S03E04 — The Thursday Murder Club

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for The Thursday Murder Club

Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.

Put on the kettle and grab your magnifying glass, besties—it’s The Thursday Murder Club! 🕵️‍♀️☕ From sassy retirees and fake priests to more bodies than a British Bake Off weekend, we’re unpacking every twist and tea spill between book and film. The gang’s solving crimes, stirring gossip, and possibly sedating their spouses (it’s fine, probably). Join us as we decide which version cracks the case—and which one should’ve stayed buried in the garden.

Final Verdicts

If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)

The book gives us a cozy, character-driven mystery with sharp British humor, deeper subplots, and a surprisingly dark emotional core, while the movie trims it down to a sleek, sentimental caper that swaps depth for charm. One’s a layered puzzle box of elderly chaos—the other’s a Netflix-ready tea party with murder.

Donna: The book was better.
– Book Score: 7.5/10
– Film Score: 5.5/10

Rebekah: The film was better.
– Book Score: 5.5/10
– Film Score: 6.5/10

Josiah: The book was better.
– Book Score: 7/10
– Film Score 7/10

Tim: The film was better.
– Book Score: 7/10
– Film Score 7.5/10

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Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Tim: A guy was 

[00:00:00] Music: murdered.

[00:00:28] Rebekah: Welcome to the book is Better podcast. We are a family of four. We review book to film adaptations across a variety of genres. Uh, for those of you just joining us in season three, we’ve done, uh, a classic disaster film, a very strange, uh, horror esque film, a dystopian classic, and today we’re gonna be doing a cozy little British prime solving elderly portrait of, it’s, it’s a lot of fun.

[00:00:59] Rebekah: I hope you [00:01:00] enjoy it. So, uh, we are going to be spoiling the Thursday Murder Club. The book by Richard Osmond is the first in a series, I believe, of four books, and we’re only gonna be spoiling the first one. I don’t think any of us have read beyond it. Um, content warning for this one, it’s probably, um, not super heavy in terms of listening to this episode with kiddos, but we will talk about some topics like un alive individuals.

[00:01:25] Rebekah: And so if that’s something that your, uh, your watch mates or listening mates around you would not be super interested in hearing, then you know, just go. Kick ’em out. Just go kick ’em. Yeah, just pick whoever it is. Just get ’em outta the room. Tell ’em they gotta go, go find This is more important. 

[00:01:42] Donna: Go find some killers.

[00:01:43] Donna: This is what I wanna listen 

[00:01:44] Rebekah: to. Yeah. Investigate murders. And maybe you’ll be less sensitive if you little cry, baby. So anyway, baby listeners,

[00:01:53] Music: you’re so 

[00:01:54] Rebekah: that’s a joke and it wasn’t clear. Um, uh, baby listeners, today, we [00:02:00] introduce ourselves to you with a fun fact that I wrote today. I hope you enjoy it. That’s right. It’s like that as you tell us who you are. Uh, here’s, were you thinking that was me? What’d you say, Josiah? What was that? 

[00:02:14] Josiah: Oh, so you wrote this Fun fact.

[00:02:17] Rebekah: I did. 

[00:02:18] Josiah: Mm, I was wondering why it sounded dumb. No, I’m just kidding. 

[00:02:25] Rebekah: So today’s fun fact is do you have a hobby related to crime solving? If so, what is it? If not, why are you really lame? Mm. So that’s the fun fact. Mm. I’ll go first. Okay. My name is Rebecca. I’m the daughter slash sister of the podcast. Um, I don’t know if it’s like a current hobby, however, I was at one time wildly obsessed with criminal profiling and all of the information about how the FBI started their, uh, division that you see featured completely inaccurately on shows like criminal Minds.[00:03:00] 

[00:03:00] Rebekah: Um, I was just really into that. I loved reading about the weird burst of serial killers that happened in like the eighties and nineties in the United States, and just kind of learning how they ticked and what made them. Work. And so like for one, for one birthday, uh, people judged him, but my husband bought me a book that I requested.

[00:03:21] Rebekah: I wanted it as a gift. And the name of the book is Sexual Homicides, patterns and Motives. And I was really excited to receive it and I will not take any flack for that. So that was my hobby. I haven’t read any of those for a while, although it is, uh, October. We’re recording this at the beginning of October, and my plan this month is to read as many like horror murdery books as I can.

[00:03:44] Rebekah: So I read, I bought like six, so we’ll see if I actually get to most of them, but that’s my hobby and weirdness and Dad always makes fun of me for being obsessed with death and Gore. Sorry, daddy. 

[00:03:57] Donna: Hi, I’m Donna and I am [00:04:00] the wife and mom of this Quad of Crime Solvers Today, my name. Uh, for the episode is felonious co-conspirator, and it wasn’t me, so I just wanna throw that in.

[00:04:14] Donna: It 

[00:04:14] Tim: wasn’t me. 

[00:04:15] Donna: Wait, um, doesn’t that, isn’t it felonious? I, that 

[00:04:20] Josiah: sounds like it’s you. That’s, that’s just her name. 

[00:04:24] Donna: I didn’t give me my, my mother named me. I didn’t name you. There’s 

[00:04:27] Tim: no comparison or conclusions to be drawn. A 

[00:04:30] Donna: hobby. I mean, I, I do, I guess it would be considered a hobby. I like to watch television shows, documentaries, fiction, nonfiction about crime like psychotic.

[00:04:51] Donna: I, I love it. I love watching. I don’t know why, but I do. And I’ve recently found a couple of like behavioral analysis [00:05:00] guys on YouTube, and one of them did this whole series a year or so ago. About serial killers. And he went into, um, he, he went through like videos and stuff of their, of, of some of their televised things or things that he could find, you know, police, um, investigative whatever.

[00:05:24] Donna: And, uh, he talks about who they are. And it was, the reason I, one reason I found it interesting was you kind of think, oh, they’re serial killer. Well, they all think this way or they all, but really it’s not true. The, the what’s in what they have in common is the, the whatever part of their brain that’s broken as far as the crime does something for them.

