Richard Osman: author and television presenter on the release of his new book The Impossible Fortune
October 4, 2025 • 15 mins
TV personality and author Richard Osman recently took a brief writing hiatus, but he's returned with the latest instalment in the Thursday Murder Club book series.
The series focuses on a group of retirement village residents who investigate unsolved murders, and it's gotten so popular, it's received a Netflix adaptation starring Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren.
Osman says he's enjoyed returning to the series and he's promised this next instalment will be a 'treat' for readers.
"It's always difficult, but I hope at the end it looks and feels effortless."
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The Thursday Murder Club book series has been wildly successful
all around the world, so popular it now has a
Netflix adaptation starring Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren. For those unfamiliar,
the books focus on a group of retirement village residents
who investigate unsolved murders. The man behind the books is
British TV personality and author Richard Osman. Richard has just
released the fifth Thursday Murder Club book, The Impossible Fortune,
(00:36):
and he joins me now from the UK. Richard, good morning,
Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
It's a pleasure. Francesca, I love you to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We spoke last year and you released We Solve Murders.
Of course you took a little bit of a break
from a Thursday Murder Club. But has it been great
to return to the rest home in those characters.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, it really has. Actually, from the sort of first
moment where I sat down again and wrote my first chapter,
I thought, ah, I've missed you all. So yeah, it's
been a real and I hope it's going to be
a treat for readers as well. They are. They are
definitely on form, the four of them.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'll say that for them, they certainly are. This is
your first novel, do you find that the writing is
getting easier? I mean it might have always been easy.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
No, it's always been difficult and it remains difficult. I
remember like when I started out and I talked to
novelists you'd written thirty books, and I said, at what
point does it get easier? And they all said to me,
it never gets easier. And I'm still going to yeah,
but come on, it must do, But no, it never does.
I think it's a bit like you know when you
go to the gym and you think, well, at some
point this is going to be easier because I'm going
to be stronger. But the point is, the next time
(01:44):
you go to the gym, you do more reps or
at a higher weight, so it remains as difficult every
single time you go there, because otherwise there's no point
going to the gym. So it's like that. Really, it's
the more you know about writing, I guess, the more
you push yourself, and so every single time is like
the first time. And I'm very lucky I have characters
in both my series who entertain me and who make
(02:05):
me laugh, were like spending time with because it is
it is. Yeah, it's always difficult, but I hope at
the end it looks and feels effortless.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
But you're right, the characters are on fire, and I
think this is I think each book gets better and better.
But I wonder if that's because you are more familiar
with the characters. You do know them well, you know
what's you know?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah, I hope so, And certainly I know that readers
do as well. And just just like friendships or anything
like that, the more we get to know people, the
more fun there is to be had, and you get
that kind of depth of friendship and nostalgia and all
of those things. So for me, I get to explore
these characters in more detail each time their relationship with
each other blooms and blossoms. I try and make things
(02:50):
change in their life so we see how they react
to new things and new circumstance and new situation, and yeah,
I just whatever I throw at them. Still at the
end of a chapter, they've made me cry, they made
me laugh, and it's They're a joy to write, and
I really, really hope that comes across in the reading.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I'm very impressed with what you manage to fit into
your life. When it comes to work, You've obviously got
the books, you still do TV, you've got the podcast.
The rest is entertainment. Is writing the priority. How do
you make it all work?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
God? Yeah, right, I mean writing takes that almost all
my life. I mean TV is a funny one, but
the only show I do is House of Games, and
you know, those are half hour episodes and we shoot
five a day, so actually I sort of, you know,
that's maybe a month of my time. So on TV
it kind of exists over a long period of time.
But in my actual work schedule that's not too bad.
(03:45):
The podcast we do on a Monday morning, so that's
done by midday, and literally the rest of my time
is writing. And that's how I like it. It's the
thing I think I'm best at. It's the thing I
love the most. It's the thing that represents my heart
and my brain the most. So yeah, almost all my
life is writing. Just that other stuff feels very visible,
But actually it doesn't take a huge amount of time.
(04:07):
It's not that's not like an office job.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
So you've told me, it's quite hard, but you love it.
