Movie review: The Thursday Murder Club

The Thursday Murder Club is based on a book by Richard Osman. Four retirees at the rather sumptuous Cooper’s Chase retirement home entertain themselves by technically solving cold case murders, as the eponymous Thursday Murder Club, until a real murder happens in their village. The murder of the property owner threatens their home as the property reverts to a co-developer. This nasty piece of work is intent on pulling down the wonderful old building and developing luxury apartments. Until he ends up dead too and it is discovered there is a third owner… The plot thickens. The police, while not exactly inept, find themselves obliged to accept the help of these enterprising OAPs, since they seem to know more than the police do. There are shoals of red herrings, loads of cosy murder tropes, and a wonderful script with top acting. It is a must-watch.

Fittingly, the movie arrived on my entertainment channel on Thursday, and I was eager to watch. Let’s talk about the setting. The retirement home boggles the mind. The only retirement homes I have ever seen are bland, okayish, not very deluxe outfits, but I am sure more luxurious ones do exist. The interior of Cooper’s Chase is positively palatial. It is like a giant Highclere on Laura Ashley steroids. Very English, lots of riotously patterned wallpaper, lots of ornaments, fireplaces, bookshelves, antiques, the works. The building itself is Englefield House in Berkshire, with some rooms ‘dressed’ for the filming, although the place is so gorgeous I have no idea what they would need to do. The adorable village with charming old buildings was filmed in the real-life village of Aldbury.

With top actors one can hardly go wrong and I am sure that this was a doddle for director Chris Columbus. Helen Mirren is Elizabeth, a sharp, driven, intelligent woman who one suspects worked for MI6. She did. Ron, who was a union leader, is played by Pierce Brosnan in a bluff, hearty manner. Ron is very sad that his son has ended up on TV entertainment like Dancing on Ice after an injury ended his stellar sporting career. I felt this casting was the only one that jarred. Brosnan is a good actor who is game for any part, but it did not work for me. Sir Ben Kingsley offers a lovely, detailed portrait of retired psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif. I just loved watching his expressions and gestures. He is a fine actor. Celia Imrie plays Joyce Meadowcroft, a retired nurse who is invited to join the club because she was a nurse and would know about blood and wounds. I’ve seen this actress play saucier, naughtier roles, so I was surprised she went for this simple part of a not very special person who is a dab hand at baking the most delicious cakes. However, watch for the scene where the sketching group are portraying a semi-nude male model of glorious proportions. In the film, the model is draped. In Joyce’s sketch, he is not….

The police. Not quite the Keystone Cops but Daniel Mays always bring an aura of hilarious and chaotic disarray to his policeman characters. Please watch The Magpie Murders…. In this movie, Mays is DCI Chris Hudson, rumpled, often confused, loves cake, and defers to his junior, the very competent PC Donna de Freitas ably played by Naomi Ackie. The remaining characters are well cast. The second property owner is played with maniacal nastiness and intensity by David Tennant. He is so awful (in a good way) that I was relieved to see him drop dead. Literally. A special mention must go to Jonathan Pryce as Stephen Best, Elizabeth’s husband, who is teetering on the verge of dementia with good days and bad days. What a beautiful, finely tuned performance. This proves the adage that there are no small parts…

I was captivated and transported into the fictional world of Fairhaven. Maybe it’s because the actors are such professionals that they made it seem easy. There are some hilarious scenes. Old people can be very funny. Old people are not the walking dead. They have life and vigour and likes and needs, just as they did when younger. It is a real eye-opener on senior citizens. A big plus for me is the total lack of wokery. I am so fed up with the UK production houses forcing an artificially conceived idea of demographics down an audience’s throat. Maybe the author got his way? The cast was honestly representative of British society. No men in dresses too, always a relief. No pink hair, no nose rings, and no one spouting on about feeling ‘fearful and unsafe’ etc. I can only imagine what Elizabeth would say to that. I’ve read several reviews that sneered at various aspects of this production, and they get it wrong. This movie is not pretending to be anything more than a cosy murder mystery with wonderful, relatable, realistic characters that anyone would just love. I will certainly be watching it again. And maybe even again…. Turn off your phone, make a cuppa, open a packet of biscuits and settle in for some serious sleuthing.