[00:05:51] Donna: And it’s, you know, but it was interesting to learn about how they acted differently, how they approached public, uh, [00:06:00] speaking differently. Even some of them, you know, um. Where one would be, he’s just being himself a apparently from his mannerisms or whatever, but other per other, other ones of them would be like calculated.

[00:06:14] Donna: And so that’s fascinating to me. Anyways, longer answer and they really wanted to give, but that’s my hobby and I’m a little twisted that way and, and try to watch that stuff when dad’s not around. 

[00:06:27] Josiah: So I’m Josiah, the brother, son of this club. And I suppose my best friend and I sometimes we like watching scary videos on YouTube.

[00:06:41] Josiah: And a common scary video is unexplained disappearances of people. And, uh, last footage caught on live CCTV of a person never seen again or something. There was [00:07:00] one where it was like. You saw the person kidnap them on the CCTV. It’s like, what do we not have any other CCTV footage of this? We’ve just never been seen for 10 years nor, and the sudden neither of the suspect has been seen again.

[00:07:20] Josiah: So, you know, a little scary stuff like that. That’s kind of fun. 

[00:07:23] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:07:24] Josiah: Hmm. Did you hear that? Mm-hmm. I did. Someone Right? Your race car car has begun. There’s a 

[00:07:30] Tim: monster truck right outside. Oh. I thought, oh no, it’s Transformers. I thought you had like bad guys. I 

[00:07:38] Donna: thought you had like a sound effect thing on. I was like, 

[00:07:42] Tim: yeah, that’s really cool.

[00:07:44] Tim: My name is Tim. I am the husband and, uh, father of, oh, this detective squad. And, um, my hobby related to crime solving was convincing people [00:08:00] that, uh, my children really were normal. When they entered. They entered creative writing pieces into, uh, church. Talent competitions, um, about murder and death and dismemberment, you know, those kinds of things.

[00:08:18] Tim: No, really, they’re, they’re just normal. They’re just very creative. Uh, and then that doesn’t sound like me. Yeah, it sound like both of you. And then the rest of my hobby is to watch the, the tail ends of those kinds of things that your mom talked about watching. So I see the last, oh, you’re on your way home minute, or, oh, I didn’t realize you were, you were gonna be home.

[00:08:42] Tim: There’s five minutes left of this strange thing and it’s the strangest part. Um, so, uh, other than that, I don’t really have any hobbies related to crime solving. I’m fascinated by statistics and things like that, but, um, but I don’t really get into studying the crazy [00:09:00] psyche. So, well now for something completely different.

[00:09:07] Tim: Josiah, 

[00:09:10] Josiah: this is the Thursday Murder Club’s plot summary. Woo-hoo. 

[00:09:19] Rebekah: Alright, I think we’re leaving that in the podcast now.

[00:09:25] Josiah: Well, when Joyce becomes a new resident at Cooper’s Chase, which is an upscale retirement community in a quiet England’s Town, Joyce has no idea that her former job as a nurse would draw her into the fun of the Thursday murder club. Ha ha ha ha ha. Spearheaded by the slightly mysterious Elizabeth and aided by founding members, Ron and Ibrahim, the club typically spends their Thursdays studying cold murder cases and attempting to find the real killers.[00:10:00] 

[00:10:00] Josiah: But when a land developer, they know personally. Is killed the four jump into action and help solve an active case. Ooh yes. With some algorithmic wit, mysterious cunning, and a hefty dose of feigned elder ignorance. They not only figure out who killed the first developer, Tony Curran, but also his scheming business partner, Ian Benham, and a murder victim killed 50 years before and buried in the cemetery next door.

[00:10:42] Josiah: Wow. Wow. What applies? I should 

[00:10:46] Rebekah: probably also add that they solved a fourth murder because they did solve officially the murder that they opened the film and the book discussing, which was a young lady. So there are four of them in the 50 club [00:11:00] officially. Uh, well, the man from 50 years ago was also solved.

[00:11:03] Rebekah: Oh. The 

[00:11:03] Josiah: man from 50 years ago was also solved. Yeah. The one who was 

[00:11:06] Rebekah: in the grave. 

[00:11:07] Donna: So, I mean, how is he gonna keep writing books? He’s already solved all these. 

[00:11:11] Rebekah: I know there’s four members. They’ve already solved four murders. I’m just, they, they’re kind of on top of it. 

[00:11:16] Tim: If the Thursday murder club. Is continually finding murders to solve.

[00:11:24] Tim: I would be a little bit concerned about living nearby. Well, that was what I was trying to say. 

[00:11:30] Rebekah: My husband made a point, he was like, is it intentional that the Thursday murder club sounds like they get together on Thursdays to kill people, to kill people? Like is that, 

[00:11:39] Music: is that what they is? God ends up that way.

[00:11:40] Music: It 

[00:11:40] Rebekah: is kind of funny. I like that. Well, because it’s not like the Thursday murder solvers, you know? 

[00:11:45] Donna: Yeah. So I think, um, Osmond is writing, I think he’s on five, the fifth one, fourth or fifth one. Uh, so I think, I mean, he’s, he’s kind of on a roll with it and it has made him huge money, by [00:12:00] the way. 

[00:12:00] Rebekah: Yeah. We’ll 

[00:12:01] Donna: talk about that.

[00:12:01] Donna: That was, uh, 

[00:12:02] Rebekah: kind of surprising to me. So today we are discussing differences in this order setting. First, then characterization, and then what changes. So mom, would you like to kick us 

[00:12:14] Donna: off with setting? I would love to do that. I don’t wanna kick you off anything, but I will kick off the setting, but, well, I did tell someone she would vote us off the eyelines kick people, so, oh, um, anyway, continue.

[00:12:27] Donna: So, you know, let’s give you a break. Josh did have minor, minor surgery yesterday and, you know, so we’re, you know, she’s in caregiver mode, not that she wants to kick him. I’m, 

[00:12:41] Rebekah: I’m a great caregiver. 