So are you really good then at sitting down and
getting on with it?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Oh my god, I'm so bad at getting on with it.
I will literally do anything. I would do anything to
not work. You know, I'll take the bins out. I'd
be like, does someone need to deeply the cat? Don't
let me do that. If we need any milk, I
wonder if we need more milk? No, no, I'll pop
out again. It's absolutely fine. I would do anything until
(04:38):
the point where I go, Okay, I'm going upstairs, because
I know that when I do go upstairs, I turn
the computer on, I turn my brain on, and that's
me for you know, two hours or however long I
want to be up there, and that's me with my characters.
And there's no Internet, there's no WhatsApp or you know,
Instagram or anything like that. I just sit and write.
But oh my god, like anyone, I guess, I would
(05:00):
do anything. I would do anything to stop that moment
where I first have to start working.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
The film adaptation, of Course, released on Netflix at the
end of August. Finally, we're all so much looking forward
to it. What did you think of it?
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Well, for me, it was sort of slightly unalloyed pleasure
because I didn't really have anything to do with it.
You know, I got to sign off the rights to
somebody else. The books are my thing. So I've done
the Thursday Murder Club. It's there, you know, it's all
there in print, and I'll be there in one hundred
years time, and I'm very happy. You know, that's my
version of the story. So for me, I just got
(05:36):
this incredible sort of I just got to go along
and play every now and again and go and meet
these amazing actors and you know, I've got to go
to a premiere. But it's like I've likened it to
the books of my children, and this film is like
a grandchild, which is I get all the kind of
fun bits of it, but I don't have to do
any of the work, and I get to give it
back at the end of the day. So yeah, for me,
(05:58):
it's been great. I knew at the beginning I was
just going to hand it over and let somebody else
do it, because there's no point me telling the story again.
I've done it. I'm proud of my know, I've done it.
It's there, So yeah, I just let other people do it,
and you know, I've got to go down to set
and meet Steven Spielberg and there's Helen Mirror and Ben
Kingsley and Pierce Brosnan, and that was an enormous amount
(06:18):
of fun. So yeah, it's it's it's a weird sort
of other worldly thing the film, but it's been an
enormous hit and that's nice, and you know, it brings
new people to the books, and that's the that's the
main thing for me.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I was quite interested because when I picked up this
book and I started reading the new book, The Impossible
Fortune I Had, I was quite surprised. I had all
the actors in my head sang the lines like every
time Elizabeth has a cracker of a line, I'm like,
I can see Helen Mirran delivering that. And I wondered,
whether you mind that they've been taken over in my
(06:53):
mind by these.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
People, because everybody has their own version, or anyone who
has a visual imagination has their own version of those
characters in their heads anyway, which is why when the
film comes out and I was like, oh, that's exactly
what I thought, or that's not what I thought. Whereas
I don't really I have the vibes of the characters.
I sort of know who they are, and I'm not
really interested in what they look like, if that makes sense.
(07:15):
I have a sort of rough form in my head.
But no, right from the start, I never there's one
bit in the book where I thought, I just I'm
just going to have to reference the film a bit. Yeah,
there's a scene that starts with Ron and Ibrahim and
they're just having a chat and they chat about who
the best ever changed bond is, and Ron is unequivocal
(07:36):
that the best change bond is Pierce Brosnan. And I
told Piers that and he loved it. He was so happy.
But other than that, no, I just I know who
those characters are. I know exactly who they are, and
so for me, I can you know I'm writing about Ibrahim,
and I can say to Ibrahim, you know you're being
played by Samone Kingsley, what do you think about that? Yeah?
That makes sense to me. So yeah, I'm able to
(07:58):
divorce the two, which is great.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
You write the first boox Worth no adaptation rights in place,
but this one you have Russian knowing that the movie
was coming and that more may follow, and most likely
will follow. Does that make any difference?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
No, No, I'm literally nothing makes any difference to me
other than readers. That's the only thing I ever think about.
I'm trying to entertain myself. I'm trying to entertain readers.
I'm trying to make a reader turn the page. You know,
books are books are books. I've worked in TV. I
know how that all works, and this is the I'm
writing books to be read and nothing else at all.
