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The Man Who Died Twice (by Richard Osman)

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The Man Who Died Twice (by Richard Osman)

Introduction to Richard Osman’s new book “The Man Who Died Twice” 

Have you ever wondered what Richard Osman is doing with his computer on Pointless? Well, he is obviously writing novels! His second “The Man Who Died Twice” is a cracker. In fact, I would go to say it is better than the first (The Thursday Murder Club)! Great writing, classic Osman dialogue and a touch of the Da Vinci Code thrown in for good measure. The old gang is back with more murders to solve and new characters to enjoy.

His second book (in the series?) involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, MI5, a canny ex-husband and a series of murders. Even though the body count piles up, this is a gentle, very British novel.

Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron (members of the Thursday Murder Club) in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. If they secure the diamonds what will they do with them?

They are up against an enemy – or enemies – who are ruthless killers and the Thursday Murder Club are in the firing line! Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?

We are briefly introduced to Elizabeth’s ex-husband who is a lady’s man and has procured the diamonds with a cunning plan! He leaves clues to the whereabouts of the diamonds after his violent(all done in the best possible taste) demise. But is he dead? The clue might be in the title!

Witty Dialogue and Humourous Observations on The Man Who Died Twice

The Osman humour is evident from the start:

“I was talking to a woman in Ruskin Court and she said she’s on a diet,” says Joyce, finishing her glass of wine. ‘She’s eighty-two!’‘

“Zimmer frames make you look fat,” says Ron. ‘It’s the thin legs.“

‘Why diet at eighty-two?’ says Joyce. ‘What’s a sausage roll going to do to you? Kill you? Well, join the queue.”

The banter continues throughout the book:

“You ever dealt with the mafia?” asks Vic. The mafia? Well this is getting interesting.

Connie shakes her head. “I tried to cancel Sky Sports once, that’s the closest I’ve got.”

His main four characters are a delight and their foibles are constantly presented in the best possible taste. You have to love them. Joyce struggles with modern technology just like many septuagenarians! Here is an example: She sent me a message, and the message ended with emojis of a poppy and a daisy, which was very moving. I sent one back, telling her we would still like to see her, and I tried to add a poppy and a daisy to that too, but I pressed the wrong thing and sent a poppy and a Christmas tree instead.

We discover more about the love lives (or lack of in the case of Donna) of the Fairhaven police detectives Chris and Donna. For example, we learn of Donna’s encounter with a driving instructor:

Donna having very disappointing sex with a driving instructor. She had also made the mistake of telling her mum and Chris about it, and they had a field day. Mum had made a number of jokes about his gearstick, and Chris had said, ‘Did he look in his mirror before pulling out?’

Unfortunately, the novel has to end even if you try and stretch it out! Richard has a neat ending with the diamonds, and you can feel good! So enjoyable – bring on the next one!

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Pre-Order here

More about Richard Osman

Richard Thomas Osman (born 28 November 1970) is an English comedian, producer, television presenter, writer, and the creator and co-presenter of the BBC One television quiz show Pointless. He is the writer of the million-copy selling 2020 novel “The Thursday Murder Club”.

Here is Richard Talking about The Man Who Died Twice

Transcript of Richard Osman interview about The Man Who Died Twice:

“Richard Osman here and I’m here to talk all about my second novel The man who died Twice as to follow up to The
Thursday Murder Club.
Tell us someone who we will meet in the new book.
There are two brilliant new villains in this book if I do say so myself. We meet a young drug dealer called Connie Johnson who’s the queen pin of the Fairhaven drug scene and quite apart from her day job she has the hots for one of our main characters and I think you’ll enjoy how that relationship develops and we also meet probably the evilest man in the world man called Martin Lomax who has a huge house out in the Hampshire countryside and he’s got a lot of extraordinary
things in that house for a very good reason you’ll discover what his job is and it’s a sort of job probably you’ve never heard before but it’s interesting I would say but he’s very very bad.
Tell us a place we’ll go
Well, interestingly I’ll tell you two places we’ll go.  One for various reasons we find ourselves in an interrogation room and an incredibly secret interrogation room in MI6. I can’t tell you who’s being interrogated or by whom but rest assured some of our favourite characters find themselves in that room. We also go down to Hove where there is a safe house – MI6 safe house – and these safe houses are all up and down the country. You never know they exist on suburban roads and that’s the case with this one but something very very dramatic happens in this safe house. I’d go so far as to say maybe it wasn’t such a safe house after all.
Tell us something to look out for
Well listen quite apart from Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Abraham – the Thursday murder club – there’s Chris and Donna the cops from the first book return. Now at the very end of the first book, Donna introduces Chris to her mum Patrice. She thinks they’ll get on and something to look at from the second book is they do get on rather well so that’s something that you can follow during that book. I mean fingers crossed for Chris I’d like a nice thing to happen for him.

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