Is a Funding Campaign for Your Novel the Right Choice? by author Megan Michelle

 

 

Being the first female Navy SEAL is no easy job, but someone's got to dismantle the patriarchy. Rachel Ryker, call sign ‘Skylark,’ can outrun and outgun just about anybody, and with her second in command, Christopher Williams, by her side, she’s practically unstoppable. Christopher would follow Rachel to hell and back… or maybe just to the Middle East. When a top-secret malware code is stolen from the CIA, Rachel and Christopher lead their SEAL team through the Middle East in an attempt to recover it. They both have their own reasons for fighting, but as the team gets closer to finding the stolen malware, Rachel discovers that the man they're looking for may be closer to her than she thinks. Will Rachel’s obsession with completing their mission override her common sense and cause her to lose sight of what is really important- keeping women and children safe from the oppressive patriarchy they are all living in? With secrets, pride, and a strict no-fraternization policy keeping them apart, falling in love would mean sacrificing everything Rachel and Christopher have worked for. But when Rachel gets injured in combat, everything changes. Now Rachel will have to choose: does her devotion to the Navy outweigh her love for Christopher? Purchase a copy of Skylark on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Bookshop.org. You can also add this to your GoodReads reading list.

Is a Funding Campaign for Your Novel the Right Choice?

 When someone first suggested crowdfunding as a way to finance my novel, Skylark, I thought “Oh, this looks easy!” It’s . . . not. Crowdfunding can be a lucrative way to bring in cash, but it’s not for the faint of heart. Most authors who are successful at crowdfunding have an established audience. If you don’t, then you need to have very supportive friends and family. This isn’t the sort of thing where you simply post your project on a crowdfunding platform and passively wait. Selecting which platform you want to use is a project in and of itself. Then you need to create your page. I’m not the most technically skilled person so arguing with Canva and Adobe trying to get my images to be the correct size was a chore. I finally had someone help me.

Even before your project is posted, you need to market! Social media, email newsletter, however you launch and market your book, you need to do that for your crowdfunding campaign, too. The kicker is everyone knows what a book is. Not everyone knows what crowdfunding is. So, you need to educate your audience about the process then continuously remind them to pledge. At one point towards the end of my campaign, I was on the phone with friends and family who had said they would pledge walking them through what buttons to click.

You need to set an achievable goal because most platforms don’t give you any money unless you reach your initial goal. This is a tricky balance though, because if you can’t actually fund your project, but people have pledged, you’ll have to refund their money. I was fortunate enough to have saved money so that I could fund the printing and shipping of my books by myself. So, I used crowdfunding more as a way to do pre-sales and get some of the money up front. I set my goal at $500 and managed to raise just over $1500 which I put towards printing 1000 special edition copies of my debut novel, Skylark.

My main tips to be successful:

1.       Have an established audience or a solid group of people who you know for a fact will pledge.

2.      Spread the word far and wide and remind people constantly about what you are doing. This project may be the most important thing to you, but it’s not the most important thing to anyone else, unfortunately.

3.      Give yourself enough time. Don’t rush building your project page and give your campaign enough time that you won’t be stressed trying to get everyone you know to pledge.

4.      Really work out your math in advance. What is a reasonable, attainable goal? How much do you actually need to fund your project? (Don’t forget about shipping costs)! And consider how you’ll fund the project if you don’t bring in enough to fund the entire thing.

5.      Have fun!

 

About the Author

Megan Michelle writes dark romance for the fearless women who are ready to reclaim their power and confront the shadows of their past. Her stories blend the raw emotions of military life, the strength of feminism, and the passion of forbidden love, all while guiding readers on a journey of self-discovery and healing. Through dark romance, she explores the complexity of love, power, and identity. Her stories invite you to dive deep into the hearts of women who don’t just survive—they thrive, reclaiming their power and rewriting their stories on their own terms.