(08:36):
I'm writing books so that I want to make you laugh,
i want to make you cry. I want to give
you a murder that you try and solve in your head.
And I just want you to turn the page. But
I want you to inhabit the world of the book.
That's my only job. And the films, all of that stuff,
it's all that's all icing on a cake, you know,
And I'm interested in the cake. So that that's a
(08:57):
terrible analogy.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
No, titally, totally. And of course quite a few people
have read these books. I mean they've been published in
forty three countries. It's got this lovely sort of British
sensibility about it. I mean, obviously, here in New Zealand,
we're going to relate to that. But are you a
little bit surprised at the global succeeds of these books?
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Genuinely shocked because, as you say, they are so British,
and yeah, there are territories where you know, we share
a sensibility, so we love New Zealand humor. New Zealand
loves British humor, America and the UK. You know, there
are countries where you feel it's going to resonate, but no,
then you go to Brazil and Japan and China and
India and people are loving the humor and love it.
You know, they're saying, loving the idea of the older
(09:40):
people as heroes, and yeah, that's been a big surprise.
But I guess if I if I read a Brazilian book,
I want it to be unbelievably Brazilian. I want to
learn about what it is to be Brazilian, what it
is to live a daily life, you know, in Rio
de Janiro or something. And I guess if you want
to know what it's like to be in modern Britain,
(10:01):
these these these are good books to read. There's all
sorts of references, but that, honestly, to me, is so lovely.
It's just what a joy to recognize that everyone around
the world is the same and we laugh at the
same things, and we like the same things in our characters.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
That's that's such a that's a real treat for me
as an author. But it also means I get to
go around the world as well. And I haven't yet
been to New Zealand, and that's the next place I'm
desperate to go.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I'm glad you got there done, because I was, really
I I did.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
We love New Zealander. Well, all we watch is like
New Zealand Highway Patrol and New Zealand Border Patrol and
stuff like that. I know we've sent you.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
What to expeact when you get here.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm very familiar. I'm as
familiar with New Zealand as I am with Manhattan, because
I've seen it on screen so many times.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Just going back to the books being published around the world,
I was, I loved the way though in China there
was a lot of footnotes were required to explain the Britishness.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Oh, I mean, the Chinese books are about twice the
length of any other translation. My daughter reads Amandain, so
I say, why these books, so long as you said
every single time you mentioned like Nigella Lawson or you know,
escapes to the country, any like little TV show, or
any shop or any supermarket, they have a footnote and
they tell you exactly what that is. So it's just
(11:25):
it's endless footnotes, which I find I find absolutely fascinating.
I love that the Chinese are Thursday Murder Club completists
and they need to understand every reference you know, on
every single chapter.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I was very excited to read that you're writing a
Thursday Murder Club play and it is based off the books?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Is it based off the Boox?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
No, it's not. It's an entirely new story, which is
why I wanted to do it, because I had an
idea that would only work as a play, and I thought, listen,
I don't have enough work on I would do this.
I think it's going to be great. I'm writing it
with this guy. Have you guys over in the Love
It is adorable, an incredible film and gorgeous pompas. And
(12:13):
who's in that wh wrote that he's writing this play
with me? He's so funny. And anyone listening who has
not seen the Ballad of Wallace Island. That's a proper treat, right,
It's so funny and so moving. So yeah, I get
to write this lovely stage play, as I say, with
a story that would only work in a theater, which
is which is a huge amount of fun. But I'm
(12:33):
going to say, Francesca, we're quite behind with that at
the moment.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
That's okay.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
I'll let you off the hook, although we have not
met our deadline.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
No, that's okay. Although I really did love the new
series We Solved Murders, which you got underway last year,
which I'm kind of fingling, you know, another book.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I'm literally that That's what I'm writing at the moment
I was, you know what I was about to say,
I'm in the middle of that at the moment. I
wish I was in the middle of it. I'm right
at the beginning of that at the moment, and we're
adapting that for Netflix, and funnily enough, I am. I'm
helping with the adaptation of that one for Netflix, just
just so I can experience things in a slightly different way.
