but Still Life is the right place to start, and once Three Pines gets its hooks in you, it doesn’t let go.
4. Alan Bradley — The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (2009)
Flavia de Luce is eleven years old, lives in a crumbling English manor house, and is obsessed with poison chemistry. When a dead body appears in the garden, she investigates.
She shares something important with Elizabeth Best: the utter conviction that she is the most competent person in any room, and the alarming ability to back that up. The 1950s English setting is gorgeous, the mysteries are properly clever, and Flavia herself is one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary crime fiction.
5. Jesse Q. Sutanto — Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (2023)
Vera Wong is a Chinese-American tea house owner who discovers a body on her premises and decides, entirely on her own authority, to investigate. Nobody asked her. She doesn’t care.
The same joy of watching an unstoppable personality override all reasonable objection is central to both books, Vera has the same self-appointed authority as Elizabeth, the same utter certainty that the police are doing it wrong. Funnier than Osman, and set in San Francisco rather than Kent, but the spirit is the same.
6. Alexander McCall Smith — The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (1998)
The gentlest mystery series on this list. Precious Ramotswe sets up Botswana’s only female detective agency, and the cases she takes on are more about people than about crime, missing husbands, suspicious neighbours, small-scale human puzzles that she solves through observation and wisdom rather than deduction.
The warmth is the whole point. If what you loved about the Thursday Murder Club was less the mystery and more the company of people you wanted to spend time with, this is the series for you.
7. Anthony Horowitz — Magpie Murders (2016)
A novel within a novel: a book editor reads a crime manuscript and realises the mystery in the fiction maps onto a real murder in the author’s life. Horowitz, also the author of the Hawthorne and Horowitz series and the authorised James Bond and Sherlock Holmes continuations, is one of the most technically gifted mystery writers working today.
This is a more cerebral read than Osman, less warm and more puzzle-box, but the same pleasure of watching a sharp mind work through a problem. For Thursday Murder Club readers who want a slightly more demanding mystery.
8. Nita Prose — The Maid (2022)
Molly the Maid finds a body in one of her hotel rooms and becomes the prime suspect. She is methodical, rule-bound, and sees the world differently from most people, which turns out to be exactly the right perspective for solving a murder.
The warmth here is similar to Osman’s, and the found family that gathers around Molly has the same quality as Coopers Chase. A gentler, more emotional read than most on this list.
9. Leonie Swann — The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp (2022, trans. 2023)
A group of retirees living together in a shared house called Sunset Hall find themselves investigating a murder. The cast is eccentric, funny, and deeply fond of each other in the spiky way that people who’ve been forced together for years often are.
Translated from German, and funnier in translation than most books are in their original language. The Osman parallels, retirees, found family, collective amateur detecting, a lot of dry wit about old age, are unmistakable.
10. M.C. Beaton — The Quiche of Death (1992)
Agatha Raisin moves to the Cotswolds expecting retirement and gets murder instead. She is difficult, self-aware about it, and entirely unable to stop investigating.
The Agatha Raisin series is more overtly comic than the Thursday Murder Club, and Agatha herself is less sympathetic than Osman’s quartet. But the village setting, the amateur detection, the running humour about the gap between how Agatha sees herself and how the village sees her, all of it will feel familiar.
Still Want More Osman?
If you haven’t finished the Thursday Murder Club series, our complete Richard Osman reading guide covers all five books plus the We Solve Murders series. His second series, faster, more globe-trotting, is another natural next step before you move to other authors entirely.
You Might Like
- Richard Osman Books in Order
- Best Cozy Mystery Books
- Best Agatha Christie Books Ranked
- Browse the Crime & Mystery Top 100
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