Thursday is the day that retirees Elizabeth, Ron, Joyce and Ibrahim usually meet for the Thursday Murder Club. But this one is special.

Joyce’s daughter, Joanna, is marrying Paul this Thursday, and Joyce couldn’t be happier. Maybe Joanna could have chosen a day other than Thursday, but at least Joyce now has a son-in-law. Elizabeth even came to the wedding, after months of grieving the passing of her beloved Stephen. So there’s another reason to celebrate. At the reception, one of the guests, Nick Silver, asks Elizabeth to drop by his office later. He has a problem to discuss. But at the appointed time, Nick is nowhere to be found, which gives Elizabeth the old tingle of excitement at a new mystery.

"Elizabeth, Ron, Joyce, Ibrahim and their supporting cast will win over fans and newcomers alike for years to come."

Meanwhile, Ron is facing family problems. His daughter, Suzi, married a man who turned out to be mean and abusive, but this time he’s gone too far. Now Suzi has gone underground, and Ron’s grandson, Kendrick, is spending some time with his uncle Jason, Ron’s son. The Thursday Murder Club members have questions, of course. Where is Suzi, and why is Kendrick hanging around so much? Not that they mind. But it’s another little mystery.

While all of that is going on, Ibrahim is mentoring Connie, an ex-con, in an effort to help set her on a new path. Connie has brought along Tia, a sweet 18-year-old who got on the wrong side of the law way too young. She is mentoring Tia, using Ibrahim’s words and methods, except that the spin she is putting on them is leading the girl in quite the opposite direction from what Ibrahim would have intended. It could go wrong in so many ways.

Elizabeth has been hard at work searching for Nick when his business partner, Holly, is killed. Suddenly, the Thursday Murder Club has a bona fide and very exciting case. This is the sort of glue that keeps their Club going. The four members eagerly jump into action to figure out who killed Holly and the whereabouts of Nick. Begrudgingly, they even tolerate a little help from the police --- well, more precisely from Donna, not the entire department, and Chris, when he returns from firearms training.

They’ve come to the conclusion that at the heart of Holly’s death and Nick’s disappearance is a large sum of money --- a fortune, in fact --- stored in a place accessed by using secret codes. The whole thing is a bit tricky and, if not done exactly right, will unleash consequences no one wants to see. And, as often happens, the suspect list keeps growing longer.

No Thursday Murder Club mystery is really about whatever case these elderly amateur detectives take on. It has everything to do with the four of them --- their friendship, their trust and their reliance on each other. Of course, having an intriguing mystery to solve is icing on an already tasty cake. These kinds of books don’t happen by chance; they come about because of the genius of a highly talented author and stories with a charming group of characters. Elizabeth, Ron, Joyce, Ibrahim and their supporting cast will win over fans and newcomers alike for years to come.