Clara’s Verdict
I started this one on a Saturday morning with a pot of tea and no particular plans, which turned out to be precisely the right conditions. The Marlow Murder Club is Robert Thorogood’s attempt to apply the DNA of Death in Paradise, the BBC series he created, to a cosy British crime novel, and it works considerably better than such a transfer has any right to. Part of that success is structural: Thorogood understands that cosy crime lives or dies by its central detective, and Judith Potts is formidable.
Judith is seventy-seven years old, lives alone in a faded mansion by the Thames in Marlow, sets crosswords for The Times, and there is no man in her life to tell her what to do or how much whisky to drink. That last detail is doing real work. Thorogood is explicit that Judith’s eccentricity is not the charming dotty-old-lady variety but something more genuinely autonomous, a woman who has reached a point in her life where she has simply stopped performing propriety. When she witnesses a murder while skinny-dipping in the Thames one evening and the local police decline to believe her, her decision to investigate herself feels entirely in character rather than contrived.
The novel has been adapted for ITV with Samantha Bond, Jo Martin, and Cara Horgan, and a third series is due in 2026. That level of success reflects something real about the book’s quality, but I would argue the audio version offers pleasures the television adaptation cannot fully replicate, particularly in the interiority of the three central characters and the specificity of the Marlow setting.
About the Audiobook
This is Book 1 of a series that now runs to multiple instalments, meaning the commitment of 9 hours and 47 minutes is really an investment in a larger ongoing relationship with these characters. Published by HQ in January 2021, the audiobook carries a 4.3-star average from 17 Audible ratings. The rating count is modest, which suggests the audience for this audio edition skews towards listeners who found the book through the television adaptation rather than audiobook-native discovery. The print readership is substantially larger and more vocal.
The plot is tidily constructed. A second murder follows the first, raising the stakes from an unexplained death to what appears to be a serial killer operating in this apparently comfortable English market town. Judith recruits two unlikely companions, and the ensemble she builds is the novel’s real achievement: three women of different ages and backgrounds, forced together by circumstance, who discover they are collectively better at detection than any of them would have been individually. The Marlow setting, all grand houses by the water, a community built on studied eccentricity and impeccable manners, provides both the atmosphere and several of the plot’s essential clues.
The Narration
Nicolette McKenzie is the right choice for this material. She has a warm, unhurried quality that suits the cosy register without sacrificing clarity or energy. Judith’s acerbic wit lands consistently, which is not as straightforward as it sounds: the comic timing required for an elderly character whose best jokes arrive with perfect deadpan gravity is a genuine technical challenge, and McKenzie handles it well. The secondary characters, including Judith’s two companions and the various suspects and witnesses, are sufficiently differentiated without being broadly performed. McKenzie does not milk the comedy for effect; she trusts the material, which is exactly what Thorogood’s writing requires. The result feels like listening to an experienced, engaged reader who genuinely enjoys the story.
What Readers Say
Excellent addition to the burgeoning cosy crime genre (5 stars, Cameron Cullen): « A mixture of different personalities join forces, including a retired judge and a former Scotland Yard detective. It goes without saying that the recipient was delighted. »
Excellent cosy murder mystery (5 stars, Ian): « I’d heard good things about this series and being a lover of Death in Paradise, I had high hopes. It took a bit of getting into, although I find that is often the case in the first book in a cosy murder series when you don’t know the sleuths. »
A delightful intro to murder (3 stars, Kindle Customer): « Very enjoyable. Setting, posh scenic Marlow and grand houses by the Thames. A skinny dipping septuagenarian eccentric lady out for a swim hears a gunshot. »
Excellent bedtime reading (4 stars, angela riley): « Good characters, ideal bedtime reading, won’t give you nightmares. »
Who Should Listen?
This is ideal for fans of cosy crime who want something with a sharper wit and more literary backbone than much of the genre provides. It sits naturally alongside Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series: both feature older protagonists, English settings, and a conviction that the pleasure of a mystery should come from character as much as plot mechanics. If you have enjoyed the television adaptation, the audiobook deepens everything the series sketched; if you have not seen the series, the novel stands entirely on its own. The novel is also, as one reviewer noted, suitable for confident teenage readers as well as adults, with no content that would give a parent pause.