[00:12:42] Donna: I believe that I’m incredibly helpful. Yes, probably yes, you are setting changes, whereas the film follows a pretty standard story structure.

[00:12:55] Donna: The book in search, regular diary entries by Joyce, the newest member [00:13:00] of the Thirsty Murder Club. This allows for some insight not seen on the movie as to Joyce’s inner dialogue, but it doesn’t change much about the story itself. I will say I really enjoyed Joyce’s little. Off rants a little bit, um, like the diary entries.

[00:13:20] Donna: Oh, because you guys, yeah. I really enjoyed her diary entries. 

[00:13:23] Rebekah: Yes. Yeah. I guess for the book, in the book they’re like different font and stuff. And so, you know, when you turn the page that it’s like gonna be like a, you know, first person POV diary thing. 

[00:13:33] Donna: Well, I’ll say up front, because we start, because this was the first setting change too.

[00:13:39] Donna: Um, I like Joyce’s entries. I thought it was just this little quirky, we’ve read a few heavy books like we mentioned before. And so, um, this was lighter, but I liked her diary entries and for the audio book, the chapter just started off Joyce, that he just said Joyce, and [00:14:00] then started reading her entries. Um, but I also love that these were short little chapters.

[00:14:08] Rebekah: So another setting change, the film plays up the luxury factor of Cooper’s Chase. The book does describe the retirement community as upscale. Although when I was reading, I did not see something that basically was Downton Abbey Castle like, so I was just thinking like nice building. And so the movie starts and you see the place and it’s like, it’s a castle.

[00:14:31] Rebekah: Like it’s incredibly fancy. 

[00:14:33] Tim: It’s an old convent. It, it’s a very old building. It was a convent, which down the Queen 

[00:14:39] Rebekah: of England live there. Like 

[00:14:41] Tim: it was an old Abbey. 

[00:14:44] Rebekah: So I guess not 

[00:14:45] Tim: Downton Abby, but an old Abby 

[00:14:47] Rebekah: and Abby. So yes, I guess, you know, it’s just me then. 

[00:14:51] Tim: Well where you, we live in America and you know, we have some buildings that are 300 years old, but not very many.

[00:14:59] Tim: Um, [00:15:00] they have buildings that are 1500 years old. Um. So we’re not quite used to that. They’ve got the outside part of the building. So yeah, it, I, I wasn’t distracted by it because it, uh, in the book, they kept making reference to the fact that some of the apartments were lavish and some of them were very sparse.

[00:15:24] Tim: Um, according to your, your, uh, financial means when you bought it. And I suppose they bought it or leased it somehow, whatever that means. So 

[00:15:34] Josiah: I think that this was not my type of story. And this is really, it wasn’t your type of I was, I was thinking that you’d like it better than I would. It 

[00:15:50] Rebekah: was, it was fine.

[00:15:51] Rebekah: I’ll I’ll say more. Go ahead. Yeah. 

[00:15:53] Josiah: For, this was one of the points for me that. It was hard for me to see the [00:16:00] old people as underdogs because they’re wealthier than I’ll ever be, sort of thing. They’re protesting the tearing down of Cooper’s Chase and it’s like, I understand it’s a lovely place, but you clearly have enough money to go any, to any nice upscale retirement community.

[00:16:19] Josiah: And that was at the back of my mind and it kind of hurt me relating to the elderly people. I, I liked that they’re elderly and that they’re still doing stuff at an old age and they’re trying to be useful and they’re figuring out ways that they can still contribute to their community and their society.

[00:16:39] Josiah: But, uh, the fact that they’re rich makes them less of underdogs to me. 

[00:16:45] Rebekah: Yeah. I was gonna say the, just, I’ll talk about it more like when we get to the end and stuff. This is not really my type of thing either. It’s contemporary fiction and it’s kind of. Cozy, but serious, you know what I mean? Like, at a lot of points.

[00:16:59] Rebekah: But, [00:17:00] um, I had the same issue. I was like, it, it’s hard ’cause when you wanna root for somebody, it’s, it’s hard to root for someone that feels like they could just do anything they wanted. Like, like one of their daughters had enough money to literally buy all of it just on a whim like she did. You know what I mean?

[00:17:19] Rebekah: Like, it just took you out of it just a little bit. Um, I was also gonna make a setting related comment that I don’t know what an Abby is, so it’s, it’s where I’m trying to be humble enough to ask, 

[00:17:30] Tim: it’s where nuns live. No, it’s no a convent. Yeah, it’s it, but it’s where the nuns lived and worshiped. It’s like a monastery.

[00:17:41] Tim: Uh, do you know what that is? Where Monk, uh, monks. Monks lived? Yes. Yes. I’ve never 

[00:17:46] Rebekah: been to one 

[00:17:47] Tim: A monastery. They’re, they’re, they’re separated from the world, basically, so they can Okay. Invest time in, uh, in religious endeavors. And this particular one, they had [00:18:00] a, they had a hospital beside it, uh, and they took care of people.

[00:18:04] Tim: So, so part of it was a, an indigent hospital for the, uh, for the, uh, terminally. Uh, so 

[00:18:16] Josiah: an abbot, an Abby can be a monastery or a convent. Oh, okay. It’s just ruled by an Abu. Mm-hmm. 

[00:18:24] Donna: So why is the, not an 

[00:18:26] Tim: abacus? 

[00:18:26] Donna: So why is the, 

[00:18:28] Tim: is a math thing. 

[00:18:30] Donna: Why is the series called Downton Abbey? 

[00:18:34] Josiah: Because they live in an old Abey.

[00:18:37] Donna: In an old Abey. Okay. I kind of assumed it, but I thought maybe I’d ask in case I missed something. 

[00:18:43] Tim: Hmm. It’s, it’s kind of funny because, uh, in the past we have, uh, we have been part or we, in our culture, we’ve listened to and watched films about wealthy people, uh, [00:19:00] being, being the ones who solve murders and things like that.

