The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

 

So this reads kinda like a cozy mystery, which is a (sub)genre I jovially detest, but there's a strong whiff of something elegiac to it, and some undeniable charm. The idea that there are people in this retirement community with secrets and pasts and secret pasts is ... carried off well, as is whatever is going on with the actual police officers in the novel. There's more to it than this single novel, of course it's kicking off a series, and with all the people always coming in to the community it's easier to see this failing to unsuspend someone's disbelief than some series set in a village with a population of fifty-three people and twenty-two hundred sheep. I have no need to read more, but this was a reasonably pleasant read on an evening when my other plans fell through.