Books like The Thursday Murder Club, matched to what you actually loved
First, the obvious: Richard Osman has five Thursday Murder Club books and a second series, so The Man Who Died Twice through The Impossible Fortune and We Solve Murders are your real next step, with his next book, We Chase Shadows, out 10 September 2026. Once you’re through those, the three best picks are Three Things About Elsie (the closest literary cousin to Coopers Chase, on no other list), The Marlow Murder Club (more of the exact same shape) and Magpie Murders (the puzzle at its purest). Full picks below, sorted by which part you loved. Last verified 31 August 2026.
Describe what you loved about The Thursday Murder Club in your own words
The Thursday Murder Club started a cosy-crime gold rush, and the standard recommendation lists are wall to wall with the clones it inspired. So this page does something different. What made Osman’s book special is that it fuses two things that almost never appear together: the comfort of a gentle village whodunit, and real, unsentimental feeling about ageing, memory and mortality. The clones deliver the first half and none of the second. So the genre picks here are the reliable best of the cosy shelf, and the genuine discoveries are literary novels about older lives that the cosy-crime lists never look at, because they aren’t shelved as crime. The trade-off is flagged on every pick: the cosiest books here have the least weight, and the most affecting ones are not cosy at all. Getting that wrong is how a reader gets hurt by a good book, so tone comes first on this page. No spoilers for anything.
If you loved the puzzle
1. Magpie Murders, Anthony Horowitz (2016)
well-known comp · golden-age homage · clever, not warm
A whodunit built inside another whodunit, honouring and dissecting the classic English mystery at once. The purest puzzle pleasure on this list. Differs: colder and more meta than Osman, with the ingenuity carrying more than the characters.
2. The Appeal, Janice Hallett (2021)
well-known comp · epistolary mystery · clever, community-driven
Told entirely through emails and messages, with an amateur-dramatics community and a crime you assemble yourself from the correspondence. Differs: ingenious rather than warm, and it asks you to do the detective work, which is either the appeal or the homework.
If you loved that they're all over seventy
3. Killers of a Certain Age, Deanna Raybourn (2022)
well-known comp · comic thriller · fun, punchy
Four older women written as competent, funny and lethally underestimated. The don't-write-us-off energy, turned up. Differs: they're retired assassins, so it's an action thriller, not a village whodunit.
4. The Windsor Knot, S.J. Bennett (2020)
well-known comp · cosy mystery · witty, light
An 89-year-old amateur sleuth quietly out-thinking everyone around her, and the sleuth is Queen Elizabeth II. Differs: the royal setting carries it more than character depth, and it's gentle to the point of weightless.
5. Elizabeth Is Missing, Emma Healey (2014)
under-listed pick · literary fiction · tender, devastating
The literary counterpart no cosy list carries: an 82-year-old woman with dementia doggedly investigating her friend's disappearance, refusing to be dismissed by anyone. It won the Costa First Novel Award, and it takes the underestimated-older-sleuth idea somewhere real. Differs, and read this first: it is the heavy end. An unflinching portrait of dementia with the mystery as its vehicle. The best book on this axis and the least cosy thing on this page.
If you loved the voice
6. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith (1998)
well-known comp · gentle mystery series · warm, humane
An amateur detective you'd want as a friend, solving cases with wisdom, tea and good humour. The exact register of warmth Osman works in. Differs: Botswana rather than an English village, even gentler, and the mysteries often come second to character.
7. The Quiche of Death, M.C. Beaton (1992)
well-known comp · comic cosy · sharp, farcical
A prickly, funny woman blundering into amateur detection in a Cotswolds village. The comic English cosy Osman inherited. Differs: broader and more farcical, with none of the underlying poignancy. Pure comfort food, and there are over thirty of them.
If you loved the gang and Coopers Chase
8. Still Life, Louise Penny (2005)
well-known comp · village mystery series · warm, humane
Three Pines is the village you'd move to if not for the murders: a tight, caring community and a series that values kindness as much as cleverness. Differs: a professional detective leads it, and the series darkens as it goes.