[00:19:04] Tim: Um, your mom and I remember the days of, uh, one of the anthologies that NBC used to have on it included McMillan and wife, which they were wealthy, they were billionaires or millionaires at the time. Um, and they went around solving murders. Uh, and so it was a, it was a trope that was fairly regularly used in television and film.

[00:19:30] Tim: So. When we were growing up. So you guys, you guys look at it and say, eh, can’t quite relate to them. ’cause they seem different. And uh, I hadn’t thought about it it that way. Their privileges showing they’re better off than I am. I hadn’t thought about it that way. 

[00:19:45] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. 

[00:19:46] Tim: Well, in movie, I would like to imagine, by 

[00:19:49] Rebekah: the way, a day that you make way more money than them.

[00:19:52] Rebekah: I comfortably want to make way more money than all of those people. I 

[00:19:56] Josiah: dunno if I’ll get better actually. Yeah, you’re right. I was lying. I’m gonna make more money than all of them [00:20:00] and I actually do relate to them. 

[00:20:01] Rebekah: Yeah. Well I’m not saying you need to relate yet. I just, sorry, Joe. Sorry dad. I didn’t mean.

[00:20:08] Tim: Well in the movie, most of the action occurs in the area immediately surrounding Cooper’s Chase, including the complex itself, the nearby police station, ham and Kern’s homes, and the nearby countryside For a driver to the books locations span a wider area, including a book only trip to London when Elizabeth and Joyce meet up with Joyce’s daughter, Joanna, as well as DCI, Chris Hudson, taking a quick trip to Cyprus to track down Turkish.

[00:20:38] Tim: Turkish Gianni. Now they call him Gianni. Is it spelled Gianni in the 

[00:20:45] Rebekah: I’ll double audio book? It’s Turkish. Gianni. He says Gianni. Yeah. I saw that on some stuff and I was very confused, honestly. But I mean, Gianni 

[00:20:54] Josiah: is Johnny and Italian. 

[00:20:56] Tim: Yeah, 

[00:20:57] Donna: it’s just. [00:21:00] It was the audio book 

[00:21:02] Rebekah: reader uses Gianni, and so it sounded is range.

[00:21:05] Rebekah: Also, when I asked Chad GBTA couple of questions, it also spelled it Gianni and I was like, what is happening? 

[00:21:11] Josiah: Well, I we you have the physical book where it says Gianni. I do. Well, 

[00:21:14] Rebekah: I, yeah, that’s why I’ve been, that’s why I was confused, but I’m gonna look it up. Um, 

[00:21:19] Tim: I, I just thought it was funny because they call him Turkish Gianni, which is he Turkish or Italian, and I don’t think he’s either one.

[00:21:28] Tim: I think that was the, that was the joke of his name. It was the joke. 

[00:21:32] Donna: Yeah. So, but he’s, he’s from Cyprus, so he’s, he beat Turk. 

[00:21:38] Josiah: Oh, isn’t it a huge, isn’t it like a huge political people thing that Turkey claims part or all of Cyprus and Cyprus is holding for their independence? 

[00:21:50] Music: Hmm. Oh, that’s a part of reading about 

[00:21:53] Josiah: temporary politics that I dunno about.

[00:21:57] Josiah: I was reading about that yesterday. [00:22:00] Yes. In the Hindustan Times. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

[00:22:05] Rebekah: So, okay. Yeah. Con I’m confirming, but in chapter 94, they’re talking to Damir Guz, uh, I don’t know how they say that in the book, but it’s Johnny’s dad. And like he’s saying like, when’s the last time you saw Johnny? And they like, they call him Johnny, like, spelled that way through the whole book.

[00:22:26] Rebekah: So then, yeah, the Gianni thing threw me off. You guys can say Gianni, it’s just 

[00:22:30] Tim: funny. So the audio, so the audio was 

[00:22:34] Rebekah: different. The audio reader was saying 

[00:22:35] Donna: Gianni. 

[00:22:36] Rebekah: Interesting. Well, and it, it must be typed that way somewhere. Like, I bought this fairly recently. Um, so I don’t. Like it’s, I mean it wasn’t exactly, it’s not old.

[00:22:47] Rebekah: Um, it was printed in 2020, but I bought this copy in 2025. But there is a different cover for previous printings and so I’m kind of wondering if maybe the audiobook reader had a former copy and used [00:23:00] Gianni, like maybe they just changed it for some, I don’t know. Well, and it is confusing. It would, it’s confusing that they would change it to Johnny because there’s a character named John like in the story as well.

[00:23:13] Tim: Yes. So 

[00:23:13] Rebekah: anyway, 

[00:23:14] Tim: and maybe that’s what the audio book was doing to distinguish the two characters very pronouncing it very differently. 

[00:23:22] Josiah: So, oh well. Well let’s move on to characterization changes. You know, the main four. Characters are pretty similar from page to screen. There’s one notable brief difference in the final scene of the film that implies, uh, Ibrahim may have been in a same sex relationship, at least as a young man.

[00:23:44] Josiah: The book doesn’t have this in the, uh, at the end or anywhere. For Ibrahim stated at one point he, he was a young man with few female friends or any friends at all, made him sound more like a loner. But maybe that was setting it up for later [00:24:00] books as a twist. ’cause I’m sure even in 2025, that’s a twist.

[00:24:04] Rebekah: Well, yeah, I, I think the, like the quote and I was gonna see if I could find it ’cause I didn’t write it based on the actual quote, but I thought it was weird because in the book there was an opportunity for the author to explain it and like say that because he makes a comment to say. Like, I had few female friends and few male friends.

[00:24:29] Rebekah: Really. Any friends at all. Like he points it out. And if you were gonna say it like that could have been a spot to introduce that. Um, I just thought it was interesting, like something interesting to be added. But 

[00:24:41] Donna: I specifically recall while we were watching this, that section, because all of a sudden I was like, has this come up bef, did I miss this?

