Created by Richard Osman
With his mega-successful Thursday Murder Club series on pause, the best-selling author in 2024 to try out a new detective team, a father and daughter combo, in the frothy We Solve Murders.
AMY WHEELER is a hot shot British security specialist working for London-based Maximum Impact Solutions. Amy’s married, no kids, to Adam, who does “something or other” with money. She’s an action junkie who’s been all over the world on assignment, and she’s more than a little high-strung. She laments that she hasn’t shot anyone in a while.
Her father-in-law, Adam’s dad, STEVE WHEELER has no such problem. A former London cop and widower living in the sleepy, quinessentially English village of Axley, his life is good. He devotes his time to trivia night at The Brass Monkey, sitting on his bench in the park (which sports a brass plaque dedicated to his late wife), picking up litter on his strolls (damn tourists!) and doting on various cats in the neighborhood, including his own, Trouble. He still does the odd bit of P.I. work, just to keep his hand in, but he’s pretty much out of the game, and he doesn’t miss it at all. Nobody shoots at him; he doesn’t have to shoot anybody.
Still, he chats with Amy almost every day, living vicariously through her adventures. Amy and Steve are close, closer in fact than either is with Adam.
Amy’s currently playing bodyguard to the stars on a small private island off the coast of South Carolina. Or at least one star: glamorous, eccentric best-selling romance writer Rosie D’Antonio (the world’s best-selling novelist “if you don’t count Lee Child”) who seems to have pissed off a Russian oligarch. It’s a snooze, Amy figures. A slam dunk assignment. Bo-ring.
And then a dead body and a bag of money are found on a yacht. Amy sends Steve an SOS, and calamity (and hilarity) ensue, as the action (Shootouts! Assasins! Drug dealers! Money launderers! Social media influencers! Private jets! Helicopters!) bounces around the globe (South Carolina! Saint Lucia! Dubai! Ireland! Axley!).
Still, Amy and Steve (joined by Rosie) make for a formidable and entertaining team. Sure, the bodies drop like flies, but there are plenty of chuckles along the way, and at the end, the trio decide to start up a new agency called… what else?… We Solve Murders.
I figure if you enjoy Stephanie Plum or television’s Only Murders in the Building, you’ll get a hoot out of this one. And the next one. And the next one…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Osman is a British author and television host. His novels The Thursday Murder Club, The Man Who Died Twice, The Bullet That Missed, and The Last Devil to Die, were all number one, million-copy international bestsellers. He lives in London with his wife, Ingrid, and Liesl the cat.
NOVELS
- We Solve Murders (2024) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- I Could Be Your Bodyguard (Hey!)
Personal Security Specialists
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
