Osman, Richard. We Solve Murders. Viking Random House, London, 2024. F; 9/24.

I got interested in the philosophy and background of Hannah Arendt and downloaded her The Origins of Totalitarianism, but I was out of my depth. So I pulled the plug on her famous discussion of World War II. I needed a life jacket and made do with this murder mystery recommended in my weekly Book Marks email.

Osman has written lots of this kind of story and has an impish sardonic sense of humour about fictional homicide. Protagonist Amy is a combat-hardened sweet little female who works for a security company and is guarding successful fiction author Rosie D’Antonio. Rosie lives on an island, loves to drink, and in her mid-70s is looking for some excitement.

Someone with the pseudonym François Loubet is the world’s most successful money smuggler and is corresponding with Amy’s employer. But this business-as-usual murderous guy is taking advantage of and then killing off various “influencers” – simple people with zero online presence who have been tricked into believing they have thousands of followers. The sleepy talent agent tricking them has no idea what’s going on but notices she is suddenly making a pile of money. Unbeknownst to the influencers when they travel to make nonexistent media appearances they are carrying locked suitcases full of millions in currency. And it looks like Amy is being framed for their murders.

Amy’s father-in-law Steve is a retired cop with a cat named Trouble. Amy, one of the fearless fighting female characters we see in mysteries and on the screen these days easily decks navy SEAL type of guys twice her size, then gets embroiled with Steve and Rosie in fast-moving and convoluted intrigue and violence, with a twist at the end of course. Meanwhile we readers juggle the bunch of tongue-in-cheek realistic characters who may or may not be the big bad guy masquerading as something else. Although there is irony running through all of this, we also see:

Everyone is taking the best shot they’ve got, and some shots are just luckier than yours. Anytime you feel your unhappiness turning into bitterness, you have to check yourself. You can live with unhappiness, but bitterness will kill you.

Seriously? I’m no connoisseur of whodunits but this one held my interest. Maybe Osman’s fun with murder and mayhem is all the rage these days, I wouldn’t know but I liked it. And it sure rescued me from getting lost in the philosophy of Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust (Hitler’s People was the best I could do exploring that real-life death story). After this “Fun with murder” break from dark 20^th-century history I was ready to move on to Sally Roony’s latest fiction.

Nothing wrong with We Solve Murders if you like a brainteaser full of interesting fun characters, gleefully laughing at itself.

8.6/8.8