Transcript
Welcome to Mystery Books podcast, where you’ll discover new mystery books and authors. I’m USA Today bestselling mystery author, Sara Rosett. I’m also a bookworm who specializes in the mystery genre. I love sharing my favorite mystery discoveries from classic golden age novels to contemporary cozies this episode is all about The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood.
It was published in 2021 in the UK and in 2022 in the US. It’s book one in the Marlow Murder Club series.
Blurb
Here’s the blurb: Nothing ever happens in Marlow. That is, until Judith hears her neighbor shot while skinny dippi
ng in the Thames. The local police don’t believe her story, so she decides to investigate for herself and is soon joined in her quest by two other women.
I’ll stop there because we’re going to talk about this a little bit more in depth.
The first line is, “Mrs. Judith Potts was seventy-seven years old and entirely happy with her life.”
So the Marlow Murder Club is a type of mystery that I’m seeing more of lately; it is an ensemble cast mystery. Which is a little bit different from the typical amateur sleuth mystery where you have a single protagonist with a sidekick and trying to solve a murder on his or her own. So this one is an ensemble cast. It’s got three women who work together with a female Detective Sergeant.
And I really enjoy these types of books. It’s a little bit different. The first one that I read, like this was the Thursday Murder Club, and I talked about that in an episode last season. I think it was season two, episode one. So if you enjoy this, you’ll probably enjoy that book as well.
Anyway. So it’s kind of a new, I think this is an upcoming trend: this ensemble cast and also that one of the characters is a little bit older. We’ve always had Miss Marple, who is a little bit older sleuth. And now I feel like we’re seeing more and more sleuths and mystery stories that are set in retirement homes or that’s one of the themes of the stories.
So let me talk a little bit about the main characters and the location. It’s set in Marlow in the UK, which is a real town in the UK. It’s not quite a village. It sounds like it’s a little bit bigger than that, but it’s apparently a very scenic and picturesque place that people like to go to and go hunting or canoeing on the Thames. And I think it’s some place that I would like to go. So it’s a perfect setting for an amateur sleuth. A light hearted cozy.
Judith lives there. She is an older sleuth. She is a crossword puzzle setter, which is a detail I really enjoyed. She creates these cryptic crosswords and sends them off to, I believe, her local newspaper. She is a fun character. I feel like she is like what you would think of a crazy, eccentric aunt. That she’s not worried at all what people think about her, and she’s very wealthy and kind of do what she wants. And she just is perfectly content being on her own.
So in the course of her investigation, she meets Becks, who is the local vicar’s wife, who is very concerned about what people think about her. She’s well off, but not as apparently as wealthy as Judith Potts. But Becks has an interesting kind of fun backstory. She was not always so straight laced and prim and proper. So she’s kind of got a fun back story and she’s trying to find out where the line is for her, where she can be herself and fulfill the role that she needs to fulfill as the vicar’s wife.
Then we also meet Susie, and she has a little bit rougher edges than Becks. Becks is always beautifully turned out and very interested in looking good and being slim and trim and healthy. And Susie is not like that at all. She’s described when we meet her as: she’s a dog walker. She is estranged from some of her family members. And the clothing that she’s wearing and the way she’s carrying herself, Judith looks at her and says, “She’s carrying herself almost like a pirate.” And she’s not as wealthy as Becks and Judith.
They’re not as well off. So we have a range of economic situations and a range of personalities, which is always fun. And there’s some fun dialogue between the three ladies as they investigate this crime.
Themes and Tropes
So let’s talk about the themes. One of the main themes of this that comes up several times is the invisibility of women of a certain age. So Judith experiences this the most. She is the oldest, and she said that she often feels as if she has a cloak of invisibility because of her age. And it’s funny because she also has an actual cloak that she wears. It’s described as giving her a look of almost like a superhero. So it’s funny to me that there’s the invisibility cloak that she feels as if she can’t be seen, and yet she has this physical cloak that gives her an air of being almost a superhero. And she does some incredible and interesting things. So I just love the way those two things played off of each other.
Another theme in this book is found family, another one that I love. It’s these three ladies coming together and kind of working together to solve this mystery. There’s a fourth lady in this mystery. She is the Detective Inspector, and she doesn’t have quite as big a role. And mostly her main role in the novel is to be irritated and annoyed, as most police are in amateur sleuth stories, with the amount of information that these ladies are discovering on their own. She does have a backstory, and I imagine in books further down the line, we’ll find out more about her and she may play an even bigger part.