(13:12):
That's a lovely book to write. It's a more traditional
detective agency and again, I've got characters who are warm
and funny. So it feels like it's in the same
world as Thursday Murder Club, but it's a bit more global.
You know, we go around the world in that one,
and we're on private jets, so it's, you know that
the small British huma multiplied by the the you know,
the kind of glamour of traveling around the world and
(13:34):
private islands and private jets and things. So it's that's
it's lovely to have both of these books on the
go at the same time.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
And I'm sure that they would require a bit of research.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Richard, Well, do you know what. I don't like doing research.
That's the thing I like writing. So everything is it's
always set where I've just been, so I never kind
of go, okay, I need to. So in the first book,
we've just been on holiday to Saint Lucia, and I've
been to Ireland a lot of times, and I have
been to Dubai, and so that's that's where it is set.
So they globetrop, they globetrop to places that I've already been.
(14:06):
If I had any sort of sense about me, I
would literally be able to write off all my holidays
for tax. But I just that's not how I work. Unfortunately,
I go upstairs and think, what do I actually know about?
Where can I set something? So I don't have to
look something up on the internet, And I just do that.
That's why so far there hasn't been a resolved murder
scene in New Zealand. But the second I go to
New Zealand there will.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Be brilliant Richard, You're so good at writing crime, But
do you think you'll stray from that at any point
write something completely different?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Not for a while, because I love it, and you know,
I love reading it and I love doing series. You know,
because characters are the thing that interests me. Really, you know,
that's the thing that I love, and crime gives you
such a great hammock to place your characters in. But
you know, one day, you know, if as I, you know,
travel into my sixties and seventies, you know, I definitely
want to write something different. At some point, I'll write
(14:58):
something different, you know, I love I love the idea
of writing something a bit more in a different time,
something places where I've been alive, you know, seventies, eighties.
You know, I love that idea and moving between different
eras at the moment. I'm going to write crime because
I love it and I've got these characters who have
an awful lot more to say to me. But yeah,
I think so. I'd love to sort of share a
(15:20):
different side of myself at some point. But do not
panic fans of We Solve Murders and Thursday Murder Club.
It will not be for a long time.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Richard OsmAnd, thank you so much for your time, Thank
you so much for the new book, and best of
luck with We Solve Murders. Can't wait, ah, Thanks That
Thursday Murder Club book, The Impossible Fortune is in stores now.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin, listen
live to News Talks It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The Thursday Murder Club book series has been wildly successful
all around the world, so popular it now has a
Netflix adaptation starring Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren. For those unfamiliar,
the books focus on a group of retirement village residents
who investigate unsolved murders. The man behind the books is
British TV personality and author Richard Osman. Richard has just
released the fifth Thursday Murder Club book, The Impossible Fortune,
(00:36):
and he joins me now from the UK. Richard, good morning,
Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
It's a pleasure. Francesca, I love you to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We spoke last year and you released We Solve Murders.
Of course you took a little bit of a break
from a Thursday Murder Club. But has it been great
to return to the rest home in those characters.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, it really has. Actually, from the sort of first
moment where I sat down again and wrote my first chapter,
I thought, ah, I've missed you all. So yeah, it's
been a real and I hope it's going to be
a treat for readers as well. They are. They are
definitely on form, the four of them.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'll say that for them, they certainly are. This is
your first novel, do you find that the writing is
getting easier? I mean it might have always been easy.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
No, it's always been difficult and it remains difficult. I
remember like when I started out and I talked to
novelists you'd written thirty books, and I said, at what
point does it get easier? And they all said to me,
it never gets easier. And I'm still going to yeah,
but come on, it must do, But no, it never does.
I think it's a bit like you know when you
go to the gym and you think, well, at some
point this is going to be easier because I'm going
to be stronger. But the point is, the next time
(01:44):
you go to the gym, you do more reps or
at a higher weight, so it remains as difficult every
single time you go there, because otherwise there's no point
going to the gym. So it's like that. Really, it's
the more you know about writing, I guess, the more
you push yourself, and so every single time is like
the first time. And I'm very lucky I have characters
in both my series who entertain me and who make
(02:05):
me laugh, were like spending time with because it is
it is. Yeah, it's always difficult, but I hope at
the end it looks and feels effortless.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
But you're right, the characters are on fire, and I
think this is I think each book gets better and better.
