There is everything that die-hard lovers of this series of the Thursday Murder Club love in this book. An antiques dealer and friend of the group, Kuldesh Sharma, is killed over a missing shipment of heroin and this sets the group off on their next adventure. It involves rather more dead bodies than usual and I was surprised that the group had set up a trap to see which criminal was the last one standing which isn’t their normal modus operandi. However, they get there in the end and it is without the help of Elizabeth for most of the story.

A minor plot running through the book is the online romance that a newcomer to Cooper’s Chase is involved in and the amount of money he has sent ‘Tatiana’ to help her come and visit him. The group take over the account and send some fantastic emails back to her.

Secrets come out such as the love of Ibrahim’s life and how much Joyce misses Gerald but the main story is Elizabeth and Stephen’s dealings with dementia. Here, Osman is on top form with the descriptions of what is happening that are heart-rending and some quite serious reflections on life and love.

I loved the book. It isn’t quite as good as his others in terms of the murder plot but I would read it again for the writing about what dementia does to a relationship and how Elizabeth and Stephen deal with it. Even if Osman hadn’t said at the very end of the book that he was going to take a break in writing this series and try something else, you could guess from the direction of the plots.

I look forward to the new book but await with some eagerness for the next in this series after everyone is rested.