[00:24:52] Donna: Something about him before? Because the com, whatever the comment was, and I don’t recall it verbatim or [00:25:00] anything like that, but I just thought, oh, E Ibrahim’s gay did, were we throwing that out there? Did that, 

[00:25:08] Rebekah: I think it also threw me, ’cause I, I thought they were like setting it up that he and um, Joyce like seemed to be kind of into each other.

[00:25:17] Rebekah: And so then he showed her the photo, but then like he and Joyce were holding hands. So I don’t even know if I think that that. Was like really what he was trying to say. It did seem like there was some setup for a future book or movie, rather, but I wonder if if like maybe it’s people reading into it.

[00:25:34] Rebekah: ’cause I also wondered if it was like, what if that was like a friend or a brother who was like murdered or something like that. So, 

[00:25:40] Donna: I don’t know. But, but in the book it was, you know, Joyce was very taken with Burn Bernard and wanted to really, I got more of, she just wanted to care for him because she’s benevolent than it was.

[00:25:55] Donna: She was interested in him. I, I didn’t get that feel. I just feel like [00:26:00] she needs to be taken care of someone. And, and that was kind of who she, that was just part of her personality. So interesting. Um, another change in characterization is with Jason Richie, who’s Ron’s boxing legend of a son. Uh, he’s a major secondary character who is suspected of killing Tony Keran both in the book and the film based on his presence in a damning photo left at the crime scene next to Kern’s body.

[00:26:36] Donna: So I did think that was an interesting little twist when they got to that in the film. I throw that in. However, the way this plays out is really different because in the movie, Jason’s only identified because of a unique tattoo, but was not obviously one of the suspected criminals standing in front of a pile of cash as it looks like he’s got something to [00:27:00] hide.

[00:27:00] Donna: Jason’s eventually arrested by DCI, Chris Hudson, but quickly rescued by his father and the other members of the Thirsty Murder Club. The film uses this touching scene to resolve kind of an ongoing awkwardness between father and son and over. Jason’s frustration that is, that Ron is like, clearly focused on Jason’s, you know, boxing career.

[00:27:28] Donna: Like he can’t be anything else. And I, I thought they, they did portray that. Well, I, I agree. That was a, they made it deal a big deal about that. Um, 

[00:27:40] Rebekah: I couldn’t tell if that just felt like a chip on his shoulder, by the way, like in the film when he said that, I was like. Wait, is your dad like not proud? I, I didn’t like totally get it, so maybe that was just me not picking up on subtlety.

[00:27:53] Rebekah: ’cause I don’t, 

[00:27:55] Tim: for one thing, I think what, what Jason was noticing was the [00:28:00] fact that his dad only talked about the boxing stuff since he was injured. So, you know, to the point where he had to give up boxing, he’s gone into all sorts of other things like ice dancing and, you know, he’s on whatever with the stars, you know, happens to be popular this month or whatever.

[00:28:20] Tim: But, um, he, Ron his dad doesn’t, doesn’t really look at any of those things. So Jason thinks, well he’s not proud of me anymore. 

[00:28:29] Music: Uh, 

[00:28:30] Tim: so I get that. I under, I understand it. I, it’s kind of subtle and I don’t think that Ron really meant that he was just only interested in the boxing stuff. 

[00:28:44] Rebekah: So we’ll get into one additional thing that the movie changes about Jason when we get into some of the big plot differences.

[00:28:51] Rebekah: But in the book, compared to his movie appearance, uh, the club and the police do suspect Jason as behind potentially the murder [00:29:00] of Tony Kern. But there’s no arrest in the book. Jason is forthcoming first to Elizabeth and Associates and later to the police, um, about his previous criminal history, and he actually shares information to help and solve, like get the case solved to help solve the case.

[00:29:15] Rebekah: He kind of becomes a little bit of a defacto member of the murder club though. Um, in the film he treats the three members other than his father with like just polite deference in the book. He’s a lot more like excited to help and he like will talk about it, but like he sets up a meeting and tries to cap catch somebody in the act that wasn’t actually guilty, but doesn’t matter.

[00:29:36] Rebekah: So he’s a little bit more involved. I think the movie, he’s a little more. He’s not sinister. He’s just kind of like, he’s more of a bad boy in the movie. Um, I think they wanted to paint him that way. 

[00:29:49] Donna: I think they wanted that mysterious part to, to shine out. I, I agree. I got I definitely got that. 

[00:29:58] Tim: It’s, it’s, [00:30:00] uh, I think he’s an interesting character in all, in all of those, especially because Ron, his father was famous for being a protester.

[00:30:10] Tim: He was a famous protester that protested all sorts of things. So what happens to the progeny of the guy who is famous for protesting? And it’s, it’s an interesting case study. He becomes a boxer and he’s a criminal and some other things. So. All right. Uh, another character bogged in Jankowski has a similar personality from book to film, but his role as Tony Kern’s murderer does diverge quite a bit.

[00:30:39] Tim: The book records his confession as a patient waiting for the right moment to end Kern’s life after decades before seeing the man kill a close friend of his. However, despite this bombshell of a secret, being exposed to Steven Elizabeth’s husband, in addition to Joyce’s [00:31:00] diary entry indicating she also believes bogged in to be guilty, he’s never arrested, and from what we found, he’s a recurring character in later books.

[00:31:10] Rebekah: Yeah, I didn’t look up how he reappears, like for all I know, because I haven’t looked up spoilers. It could be that like they, you know, set him up and he gets arrested in the next book or whatever. I just have no idea. 

[00:31:21] Josiah: Well, in the film, there is a frantic moment of suspicion. The viewer is supposed to wonder if bogged Dan poisoned Steven, Elizabeth’s husband, as his murderous intentions are exposed.

