Clara’s Verdict
I was halfway through We Solve Murders on a Sunday afternoon when I accepted that Richard Osman has developed a formula so well-calibrated to its audience that criticising it for being recognisable is a bit like criticising a particularly good Victoria sponge for being a Victoria sponge. The man knows what he is doing, and he does it with genuine craft. His new detective duo of Steve Wheeler, the retired officer who lives a small, careful life in the New Forest with his cat and his memories of his dead wife, and Amy Wheeler, his daughter-in-law and professional bodyguard currently keeping a world-famous author alive on a remote island, is the kind of odd couple pairing that works because Osman is genuinely interested in both of them as people rather than as plot mechanisms.
There is also a quality to Osman’s plotting that rewards attention without demanding it. The mystery mechanics are fair: the clues are present, the red herrings are crafted rather than arbitrary, and the resolution satisfies without feeling predetermined. But the book never makes you feel that enjoying the characters and the comedy is somehow a lesser form of engagement than tracking the plot. The two pleasures are genuinely integrated, which is harder to achieve than either alone, and it is what distinguishes Osman from both the pure comedy novelists and the pure mystery writers his work is sometimes compared to.
What Osman does that many thriller writers do not is build specific, character-grounded loneliness into the architecture of his plots. Steve’s grief is carefully observed and never overstated. It runs underneath the comedy as a structural element rather than appearing only when the narrative requires an emotional scene. The global pace of the book, the remote island, the bag of money, the killer with sights on Amy, the breakneck race across multiple continents, is genuine thriller furniture deployed with confidence. But the warmth earns itself through specificity and restraint, not through sentimentality, and that is the harder trick to pull off.
The Daily Express described it as a sitcom-meets-Bond, and a fine murder mystery, which captures the tonal range Osman is working in. The Sunday Times noted that they read it in a few pleasured gulps. Both assessments are accurate and honest about what the book is: efficient, pleasurable, built with care, and uninterested in being anything other than what it is.
About the Audiobook
We Solve Murders is the first book in a new series and functions entirely as a standalone for new readers. Published by Penguin on 12 September 2024, the audiobook runs for 10 hours and 33 minutes and carries a rating of 4.5 from 35 listeners on Audible UK. The narrator is Nicola Walker, the acclaimed British actress whose television work in Unforgotten, The Split, and Last Tango in Halifax has made her one of the most recognisable and admired voices in British drama. Her casting here is deliberate and well-judged.
The Narration
Nicola Walker is an exceptionally good casting choice for this material. Her television background means she brings an actor’s instinct for character differentiation rather than the more uniform delivery some audiobook narrators default to. Osman’s voice for Steve, melancholy and dry, sits very differently under Walker’s handling than it would under a neutral professional reading. The comic timing in the scenes between Amy and Steve is particularly well served, and the thriller sequences carry pace without sacrificing the warmth that Osman’s prose requires to sustain its register. This is one of those narration choices that actively improves the listening experience rather than simply conveying the text competently.
What Readers Say
Vectisfabber offered the most detailed summary, noting both the emotional dimension of Steve’s grief and the thriller mechanics with equal appreciation. Mrs C, who had not previously read Osman, was genuinely surprised by how much fun she had, and praised the big brilliant cast of characters including an ex-cop totally out of his comfort zone. Rebecca Corson noted she kept comparing it to the Thursday Murder Club, which is inevitable and is itself a form of compliment. Davinder Shinder read it twice and compared the storyline to Fleming in terms of jet-setting locations, noting Osman’s consistent attention to the frailties and strengths of his characters as the thread that runs through everything. Scubaman04 was economical: good and gripping.
Who Should Listen?
Anyone who enjoyed the Thursday Murder Club books will find this a natural next step, though the two series are quite different in pace and geography. This is faster, more internationally mobile, and less cosily domestic; the warmth is present but operates at altitude. Listeners new to Osman can start here entirely without prior reading. Those who prefer their crime fiction grittier and more procedural will find the comic warmth register a different proposition. Nicola Walker’s narration is a specific draw for those who follow her television work. Listen on Audible UK