A Glimpse Too Far: The Backstory by Karen Charles

  

A Pulse-Pounding Thriller Filled with Menace, Betrayal, and a Race Against Time…

 

A terrifying gift. A government cover-up. And a past that won’t stay buried. Elouise thought she had left the past behind. After a tragic accident, she woke with chilling ability to see glimpses of people’s pasts and futures. She’s spent years trying to live a normal life. But when a powerful senator pulls her into a high-stakes game of deception and control, she realizes her gift is no longer a secret—it’s a weapon. And he intends to use it.

She must make an impossible choice: play his deadly game or risk everything to expose the truth. Danger closes in. Now, Elouise is running for her life, hunted by those who will do anything to silence her. Who can she trust? The boyfriend who swore to protect her? Or the man who wants to own her gift—at any cost?

A Glimpse Too Far is a pulse-pounding thriller filled with menace, betrayal, and a race against time. Will the truth be uncovered before it’s too late? To order your copy, visit Amazon and BookBaby.

Book Excerpt

The warmth of the car’s heater wrapped around Elouise as she gazed out the window, watching the snow clouds gather like thick cotton above. Her blond curls bounced with excitement as she tugged at her velvet dress, ensuring it was smooth and perfect for the performance. This was her moment—the Christmas musical, her solo.

Beside her, Crystal, her mom, adjusted her scarf and smiled, noticing the twinkle in Elouise’s bright blue eyes. “Are you ready, Sweetheart?”

“More than ready!” Elouise grinned, her smile wide and full of joy. The eight-year-old’s energy was contagious, even pulling a small chuckle from her dad, Edward, as he carefully parked the car in front of the school.

“Let’s get inside before we freeze,” Edward said, huddling close to the family as they stepped into the sharp wind that whipped around them. They hurried toward the gymnasium, hunching their shoulders against the cold. Christmas carols could already be heard drifting through the entrance doors, filled with the warmth of families gathering, waiting for the performance to begin.

Inside, the air was alive with holiday spirit. Elouise’s heart raced as the lights dimmed and the music began to play. She stood backstage, her hands clasped, waiting for her cue. When it came, she stepped into the spotlight, her curls bobbing with every movement.

Her voice rang out clear and strong, each note perfect. The audience was mesmerized. Elouise had that rare ability to bring a room to a standstill with the purity of her sound. She sang her solo flawlessly. When she finished, the applause was thunderous. Elouise beamed, her eyes shining as she took her bow.

Afterward, as they left the gym, fat snowflakes swirled down from the sky, transforming their world into a winter wonderland. Edward gently guided Crystal and Elouise to the car, his arms around them as they squeezed together. The drive home was tense. The roads were slick with fresh snow, and the wipers worked overtime to clear the windshield. Edward kept a firm grip on the wheel, navigating cautiously around the bends. Elouise sat in the back, still humming the songs from the musical, her voice soft as the snow that continued to fall heavily around them.

Suddenly, headlights pierced the snowy darkness. From around the bend, an oncoming car swerved out of control. Everything happened in a blur: metal scraping, tires screeching, and the world flipping upside down. The car rolled once or twice before coming to a crushing halt.

Sirens filled the air as firemen and paramedics swarmed the scene, pulling them from the wreckage. Elouise lay motionless, her eyes closed, her curls tangled and limp. The paramedics worked frantically as they loaded her into the ambulance. On the way to the hospital, her heart stopped.

– Excerpted from A Glimpse Too Far by Karen Charles, BookBaby, 2025. Reprinted with permission. 

A Glimpse Too Far: The Backstory 

The inspiration came straight from my own life. The final chapter of A Glimpse Too Far mirrors a profoundly personal experience my husband and I went through, though fictionalized in the broader context of the novel. We had gone to a summer gathering hosted by our mortgage broker at a beautiful lavender farm, an event that had always been lighthearted and joyful. That year, though, a moment of unexpected mystery changed everything.

