Overall, the real strength of these books is that they are genuinely funny. It is a truism that people who aren’t funny think that writing funny books is easy. To wear it as lightly as Osman does is a gift; these books read like champagne ... Not all fantasies will or should come true, but Osman’s is so terribly beguiling.
Another madcap mystery ... The murder club books are not really about crime but about friendship and finding ways to stay involved in life, even if that means — as it does here — a missing cache of heroin and an alarmingly high pile of corpses with bullet holes in their heads.
Osman is a versatile writer. He can do comedy, pathos, pace, plot and social observation. His brevity is commendably ruthless. Usually, four books into a run this successful, each volume would get bigger and flabbier as the editors lose the nerve to cut. Perhaps Osman succumbs slightly to indulgence this time, moralising a bit about assisted dying, but it’s a minor transgression ... The plot and character are advanced and smiles and sadness are offered in just a few hundred words of virtuoso prose ... He is that rare combination, a highly intelligent man well attuned to popular taste and sufficiently confident (and unsnobby and hard-working) to provide the harmless fantasies people wish to enjoy. Good luck to him.
Even better than the previous installments. All have been monster bestsellers, record-breakers, and this one will join them, and it is wholly and entirely deserved ... Osman certainly has a remarkable ability to write a narrative with multiple points of view. As usual, his dialogue is pin-sharp – each person is distinct and has their own voice, and none of them, amazingly, resembles the author himself in the slightest ... Moving and beautiful and has the feeling of something real and lived.
Emotional ... Offers more than the tightly plotted mystery that readers have come to expect from Osman’s work ... Equal parts well-plotted mystery, scintillating repartee and deep reflection on what it means to love and live.
The characters feel a bit more quickly sketched than usual, though the strands of the plot multiply entertainingly and get tied together in the usual satisfying way ... Another delightful mystery even if he's not at the top of his game.
