The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

 

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⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ The Man Who Died Twice — 3.5 Stars of Cozy Chaos, Corpses, and Curmudgeonly Charm

By Richard Osman

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⚠️ Spoiler Warning

This review contains FULL SPOILERS, including the entire ending. Proceed only if you’ve read the book or truly do not care about surprises (no judgment).

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🚨 Trigger Warnings

• Violence & murder (multiple shootings)

• Assault and robbery

• Organized crime / drug dealing

• Dementia & cognitive decline

• Death of elderly characters

• Emotional manipulation & betrayal

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📚 Overview

The Man Who Died Twice is the second installment in The Thursday Murder Club, written by Richard Osman.

Confession time: I didn’t love book one. Too many characters, too much hopping around, and my brain felt like it needed a whiteboard and color-coded sticky notes. BUT—I liked the mystery, I liked the humor, and apparently I enjoy mild literary suffering… so here we are again.

Good news: this one is better. Familiarity helps. Knowing the rhythm of Osman’s writing helps. Mentally preparing myself for narrative whiplash helps. I’m still not changing my rating for book one—sorry, not sorry—but I had a much better time here.

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🕵️‍♀️ What This Book Is About (Non-Spoiler Vibes)

The Thursday Murder Club—Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim—are back, still living in a retirement village and still far more dangerous than anyone expects. This time, the mystery kicks off when Elizabeth receives a letter from an “old colleague” who absolutely should be dead… except he isn’t. Or maybe he is. Or maybe he never existed in the first place.

Expect:

• Fake deaths

• Diamonds

• MI5 nonsense

• Retirement-home residents running circles around criminals

• A shocking amount of murder for a “cozy” mystery

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🧠 Structure & Style

The story alternates between:

• Joyce’s first-person diary entries (still delightful, still sneakily insightful)

• Third-person chapters jumping between multiple characters

Is it busy? Yes.
Do you need to keep track of a lot of people? Also yes.
Did I occasionally sigh and say, “Wait, who is THIS now?” Absolutely.

But the humor, warmth, and twists I genuinely didn’t see coming kept me engaged.

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🔥 FULL SPOILER PLOT SUMMARY (Here Be Dragons 🐉)

The Thursday Murder Club is minding its business when Elizabeth Best receives a letter from Douglas Middlemiss, an MI5 agent who technically never existed and was supposedly killed years ago using someone else’s body. Casual.

Douglas reveals he stole £20 million worth of diamonds, originally belonging to New York mafioso Frank Andrade, via middleman Martin Lomax. His life is now very much in danger, and he wants Elizabeth’s help getting to Antwerp to sell the diamonds and disappear.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim is violently robbed and beaten by a young thug named Ryan Baird, leaving him shaken and withdrawn—one of the most emotionally impactful threads in the book. Police officers Chris Hudson and Donna de Freitas can’t prove Ryan’s guilt, so the Thursday Murder Club does what it does best: creative justice.

Elizabeth agrees to help Douglas in exchange for information on Ryan. Through an elaborate scheme involving Bogdan, Ron, and planted cocaine, Ryan is arrested. Justice—Thursday Murder Club style.

Douglas is moved to a safe house in Hove with his handler Poppy, but when Elizabeth and Joyce arrive, both are found shot dead, faces destroyed. Or… so it seems.

Clues pile up:

• A locket with a mirrored clue

• A dead-letter drop letter hidden in a tree

• A mysterious locker at a train station

• CCTV footage revealing Poppy’s mother, Siobhan, stealing something before the murders

Elizabeth deduces that the locker number 531 reversed to 135 hides the diamonds. The club retrieves them and stashes them safely.

A final confrontation is engineered between Martin, Andrade, and drug dealer Connie Johnson, which ends in absolute chaos:

• Andrade shoots Martin

• Connie shoots Andrade

• Police arrest Connie and Ryan

But the real twist?
Sue Reardon, an MI5 agent, was Douglas’s lover. When she realized Douglas still loved Elizabeth—and planned to betray her—she orchestrated his death, killing both Douglas and Poppy herself.

Sue’s last gamble fails when Bogdan neutralizes her hired guns, and she’s shot and arrested.

In the end, Elizabeth sells the diamonds in Antwerp and anonymously donates the money to Living With Dementia, giving the book its true emotional core and meaning behind the title.

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🧡 Final Thoughts

• Still a lot of characters

• Still busy

• Still occasionally overwhelming

BUT:

• The mystery is clever

• The twists actually work

• The humor lands

• The emotional beats hit harder

This series might never be my all-time favorite, but I’m officially invested enough to keep going. Consider me cautiously charmed.

⭐ 3.5 out of 5 stars

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📖 If You Liked This, Try These

• The Thursday Murder Club — Richard Osman

• Magpie Murders — Anthony Horowitz

• The Marlow Murder Club — Robert Thorogood

• An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good — Helene Tursten

• Still Life — Louise Penny