There was a palm reader at the party, someone we approached more for fun than belief. But what she told us stayed with me, details she couldn’t possibly have known, and predictions that seemed too specific to ignore. We brushed it off at the time, but when one of her forewarnings came true two years later, our world turned upside down. What followed was a harrowing season of surgeries, setbacks, and learning to survive in ways we never imagined. I had to become a nurse, a caretaker, a source of strength when everything inside me was unraveling. But through it all, my husband and I held onto each other, our bond becoming something deeper and more resilient than it had ever been.

That’s where the heart of the story came from, not just the palm reading, but the journey that followed. The mystery. The endurance. The love that refused to let go. A Glimpse Too Far was born from that combination of strange coincidence and raw, lived experience. It’s fiction, yes, but its soul is real. Writing the book became a way to process, reflect, and ultimately share a story about the unseen forces that shape our lives and the courage it takes to face them together.

About the Author

Karen Charles is the author of Freeman Earns a Bike, a children’s book, and two thrillers based on true stories. Fateful Connections takes place in the aftermath of 9/11, and Blazing Upheaval takes place during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles and the Northridge earthquake. She has two businesses: a global company that trains international teachers to teach American English, and an Airbnb on a beautiful bay in Washington State, where she resides with her husband. Her latest book is the psychological thriller, A Glimpse Too Far.

Website & Social Media:

Website ➜ www.weaveofsuspense.com  

X ➜  http://www.x.com/karenra24229683 

Facebook ➜ https://www.facebook.com/karen.rabe.7/ 

Sponsored By:

Book Spotlight: Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea by Richard I. Levine

 

This is not just the story of a wounded warrior finally coming home to search for the love, and the world he abandoned twenty years before. It is also the story of a man who is seeking forgiveness and a way to ease the pain caused by every bad decision he’d ever made…

 

When they met in the fourth grade, it was love at first sight for Mitchell Brody and Jessica Ramirez. He was the freckle-faced kid who stood up for her honor when he silenced the class bully who’d been teasing her because of her accent. She was the new kid whose family moved to San Juan Island, Washington, from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and whom Mitch had thought was the most beautiful girl in the world.

She was his salvation from a strict upbringing. He was her knight in shining armor who had always looked out for her. Through the many years of porch-swinging, cotton-candied summer nights, autumn harvest festivals, and hand-in-hand walks planning for the ideal life together, they were inseparable…until 9/11, when the real world interrupted their Rockwell-esque small town life, and Mitch had joined the Marine Corps.

This is not just the story of a wounded warrior finally coming home to search for the love, and the world he abandoned twenty years before. It is also the story of a man who is seeking forgiveness and a way to ease the pain caused by every bad decision he’d ever made. It’s the story of a woman who, with strength and determination, rose up from the ashes of a shattered dream; but who never gave up hope that her one true love would return to her. As she once told an old friend: “Even before we met all those years ago, we were destined to be together in this life, and we will be together again, because even today we’re connected in a way that’s very special, and he needs to know about it before one of us leaves this earth.”

Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea is available at Amazon.