Another theme in this is river life. And I’ve never lived in a city that is actually on a large river. But it’s interesting, the descriptions that we get of the people who live on the river, the hobbies that they have, like rowing, and they have canoes. And Judith swims in the Thames, like every day. It’s just an interesting look at this type of life. Also you have the beauty of the river, but then you also have allusions to the problems that come with living on the river. There’s floods, and there’s a business that’s been flooded every year for the last several years. So you see the beauty of it, but also the impacts of the negative sides of living on the river.
And then another theme in this is puzzles. Judith, she is 77 years old, but she still has a job. She is a puzzle setter (like S-E-T-T-E-R.) She creates crossword puzzles, and she creates cryptic crosswords. Here’s a description from the book, and I loved how succinct it was. It says, “Her clues had to have two halves: the literal clue on one side, the riddle on the other. And the two halves had to ultimately play fair with the solver, with the small caveat that if the clue was ingenious or witty enough, she was prepared on occasion to break the rules.”
I think that’s an excellent description of this, and it shows you how smart she was. And it’s an aspect of the book that I really liked because it’s not something that we see a lot of, but it’s a great metaphor for the mystery. And I think the description of this cryptic crossword is an excellent metaphor for Judith because she’s very intelligent, she’s smart, and she’s willing to bend the rules occasionally or maybe more than occasionally.
All right, so the tropes. We’ve already talked about the ensemble cast; it’s sort of the thing about bringing together a group of people. Sometimes it’s called the Band of Misfits. I don’t really think that these ladies are misfits, but they all have a distinct personality. And as they play off of each other and have different strengths and skills, you get to see that in action throughout the story.
One of the tropes in this is that there is an item left with the body. Or bodies, as you come to find out later.
There’s a cute animal in this. In this case, it is a Doberman pinscher named Emma. And so a light hearted mystery usually has an animal in it.
And then the other trope is the eccentric or elderly female sleuth. And Judith Potts is sort of an updated, Miss Marple. But she has a lot more access to people and ability to do things and go places than maybe Miss Marple did, just because our culture is different now. Miss Marple tended to rely on her knowledge of people, and also she would often use people who would go do things and come back and report to her in some of the books. Anyway, Judith Potts is very much a new take on Miss Marple, I would say. She works on staying healthy and active and she has a job, which is something a little bit different from Miss Marple. Okay. So that’s a little bit about the themes and tropes in this book.
Story Behind The Story
So next up would be the fun facts or the story behind the story. And the interesting thing about this book in this series is that it’s written by Robert Thorogood, and he’s the creator of the TV mystery series Death in Paradise. And he’s also the author of a series of books based on the detective from the very first episodes in that series; Richard Poole is the detective’s name. You can find those; those are called Death in Paradise, the series.
And I don’t know if there will be an adaptation of the Marlow murders. There might be. I would think that the chances of that would be really high since he’s already involved in television. So we’ll just have to wait and see on that.
Recommendations
All right. So some recommendations, some things that if you like this, some read alikes, and some things that if you enjoy, you might want to look for these other books.
If you like ensemble mysteries, I would say definitely check out The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osmond. Then I will link to the episode in season two.
There’s another book that I read recently by C. A. Larmer called Blind Men Don’t Dial Zero. And it’s set in Australia, and it has an ensemble cast, really interesting set up. Different group of people call together and compelled to investigate a mystery.
If you like the senior sleuth type aspect of this book, I would say look for The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax by Dorothy Gillman. It more has a spy espionage slant to it. Dorothy Gillman writes a really fun character in Mrs Pollifax. And a really enjoyable look at an older woman, sort of changing her life, taking a big turn in her life, I would say in these books.
There’s always, of course, Miss. Marple. If you haven’t read any Miss Marple, I would start with Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie. You just can’t go wrong with that one.
And then, of course, another sleuth. She’s not an elderly sleuth, but she is point where she’s retiring. She’s retiring early. And this is Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death by M.C. Beaton. And that is also an episode that we talked about in season one. I believe it was episode two.
If you enjoy women sleuths of a certain age, shall we say, then those might be good books for you to check out.
You can find me on Instagram @Sararosette, no H on Sara, and no E on Rosett. Or you can leave a comment in the show notes for this episode, which will be at sararosette.com/Marlowe.
I’d love to know if you like to read seniors sleuths, and if you do, who is your favorite?
Thanks to the publisher for sending an advanced review copy. All opinions are my own.
I hope this podcast has let you revisit a favorite book or perhaps helped you discover a new author to try. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, I hope you tell a fellow mystery reader. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
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