Much of it was based on observations about growing old and being alone that made me smile. Some of the humour was laugh-out-loud funny. Those were certainly the things that I enjoyed most and which kept me reading to the end. The strength of the book is meant to be its humour and the engaging characters of the three amateur women who come together to solve the murder. For the most part, the plot moved along well enough but there were points, especially before the Great Insight and the Big Reveal where it dragged a bit. As one of the main characters points out, solving the murders is like solving a crossword puzzle filled with clues that sound like nonsense until you solve them and are then so obvious you wonder why you didn’t see them immediately. The plot also pushes the boundaries of the plausible but it does actually work. ‘The Marlow Murder Club’ has the same level of reality with the difference being it’s set in an imaginary Marlow rather than an imaginary Caribbean island. I’ve had lots of practice watching Peter Thorogood’s ‘Death In Paradise’ TV series. To enjoy it, I found that I had to imagine it as taking place in a parallel universe, one where the Police embrace and come to depend on the help of three civilians with no experience who insert themselves into the investigation rather than charging them with obstruction of justice and or investigating them as suspects. ‘The Marlow Murder Club’ is a cosy mystery that requires substantial suspension of disbelief.
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