[00:31:35] Josiah: Only to find that, first of all, he did not try and hurt Steven, and he considers Steven a friend, and second of all, he claims to have killed Tony Keran only by accident in the midst of a fist fight. Also, Bogdan’s elaborate confession to Steven in the film who he trusts can’t or won’t out him due to his dementia.[00:32:00] 

[00:32:00] Josiah: It is caught on tape in the film. 

[00:32:03] Rebekah: It’s like a really big moment where Elizabeth is like, ah, and they, you know, he’s arrested and all of the, she like calls everybody come now immediately and like it’s this big. 

[00:32:13] Tim: Yeah, the book makes no mention of Steven recording his. His chess game moves so he can listen to them later.

[00:32:22] Tim: So that, that was a film only kind of addition. 

[00:32:25] Donna: I was so relieved that Bogden was not this nefarious, creepy character because they built up the suspense very well that he might kill Steven. And when, when that happened, I was like, oh. And after it was over, I thought, oh, I bet that’s exactly what they were going for.

[00:32:48] Donna: For me to think that he would do that, I mean, I could see where that, uh, that that purpose was, was acted out very well because, you know, [00:33:00] maybe I’m a naive listener or viewer or whatever, but, um, it was, I thought it was very well done and I thought it was very touching that he’s so. Um, taken with Steven and Steven feels like he can trust him and, and things like that.

[00:33:16] Rebekah: And I would say that that’s even like magnified in the book. I mean, it’s magnified in the book. Like you bog Dan is like someone that they really like. They all get along with him. They like him. And even like Joyce’s final jour journal entry is where she mentions that it might be like that he may have killed, um, Tony Curran.

[00:33:38] Rebekah: And I thought it was really cute. Um, Joyce says in her final diary entry, no, the only person too smart to be caught around here is bogged in. Don’t you think he killed Tony Curran? I do. I’m sure he had a good reason and I look forward to asking him, but not until after he’s fitted my new replacement window.

[00:33:55] Rebekah: Because what if he takes offense? I wonder if if Elizabeth suspects him [00:34:00] too. She certainly hasn’t mentioned chasing down Johnny recently, so perhaps she does. And then she just moves on. So I think it’s like they literally like really like him and they, even if he did kill him, they’re just like super unconcerned about it.

[00:34:14] Rebekah: So I thought that was just an interesting, like who else they turn in, but then somehow they don’t care that Boden might have killed Tony car. It’s just an interesting, um, shift to me. 

[00:34:25] Donna: Yeah. There’s a few things like that I think throughout that you just learn kind of like, um, uh, we’re older, what are people gonna do?

[00:34:36] Tim: I think I like the, I think I like the, the, um, bogged in character from the film. 

[00:34:43] Donna: Mm-hmm. 

[00:34:43] Tim: The best. Mm-hmm. Of the two. I think it was a good change. 

[00:34:46] Donna: Yeah. Um, the film also adjusts some of Tony Kern’s role before his death in both book and film. He’s, he’s still a somewhat unsavory character, but in the film he has more [00:35:00] personal stake in the continued success at Cooper’s Chase as his mother, Maude, who is a film only character, lives there.

[00:35:09] Donna: Elizabeth makes a point to say, after watching his, uh, RA with Ian Ham, how grateful she is for him and that he’s part owner in the property. But in the book, there’s no Ma and Kern’s death doesn’t elicit an emotional response at all. He just does. Other than we’re excited he is dead Another murdered a son.

[00:35:32] Donna: Woo-hoo. 

[00:35:33] Tim: I had a question. I thought that that was not his mother, but his aunt. In Cooper’s Chase. 

[00:35:42] Rebekah: Mm. Is it his aunt? So here was part of why I struggled to figure that out. It’s a relative, but 

[00:35:47] Tim: not mom. I was thinking it was, but 

[00:35:50] Rebekah: yeah, it might be his aunt. I, and I apologize if I got that wrong. The, the hard part about that is, that was confusing to me is like, I saw that in the movie and I thought, did I [00:36:00] just like miss that in the book?

[00:36:01] Rebekah: ’cause I was, I watched the movie and then finished the final, like, third of the book. So I didn’t like, yeah, I was in the middle of it and it was just very strange. ’cause I thought I had missed something, but I, I don’t really understand the point of that because this was, okay, let me say, this is like a thing that I would say I, I was confused by, um, in the film.

[00:36:25] Rebekah: I don’t understand the point of the mod character. I don’t understand why you would make Tony Kern right before he dies. I felt like the movie made him kind of a sympathetic character. I didn’t get it. Like, why would you need to do that? That was such a random person, make sympathetic and it just felt like, it felt like an unresolved like thing that just didn’t, and I don’t know, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me.

[00:36:50] Rebekah: I don’t know if that’s just me or 

[00:36:52] Tim: I felt like it was to make hum the biggest, baddest guy. To, [00:37:00] to make you hate him enough that, well, he’s still living. There’s somebody else that died, but he’s still going and pushing everything. But, 

[00:37:08] Rebekah: and we’ll talk about somebody else that’s kind of a sinister person in just a second.

[00:37:11] Rebekah: So, I mean, maybe that was it. Maybe it was just like, you don’t want too many bad guys. Although I thought that one of the interesting parts of the book was like, the reason that it’s just interesting to watch the elderly people solve the murders is partly because the people who got murdered. The present day murders, at least you don’t really care.

[00:37:29] Rebekah: Like, you’re like, well, they were jerks. So who gives a crap? The biggest thing we care about is that one of our kids doesn’t get accused and arrested for it. You know, like I thought it was interesting that they weren’t sympathetic. So, um, and another character note. Maude seems to be hiding a few secrets of her own when the prying eyes of Elizabeth Catcher gaze.

[00:37:48] Rebekah: However, there’s actually very little said here outside of some comments about how she doesn’t trust the police. Um, nothing major comes out of MOD’s, closed off nature, but it, there was a scene in the [00:38:00] film where she was like sitting in a little alcove with flowers, and that’s how the BT initials, which we’ll talk about who that is in a second, like that came up and Elizabeth was talking to her.