But I wonder if that's because you are more familiar
with the characters. You do know them well, you know
what's you know?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah, I hope so, And certainly I know that readers
do as well. And just just like friendships or anything
like that, the more we get to know people, the
more fun there is to be had, and you get
that kind of depth of friendship and nostalgia and all
of those things. So for me, I get to explore
these characters in more detail each time their relationship with
each other blooms and blossoms. I try and make things
(02:50):
change in their life so we see how they react
to new things and new circumstance and new situation, and yeah,
I just whatever I throw at them. Still at the
end of a chapter, they've made me cry, they made
me laugh, and it's They're a joy to write, and
I really, really hope that comes across in the reading.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I'm very impressed with what you manage to fit into
your life. When it comes to work, You've obviously got
the books, you still do TV, you've got the podcast.
The rest is entertainment. Is writing the priority. How do
you make it all work?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
God? Yeah, right, I mean writing takes that almost all
my life. I mean TV is a funny one, but
the only show I do is House of Games, and
you know, those are half hour episodes and we shoot
five a day, so actually I sort of, you know,
that's maybe a month of my time. So on TV
it kind of exists over a long period of time.
But in my actual work schedule that's not too bad.
(03:45):
The podcast we do on a Monday morning, so that's
done by midday, and literally the rest of my time
is writing. And that's how I like it. It's the
thing I think I'm best at. It's the thing I
love the most. It's the thing that represents my heart
and my brain the most. So yeah, almost all my
life is writing. Just that other stuff feels very visible,
But actually it doesn't take a huge amount of time.
(04:07):
It's not that's not like an office job.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
So you've told me, it's quite hard, but you love it.
So are you really good then at sitting down and
getting on with it?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Oh my god, I'm so bad at getting on with it.
I will literally do anything. I would do anything to
not work. You know, I'll take the bins out. I'd
be like, does someone need to deeply the cat? Don't
let me do that. If we need any milk, I
wonder if we need more milk? No, no, I'll pop
out again. It's absolutely fine. I would do anything until
(04:38):
the point where I go, Okay, I'm going upstairs, because
I know that when I do go upstairs, I turn
the computer on, I turn my brain on, and that's
me for you know, two hours or however long I
want to be up there, and that's me with my characters.
And there's no Internet, there's no WhatsApp or you know,
Instagram or anything like that. I just sit and write.
But oh my god, like anyone, I guess, I would
(05:00):
do anything. I would do anything to stop that moment
where I first have to start working.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
The film adaptation, of Course, released on Netflix at the
end of August. Finally, we're all so much looking forward
to it. What did you think of it?
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Well, for me, it was sort of slightly unalloyed pleasure
because I didn't really have anything to do with it.
You know, I got to sign off the rights to
somebody else. The books are my thing. So I've done
the Thursday Murder Club. It's there, you know, it's all
there in print, and I'll be there in one hundred
years time, and I'm very happy. You know, that's my
version of the story. So for me, I just got
(05:36):
this incredible sort of I just got to go along
and play every now and again and go and meet
these amazing actors and you know, I've got to go
to a premiere. But it's like I've likened it to
the books of my children, and this film is like
a grandchild, which is I get all the kind of
fun bits of it, but I don't have to do
any of the work, and I get to give it
back at the end of the day. So yeah, for me,
(05:58):
it's been great. I knew at the beginning I was
just going to hand it over and let somebody else
do it, because there's no point me telling the story again.
I've done it. I'm proud of my know, I've done it.
It's there, So yeah, I just let other people do it,
and you know, I've got to go down to set
and meet Steven Spielberg and there's Helen Mirror and Ben
Kingsley and Pierce Brosnan, and that was an enormous amount
(06:18):
of fun. So yeah, it's it's it's a weird sort
of other worldly thing the film, but it's been an
enormous hit and that's nice, and you know, it brings
new people to the books, and that's the that's the
main thing for me.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I was quite interested because when I picked up this
book and I started reading the new book, The Impossible
Fortune I Had, I was quite surprised. I had all
the actors in my head sang the lines like every
time Elizabeth has a cracker of a line, I'm like,
I can see Helen Mirran delivering that. And I wondered,
whether you mind that they've been taken over in my
(06:53):
mind by these.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
People, because everybody has their own version, or anyone who
has a visual imagination has their own version of those
characters in their heads anyway, which is why when the
film comes out and I was like, oh, that's exactly
what I thought, or that's not what I thought. Whereas
I don't really I have the vibes of the characters.