9. The Marlow Murder Club, Robert Thorogood (2021)
well-known comp · cosy crime · light, warm
The closest structural twin on any list: a trio of amateur sleuths in a picturesque English town, solving crimes to the local police's irritation. If you want more of the same shape, this is it. Differs: it delivers the format more than the emotional undertow, which is the honest note on the whole clone wave it leads.
10. The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, Joanna Cannon (2016)
under-listed pick · literary fiction · warm, poignant
A whole community rendered with real warmth and a gentle mystery at its heart: a 1976 cul-de-sac, a vanished neighbour, and two amateur sleuths turning over the street's secrets. Community-as-character done better than most crime novels manage. Differs: the sleuths are ten years old, so it carries the warmth and the mystery but not the older-protagonist hook, and it's a slower, character-first read.
If you loved the heart underneath
The thing that made this more than a cosy, and where the real discoveries live.
11. A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman (2013)
well-known comp · up-lit · gruff then tender
An older protagonist, an accidental found family, and comedy sitting directly on top of grief and loneliness. The warmth-over-sorrow blend, minus the crime. Differs: not a mystery at all, more sentimental than Osman, and a one-man story rather than an ensemble. We’ve matched it axis by axis on another page too.
12. Three Things About Elsie, Joanna Cannon (2018)
under-listed pick · literary fiction · bittersweet, tender
The closest literary cousin to Coopers Chase in print: 84-year-old Florence in a home for the elderly, a lifelong best friend, and a decades-old secret stirred up by a new resident who looks exactly like a man who died sixty years ago. The retirement community, the elderly friendship, and the mystery with a heart, all in one book. Differs: bittersweet literary fiction rather than comic crime. The mystery is guessable and the pleasure is the ache, not the puzzle.
Where all of this comes from
13. The Murder at the Vicarage, Agatha Christie (1930)
the ancestor · golden-age classic · dry, sharp
Miss Marple: the elderly villager everyone underestimates, quietly solving what the professionals can't, in a community full of secrets. Every book on this page descends from her, and Osman is consciously writing in her tradition. Reading her is reading the source code. A Murder Is Announced (1950) is the other perfect entry point.
The honest bit
Sort by tone before you buy, because on this page it matters more than anywhere. Cosy and comforting, like the anchor’s surface: The Marlow Murder Club, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, The Quiche of Death and The Windsor Knot. Clever and puzzle-forward: Magpie Murders and The Appeal. Bittersweet and literary, the depth without the comfort: Three Things About Elsie, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and A Man Called Ove. And heaviest of all, Elizabeth Is Missing, which is the best book here and the one most likely to blindside someone who wanted comfort. The two Joanna Cannon novels and Elizabeth Is Missing deal directly with dementia, which is said plainly in their entries because it’s said nowhere on the covers. Matching the book to what you actually wanted is this page’s whole job.
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Questions
Will there be a Thursday Murder Club 2 film?
Netflix hasn't announced one yet. The first film drew 24.7 million views in its opening weekend in August 2025, the sequels are optioned, and director Chris Columbus and the cast have all said they want to continue, but as of August 2026 no sequel has been officially greenlit. The next book would be The Man Who Died Twice. We'll update this when it's confirmed.
What is Richard Osman's next book?
We Chase Shadows, out 10 September 2026, the second in his We Solve Murders series. There are five Thursday Murder Club books so far, the most recent being The Impossible Fortune from September 2025, and no sixth has been announced yet.
What should I read after The Thursday Murder Club for the same feeling?
For the same shape, The Marlow Murder Club is the closest structural twin. For the heart underneath the humour, Three Things About Elsie is the nearest thing to Coopers Chase in literary fiction, with the honest warning that it trades the comedy for the ache. And everything here descends from Miss Marple, so The Murder at the Vicarage is where the whole genre began.