Death Comes to Marlow - bookrastinating.com

Paperback, 288 pages

Published April 3, 2023 by Poisoned Pen Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-7282-5054-0

Second book of the Marlow series. It’s been an enjoyable and murder-free time for Judith, Suzie and Becks – AKA the Marlow Murder Club – since the events of last year. The most exciting thing on the horizon is the upcoming wedding of Marlow grandee, Sir Peter Bailey, to his nurse, Jenny Page. Sir Peter is having a party at his grand mansion on the river Thames the day before the wedding, and Judith and Co. are looking forward to a bit of free champagne.

3 editions

jonn reviewed Death Comes to Marlow by Robert Thorogood

I'm biased because I have been to Marlow many times and it would have been four stars if not locked room mistery, I am not a fan

4 stars

I liked it!

I can't give it less than three stars because the writing is great, the clues are fun and the characters are delightful!

Also, a highlight was how easy it was to traverse in the mind's eye the layout of the manor. The author doesn't flood with excessive amount of rooms and is very focused and iterative in how he presents it. As opposed to some Ellery Queen books where you literally have to chart the whole thing on a piece of paper. Even the amazing Hemlock Bay would be virtually unreadable should I not have charted the map of the bay in a notebook.

@james@bookrastinating.com compares Marlow Murder Club to the Osman's books, but I found this particular one more likeable and while I agree that the first Osman's book is significantly better than this one, I have a feeling that Osman is a …

I liked it!

I can't give it less than three stars because the writing is great, the clues are fun and the characters are delightful!

Also, a highlight was how easy it was to traverse in the mind's eye the layout of the manor. The author doesn't flood with excessive amount of rooms and is very focused and iterative in how he presents it. As opposed to some Ellery Queen books where you literally have to chart the whole thing on a piece of paper. Even the amazing Hemlock Bay would be virtually unreadable should I not have charted the map of the bay in a notebook.

@james@bookrastinating.com compares Marlow Murder Club to the Osman's books, but I found this particular one more likeable and while I agree that the first Osman's book is significantly better than this one, I have a feeling that Osman is a cookie-cutter cheap thrills guy, and probably votes for Tories!

I won't bother to find the quote of the book, but I'll say that — the author is aware of the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies, which was very nice to see.

james reviewed Death Comes to Marlow by Robert Thorogood

Irrelevant Olive Oil

3 stars

I started reading Thorogood’s first of this series once I’d devoured all of Richard Osman’s available books in the Thursday Murder Club series. OAPs solving murders? Well, tie me to the Typewriter and call me Angela Lansbury, we’ve got crimes to solve.

If I was to directly compare the Marlow series to the Thursday series, it does pale in comparison. I laugh my arse off at Richards work, but Robert just leaves me with a “that was nice, seeing the gang back together”. The gang being Judith, Becks and Suzie; three very different women in three different stages of life. They’re a nice awkward trio but they didn’t make me love them as much as I did in the first of the series.

The plot this time was… a plot. I was happy to go along to find out about the Olive Oil but then it turns out …

I started reading Thorogood’s first of this series once I’d devoured all of Richard Osman’s available books in the Thursday Murder Club series. OAPs solving murders? Well, tie me to the Typewriter and call me Angela Lansbury, we’ve got crimes to solve.

If I was to directly compare the Marlow series to the Thursday series, it does pale in comparison. I laugh my arse off at Richards work, but Robert just leaves me with a “that was nice, seeing the gang back together”. The gang being Judith, Becks and Suzie; three very different women in three different stages of life. They’re a nice awkward trio but they didn’t make me love them as much as I did in the first of the series.

The plot this time was… a plot. I was happy to go along to find out about the Olive Oil but then it turns out it was a red herring. The actual setup for the murder was… ridiculous, tbh. I wasn’t satisfied, though the author did do okay on misdirecting me most of the time from the real killer.

This was a book, it had a plot, there was a conclusion. I’ll read the next because I do like the gang but, I won’t be desperate for the next chapter in the story.