I sort of know who they are, and I'm not
really interested in what they look like, if that makes sense.
(07:15):
I have a sort of rough form in my head.
But no, right from the start, I never there's one
bit in the book where I thought, I just I'm
just going to have to reference the film a bit. Yeah,
there's a scene that starts with Ron and Ibrahim and
they're just having a chat and they chat about who
the best ever changed bond is, and Ron is unequivocal
(07:36):
that the best change bond is Pierce Brosnan. And I
told Piers that and he loved it. He was so happy.
But other than that, no, I just I know who
those characters are. I know exactly who they are, and
so for me, I can you know I'm writing about Ibrahim,
and I can say to Ibrahim, you know you're being
played by Samone Kingsley, what do you think about that? Yeah?
That makes sense to me. So yeah, I'm able to
(07:58):
divorce the two, which is great.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
You write the first boox Worth no adaptation rights in place,
but this one you have Russian knowing that the movie
was coming and that more may follow, and most likely
will follow. Does that make any difference?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
No, No, I'm literally nothing makes any difference to me
other than readers. That's the only thing I ever think about.
I'm trying to entertain myself. I'm trying to entertain readers.
I'm trying to make a reader turn the page. You know,
books are books are books. I've worked in TV. I
know how that all works, and this is the I'm
writing books to be read and nothing else at all.
(08:36):
I'm writing books so that I want to make you laugh,
i want to make you cry. I want to give
you a murder that you try and solve in your head.
And I just want you to turn the page. But
I want you to inhabit the world of the book.
That's my only job. And the films, all of that stuff,
it's all that's all icing on a cake, you know,
And I'm interested in the cake. So that that's a
(08:57):
terrible analogy.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
No, titally, totally. And of course quite a few people
have read these books. I mean they've been published in
forty three countries. It's got this lovely sort of British
sensibility about it. I mean, obviously, here in New Zealand,
we're going to relate to that. But are you a
little bit surprised at the global succeeds of these books?
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Genuinely shocked because, as you say, they are so British,
and yeah, there are territories where you know, we share
a sensibility, so we love New Zealand humor. New Zealand
loves British humor, America and the UK. You know, there
are countries where you feel it's going to resonate, but no,
then you go to Brazil and Japan and China and
India and people are loving the humor and love it.
You know, they're saying, loving the idea of the older
(09:40):
people as heroes, and yeah, that's been a big surprise.
But I guess if I if I read a Brazilian book,
I want it to be unbelievably Brazilian. I want to
learn about what it is to be Brazilian, what it
is to live a daily life, you know, in Rio
de Janiro or something. And I guess if you want
to know what it's like to be in modern Britain,
(10:01):
these these these are good books to read. There's all
sorts of references, but that, honestly, to me, is so lovely.
It's just what a joy to recognize that everyone around
the world is the same and we laugh at the
same things, and we like the same things in our characters.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
That's that's such a that's a real treat for me
as an author. But it also means I get to
go around the world as well. And I haven't yet
been to New Zealand, and that's the next place I'm
desperate to go.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I'm glad you got there done, because I was, really
I I did.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
We love New Zealander. Well, all we watch is like
New Zealand Highway Patrol and New Zealand Border Patrol and
stuff like that. I know we've sent you.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
What to expeact when you get here.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm very familiar. I'm as
familiar with New Zealand as I am with Manhattan, because
I've seen it on screen so many times.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Just going back to the books being published around the world,
I was, I loved the way though in China there
was a lot of footnotes were required to explain the Britishness.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Oh, I mean, the Chinese books are about twice the
length of any other translation. My daughter reads Amandain, so
I say, why these books, so long as you said
every single time you mentioned like Nigella Lawson or you know,
escapes to the country, any like little TV show, or
any shop or any supermarket, they have a footnote and
they tell you exactly what that is. So it's just
(11:25):
it's endless footnotes, which I find I find absolutely fascinating.
