Positivei (UK)The Man Who Died Twice...is at once a sequel but also ostensibly the same book, boasting most of the same characters, and many of the same jokes ... Osman, confident in his abilities now, gleefully throws everything into the mix ... It seems superfluous to point out that much here is frivolous and a little ridiculous, because Osman was never after credulity so much as escapist fun in the first place. Only a curmudgeon would deny that The Man Who Died Twice is just that: jolly and silly – in fact, jolly silly – but it’s not quite all caper ... His elderly characters are increasingly three-dimensional, not two, and he doesn’t flinch from their frailties ... It is these scenes that give the book, which is sometimes a little too knockabout, an emotional heft, something you hope Osman might build on if, as seems inevitable, the Thursday Murder Club returns again and again.
William Boyd
PositiveiNews (UK)At first sight, Trio seems conspicuously underwhelming ... Boyd is very much in domestic mode here ... the whole thing purrs along with such effortlessness that you are barely aware of the engine working underneath ... There is much attention to period detail, a lovely portrait of the 60s British film world, and Boyd’s characters live, breathe and bruise vividly. All of this makes for a novel as charming as it is satisfying, a pleasure to read.