Book Excerpt

Jess gently and methodically caressed the fly rod and sent her hand-tied lure through the air with confidence and grace. Back and forth it sailed with effortless rhythm, as if it were a weightless feather being carried on a breeze. It was as if she had been a world-renowned conductor leading a philharmonic as the gentle sounds of woodwinds and strings flowed through her ear buds, no different than the crystal-clear water of the river as it flowed over a path that for time immemorial had been orchestrated by all that had come before it. Over the years she had mastered the art, not so much for the sport of teasing a steelhead or a rainbow trout onto the end of her line, but rather from the repetition of returning to the same little spot on the Clearwater, her favorite refuge. This was the very place where Mitch had introduced her to the melodic seduction of his most private collection of music. It was a playlist he had long guarded, a playlist that betrayed the commanding presence of his large muscular frame, his athletic prowess, and the simple way he had always looked at life.
Having first brought Jess to this place a month after the September 11th attacks, Mitch had arranged the weekend getaway after he had been presented with a no- win dare from his father to be as patriotic as Alex. When she’d learned of his enlistment, it had caught her off- guard. When he’d said basic training was twenty-four hundred miles away at Parris Island, she’d been speechless. But when he’d told her he was leaving in less than ten days, she’d struggled to catch her breath. As far as she had been concerned, South Carolina might as well have been another planet somewhere far beyond the stars that blanketed the black velvet nights of this pristine wilderness.
She had been overcome with emotion during that trip to the Clearwater River in Idaho. The crispness of the morning mountain air, mixed with the sounds of the crackling campfire and the rushing water just a few feet from their tent, had been a confluence of ingredients no master chef could have ever conceived. Jess had enjoyed every second of the experience until the sting of the news he was leaving was more numbing than the water itself. And while they both lost interest in the river’s offerings, the hours spent on the drive home were filled with tears, promises of fidelity, never-ending love, and a long life together tending to the small farm of their dreams. It was a dream they had carefully crafted during long secluded walks when even the innocent world of San Juan Island disappeared, and time seemed as if it would stop long enough for all the pieces to float seamlessly into place. Again, she drew back and set the custom-tied fly to flight and followed its arc before it kissed the water’s surface. In her mind, the only thing that ever landed more softly or with equal intent was the brush of Mitch’s lips across the back of her neck on those long summer evenings when counting fireflies had sparked dreams of the perfect life together.
Over the years, the river had become the special place where Jess could escape the pressures of the successful life she had carefully carved. Just being there enabled her to decompress, and to relive the weekend where she had surrendered to her long-suppressed desires, seducing the love of her life while simultaneously absolving him of any responsibility for having complied, albeit with little resistance. During their high school years there had been plenty of times he had taken her just short of that point of no return. And while his conscience would inevitably get the better of him, she had always hoped he would have forgotten that he was a gentleman. What she hadn’t realized at the time, was that their dreams and those promises would never come to fruition. What she could never let go of, however, was her need to make the yearly return to this place to resurrect that moment, as if continuing to do so would somehow or in some way ease her pain by keeping the possibility of that unfulfilled fantasy alive.
As she cast her line once more, she looked past the riverbank toward her tent, hoping as always that she could be transported back to the time when Mitch emerges from the warmth of their sleeping bag to watch how prolific she had become at his favorite recreational pastime. And just as she fell a little deeper into the warmth of his smile and his embrace, just as she placed her head against the memory of his chest and felt his heart beating strong and fast, she was abruptly pulled back to reality when her rod jerked with equal intensity, nearly being pulled from her hands just as the line snapped. 

– Excerpted from Driftwood on the Salish Sea by Richard Levine, KDP, 2025. Reprinted with permission. 

About the Author

 

Richard I Levine is a native New Yorker raised in the shadows of Yankee Stadium. After dabbling in several occupations and a one-year coast-to-coast wanderlust trip, This one-time auxiliary police officer, volunteer fireman, bartender, and store manager returned to school to become a chiropractor. A twenty-five-year cancer survivor, he’s a strong advocate for the natural healing arts. In 2006 he wrote, produced, and was on-air personality of The Dr. Rich Levine Show on Seattle’s KKNW 1150AM and after a twenty-five-year chiropractic practice in Bellevue, Washington, he closed up shop at the end of 2016 and moved to Oahu to pursue a dream of acting and being on Hawaii 5-O. While briefly working as a ghostwriter/community liaison for a Honolulu City Councilmember, a Hawaii State Senator, and volunteering as an advisory board member of USVETS Barbers Point, he appeared as a background actor in over twenty-seven 5-Os, Magnum P.I.s, NCIS-Hawaii, and several Hallmark movies. In 2020, he had a co-star role in the third season episode of Magnum PI called “Easy Money.” While he no longer lives in Hawaii, he says he will always cherish and be grateful for those seven years and all the wonderful people he’s met. His 5th novel, To Catch the Setting Sun, was inspired by his time in Hawaii. Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea is Levine’s first foray into the romance genre.

Website & Social Media:

Website ➜ http://www.docrichlevine.com  

X ➜ https://www.twitter.com/Your_In8_Power 

Facebook ➜ https://www.facebook.com/RichardLevineAuthor/ 

Instagram ➜ https://www.instagram.com/rilevinedc