[00:38:10] Rebekah: And I thought at that point I was like, oh, so like MOD’s got some information or mod and then we never see her again. Or like, she’s never relevant again. So I thought that was like a very oddly done thing. 

[00:38:24] Music: Hmm. 

[00:38:25] Tim: I thought it was interesting that, that Elizabeth finds Bobby Tanner because of those flowers.

[00:38:33] Rebekah: I guess that’s true. That’s they did use that to like, help her find that person. 

[00:38:39] Tim: Well, I think a good mystery tells you all of the things you need to know to solve it, but sometimes it’s so subtle or so, you know, just random that, that you don’t realize until you watch it a second time and you say, oh, there it was.

[00:38:58] Tim: It was right there. I, [00:39:00] I saw it, but I didn’t really pay attention to it. So I have some things to say about that eventually, but, 

[00:39:09] Josiah: well, of course, before you say that, we should talk about Bobby Tanner. 

[00:39:13] Tim: Yeah, we’ll 

[00:39:15] Josiah: try 

[00:39:15] Tim: to 

[00:39:15] Josiah: keep up in the order. In present day book scenes, Bobby Tanner goes by Peter. Very different character page to screen the book positions.

[00:39:27] Josiah: Bobby Peter, as a previous associate of Tony Currans and a potential suspect for his murder, only to reveal just a red herring.

[00:39:41] Josiah: Bobby is a florist who no longer has a desire for the life of crime that he once lived. Okay. When we got to that book scene, 

[00:39:49] Rebekah: and he was just like, chill. I was like, I had already watched the movie and I thought, what is happening? It, it like completely threw me off. So that was [00:40:00] definitely a, a pretty major change, even though he’s like a tertiary character.

[00:40:04] Tim: Yeah. Film. Bobby Tanner is a far more sinister character, making threats toward Elizabeth in an attempt. To stop her club from investigating Further, this supposedly occurs because he was an anonymous third owner of Cooper’s Chase, as told by Ian Ham. When Elizabeth visits him in his flower shop, Tanner agrees to sell the property to a buyer of her choosing in order to keep his name out of the murder case, as he didn’t actually kill either of the victims, but wants to continue living in anonymity.

[00:40:39] Tim: His intimidating presence seems to replace the hole left by the absence of book only character Turkish Gianni. 

[00:40:47] Rebekah: So what do you wanna say about that? What did you think about that, Timmy? 

[00:40:51] Tim: I thought it was odd. Um, 

[00:40:56] Rebekah: which one 

[00:40:56] Tim: did you, 

[00:40:57] Rebekah: did you like the, the movie one? 

[00:40:59] Tim: I [00:41:00] think, I think I understood the movie one better.

[00:41:03] Tim: It, it made a little more sense. Although this book and, and this story, especially the book, the book adds some that the book. Film drops, but it’s full of red herrings to try to get you to run down, you know, other alleyways. So I, I think that was pretty good. I, I think, um, the best mysteries basically tell you everything you need to know before they finally solve it, but they tell it to you in such a way that, that you probably won’t get it.

[00:41:41] Tim: Um, because people that like to read mysteries, like to solve them. Was I right? Did I, did I get it right before they read the final chapter or whatever, when they resolve. Um, I did think that when they went to the film version, they dropped too many of the red [00:42:00] herrings out of the pic, out of the picture.

[00:42:03] Tim: And, um, you didn’t. There was just something strange about that the red herrings in the book kind of made you think, oh, was it this or could it have been that? No, that doesn’t quite sound right. But 

[00:42:15] Rebekah: in terms of Bobby Tanner, I think that they were trying, like you said, they’re trying to make it like replace Turkish, Johnny’s kind of off screen, like there’s a mysterious, scary guy and all of this stuff.

[00:42:30] Rebekah: Um, in a lot of ways I like the way that the movie kind of streamlined some of it, but I would say a, I do kind of agree it took out a little bit too much, maybe of the red herring stuff to make you figure it out over time. But I also, like, I had a problem with this because this guy in the movie, when they come to him in the Flo flower shop, he’s like, his hand is covered in blood.

[00:42:55] Rebekah: Like he’s very creepy, very scary, and that’s very [00:43:00] intentional. But then he’s not the killer and the only actual killers. Killed somebody by accident and like then the other people or the other guy got poisoned because he was going to date, like he was going to disrupt a graveyard thing. Like it wasn’t, it was weird because it was like a murder mystery.

[00:43:22] Rebekah: And then the murders were so, like, they were motivated by such less intense things, I guess. And so it’s like you have this guy on screen that’s like, well, obviously that guy would’ve been the murderer and he’s actually not, but like he is a criminal. It just felt confusing to me, specifically Tanner’s character.

[00:43:41] Donna: Some characters who are mostly or entirely omitted from the film to streamline the plot, likely include, uh, Turkish Gianni, A criminal from Cyprus, we discover was killed by Bogden decades earlier. Uh, Deir [00:44:00] Guz. Turkish Johnny’s father who speaks with DCI, Chris Hudson, uh, the play fairs, the family who owned the land adjacent to Cooper’s Chase, but refused to sell it to Ian Ham.

[00:44:13] Donna: And Steve Giorgio, a former gang mate of Jason’s. Um, eh, I can see, especially the last ones, I could see where that’s crowding up the cast a little bit. You could. 

[00:44:28] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. I, I thought that the whole Turkish Johnny Subplot was interesting. I understand why they cut it, but I think that cutting him and then trying to re add some of the like pure criminal nature back into Tanner, just.

[00:44:44] Rebekah: I dunno. It just didn’t work for me. 

[00:44:46] Josiah: We’ll also discuss the much different plot lines that have to do with Bernard and Father Mackey who were present in the film, but not explored in the same way they were in the book. [00:45:00] So, uh, let’s just get into some plot and timeline changes. 

[00:45:04] Rebekah: Josiah, that’s a great idea.

