Richard Osman Books in Order

Richard Osman is the television quiz master who became the unlikeliest superstar in crime fiction: a 6ft 7in host whose debut novel about four retirees solving murders in a Kent retirement village became one of the fastest-selling crime debuts on record, whose first four novels spent years camped on the bestseller lists, and whose world has now reached Netflix with Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and Ben Kingsley in the film of book one. The order question here is friendly - two separate series, each read in order - but the trap is real: the Thursday Murder Club is now five books deep and quietly assumes its own history, while We Solve Murders, the globetrotting second series, has just published its second installment (2020–present).

Where to start

The Thursday Murder Club (2020), the debut - Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron at Coopers Chase, the book that started the cozy-crime boom. Fresh-start readers: We Solve Murders (2024) opens the second series with a clean cast. Do not start with The Impossible Fortune: it is the fifth chapter of a long-running story and knows it.

Does the reading order matter?

Two series, each strictly in order. The Thursday Murder Club runs The Thursday Murder Club (2020), The Man Who Died Twice (2021), The Bullet That Missed (2022), The Last Devil to Die (2023) and The Impossible Fortune (2025) - the four friends' lives accumulate, and the fifth assumes you know the run. We Solve Murders (2024) and We Chase Shadows (2026) are the second series, a globetrotting spin on the same cozy voice with its own cast, and can be started cold. The only rule that matters: never jump into the Club mid-shelf, because the jokes, the funerals and the body count all build on what came before. A sixth Thursday Murder Club novel is contracted for 2027.

Which one is the best?

The debut remains the phenomenon; The Man Who Died Twice is the fan favorite of the early run; The Last Devil to Die landed the most emotional ending; and The Impossible Fortune (2025) debuted at number one on both sides of the Atlantic - proof the machine still runs.

Related guides

Readers finishing this shelf usually want the map next door: Agatha Christie books in order, Janet Evanovich books in order, Lisa Jewell books in order. Every guide follows the same format — the shelf, the entry point, the honest answer about order.

Make it a project

Pick a session size and let the days accumulate — at the pace our reading speed test measures, most shelves above clear in a few weeks of half-hours. Every guide on the books in order shelf follows this same format, and when a book lands, its 8-question quiz is waiting on the original book quiz.