I love that the Chinese are Thursday Murder Club completists
and they need to understand every reference you know, on
every single chapter.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I was very excited to read that you're writing a
Thursday Murder Club play and it is based off the books?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Is it based off the Boox?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
No, it's not. It's an entirely new story, which is
why I wanted to do it, because I had an
idea that would only work as a play, and I thought, listen,
I don't have enough work on I would do this.
I think it's going to be great. I'm writing it
with this guy. Have you guys over in the Love
It is adorable, an incredible film and gorgeous pompas. And
(12:13):
who's in that wh wrote that he's writing this play
with me? He's so funny. And anyone listening who has
not seen the Ballad of Wallace Island. That's a proper treat, right,
It's so funny and so moving. So yeah, I get
to write this lovely stage play, as I say, with
a story that would only work in a theater, which
is which is a huge amount of fun. But I'm
(12:33):
going to say, Francesca, we're quite behind with that at
the moment.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
That's okay.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
I'll let you off the hook, although we have not
met our deadline.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
No, that's okay. Although I really did love the new
series We Solved Murders, which you got underway last year,
which I'm kind of fingling, you know, another book.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I'm literally that That's what I'm writing at the moment
I was, you know what I was about to say,
I'm in the middle of that at the moment. I
wish I was in the middle of it. I'm right
at the beginning of that at the moment, and we're
adapting that for Netflix, and funnily enough, I am. I'm
helping with the adaptation of that one for Netflix, just
just so I can experience things in a slightly different way.
(13:12):
That's a lovely book to write. It's a more traditional
detective agency and again, I've got characters who are warm
and funny. So it feels like it's in the same
world as Thursday Murder Club, but it's a bit more global.
You know, we go around the world in that one,
and we're on private jets, so it's, you know that
the small British huma multiplied by the the you know,
the kind of glamour of traveling around the world and
(13:34):
private islands and private jets and things. So it's that's
it's lovely to have both of these books on the
go at the same time.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
And I'm sure that they would require a bit of research.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Richard, Well, do you know what. I don't like doing research.
That's the thing I like writing. So everything is it's
always set where I've just been, so I never kind
of go, okay, I need to. So in the first book,
we've just been on holiday to Saint Lucia, and I've
been to Ireland a lot of times, and I have
been to Dubai, and so that's that's where it is set.
So they globetrop, they globetrop to places that I've already been.
(14:06):
If I had any sort of sense about me, I
would literally be able to write off all my holidays
for tax. But I just that's not how I work. Unfortunately,
I go upstairs and think, what do I actually know about?
Where can I set something? So I don't have to
look something up on the internet, And I just do that.
That's why so far there hasn't been a resolved murder
scene in New Zealand. But the second I go to
New Zealand there will.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Be brilliant Richard, You're so good at writing crime, But
do you think you'll stray from that at any point
write something completely different?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Not for a while, because I love it, and you know,
I love reading it and I love doing series. You know,
because characters are the thing that interests me. Really, you know,
that's the thing that I love, and crime gives you
such a great hammock to place your characters in. But
you know, one day, you know, if as I, you know,
travel into my sixties and seventies, you know, I definitely
want to write something different. At some point, I'll write
(14:58):
something different, you know, I love I love the idea
of writing something a bit more in a different time,
something places where I've been alive, you know, seventies, eighties.
You know, I love that idea and moving between different
eras at the moment. I'm going to write crime because
I love it and I've got these characters who have
an awful lot more to say to me. But yeah,
I think so. I'd love to sort of share a
(15:20):
different side of myself at some point. But do not
panic fans of We Solve Murders and Thursday Murder Club.
It will not be for a long time.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Richard OsmAnd, thank you so much for your time, Thank
you so much for the new book, and best of
luck with We Solve Murders. Can't wait, ah, Thanks That
Thursday Murder Club book, The Impossible Fortune is in stores now.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin, listen
live to News Talks It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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