Coming into the book I was super excited, another chance for a trip through the creative mind of one of the UKs best loved authors. I have read all of the Thursday Murder Club and the previous We Solve Murders books and loved all of them. So I had had high hopes for the latest instalment. Which might have been a bit of an unfair starting point.

The story sees the return of the We Solve Murders trio of Steve, Amy and Rosie, this time waiting for a murder to come along to solve. The jeopardy comes in the shape of a dead body guard at the Italian villa of an international criminal. From this point, and a mysterious note found on the body, the WSM crew are on the case, with the mystery deepening the more they dig into it.

The premise and the set up of the story begins well but, for me, it loses its way as the investigation meanders along, asking questions and digger deeper into a plot that really didn’t interest me and which I felt didn’t have enough substance to it to justify the effort and energy the characters were putting into it.

I also felt the branch of criminality chosen for the story was just not convincing enough to warrant the violence and plotting that take place. It’s as if Osman decided to choose something that was criminal but not too criminal to keep things cozy.

I won’t spoil anything for those who are going to read this book, and people will in their millions, and rightly so. If this were a standalone book I’d maybe rate it higher but it just feels like a bit of a drop off from the usually high Osman standard.

We Chase Shadows