[00:45:05] Rebekah: I would love to do that. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. So, okay. This dude can do it. Yeah. This book includes a fairly large number of heartbreaking subplots that unfold as the Thursday Murder Club investigates various people who might have killed Tony Curran or Ian vent them. They’re, they spend a lot of the book just figuring out who they can eliminate.

[00:45:30] Rebekah: They really too, they really try to investigate this as thoroughly as possible. Most of the subplots are left outta the movie entirely, although some characters, father Mackey and Bernard in particular, um, present on screen. So it does seem that the film’s direction was focused on maybe having a lighthearted feel and streamlining the plot more than heavy character portraits.

[00:45:54] Rebekah: So the two most major of these are Father Mackey and [00:46:00] Bernard, or Bernard. Um, so does anybody, I, I’m happy to just, I wanted to explain like what they do with them in the book for those who have only seen the movie. Um, I’ll, I’ll explain Father Mackey’s, ’cause I thought that was interesting. And then maybe mom or Josiah can share about Bernard if you prefer.

[00:46:16] Rebekah: Um. Father Mackey, uh, is shown in the film. He is, he’s wearing the, they call it the dog collar, I think is what they call the, they continue to follow that priest. Yeah. Um, he is wearing that. However, in the book, there’s like this point at which he is a major suspect for, I believe, the murder of Ian Benham because the investigators deter, like, discover that he’s actually not a priest.

[00:46:41] Rebekah: They contact the Catholic church. He’s never been a priest. There’s no record of him being a priest, and they go through all this stuff. Well, in reality, in the book, um, the Thursday murder club also suspects him for a while, and then when he’s confronted, he shares the actual story. And the actual story that happened was.

[00:46:59] Rebekah: He [00:47:00] was indeed a priest. He was a priest at this particular abbey. Um, and there was a nun who lived there who essentially he entered into an illicit affair with, obviously, you know, I think 

[00:47:12] Tim: she was a pre, she was in whatever that priest state is. It was early, 

[00:47:14] Rebekah: yeah. But she had committed to a life of celibacy already.

[00:47:17] Rebekah: Right. And he had already, uh, done the same as a priest. Um, and so they fell in love and they basically. They would meet like late at night. She would come if he like, um, if he lit like a specific candle or something in his place, he notices one night she doesn’t show up. But then also he’s getting concerned and he goes down into the, uh, convent and discovers that she has unfortunately hanged herself.

[00:47:45] Rebekah: Um, because as he discovers briefly later from, uh, sister Mary, the head nun there, um, the woman that he had fallen in love with found out that she was pregnant. And so, um, instead of [00:48:00] being like, instead of like confronting that and, and whatever, she took her life. And so, uh, father Mackey was then the church basically stripped him of his credentials and sent him off to, I think Ireland, if I’m not mistaken.

[00:48:15] Rebekah: Um, or he, he wasn’t sent by the church, but he was, he like left and moved off to Ireland and became like he did another job. What were you gonna say, dad? 

[00:48:22] Tim: Didn’t he make a deal with them? That he would leave the priesthood if 

[00:48:28] Rebekah: Oh, like if she was buried in that cemetery. ’cause 

[00:48:31] Tim: she committed suicide. So that would’ve kept her out of the, out of the plot.

[00:48:34] Rebekah: Correct. And so he wanted her to be buried there. So he left and he didn’t come back until after like many years had passed and Cooper’s Chase had opened and there was no longer an active convent, um, on the property. Uh, but the Catholic church, part of what they did in exchange for him leaving also was that they stripped all records of him ever being a priest, which is why it [00:49:00] looked like he wasn’t, um, when the investigators got into it, it was heartbreaking and like, uh, father Mackey had named.

[00:49:07] Rebekah: He, he said, I obviously, she was so early along, we never knew if it was a boy or a girl. None of that ever happened. But we, uh, he said, I always saw him as a boy and he named him, I think Patrick was the name he gave to him. And so it was, oh my gosh. Like, I was like reading. It was so sad. 

[00:49:24] Tim: The movie did cover that though, in a short film with all the same characters, same, same place and everything.

[00:49:33] Tim: It is also available, uh, along with the Thursday murder club. You can look at it. Uh, there’s trailers, but there’s also, I think it’s an eight minute, uh, film. And it is, uh, Elizabeth is going to confront him, like it sounds like she did in the book by herself. And she’s just gonna push and push and push. And she brings Joyce with her, and Joyce [00:50:00] says, how about we take a different.

[00:50:02] Tim: Direction and just talk to him. And so they let him tell his story and they’re sitting in the chapel, uh, in the church. So it’s, it’s a very, it’s a very nice part, but it is darker, even though it’s just a small part portion there. 

[00:50:17] Donna: Well, you know, Bernard is, uh, is a resident. Yeah. He, uh, he’s a resident with them and he’s widowed, and Joyce just kind of finds him, she latches onto him and is very taken with him as far as noticing He’s lonely, noticing he’s, he needs a friend.

[00:50:42] Donna: He needs a friend. And so she, um, strikes his friendship up with him. And there are a few times where, you know, he, she knows, she can sense he doesn’t wanna talk right now, or they might have an understanding, you know, oh, right now I don’t want [00:51:00] be bothered or whatever. And he’s. Uh, he’s there at, she takes in food and she’s a baker, you know, but, but Bernard is much more present in the book because he’s much more present in her diary entries as well.

[00:51:20] Donna: And so, um, she keeps saying, you know, well, the rest of the club really thinks I’m crazy, you know, really thinks I don’t need to be doing this or whatever. And, um, and then he also has a very, Bernard also has kind of a, an unfortunate story too about his, his wife and his love. And 

[00:51:45] Tim: when his wife passes away, they, uh, are, their daughter is going to put, spread her ashes on the Ganges River because it’s part of their religion.

[00:51:56] Tim: Uh, and so. He supposedly gave them [00:52:00] the ashes, but, uh, it reveals that he couldn’t, couldn’t be without her. And so he kept her, kept her ashes in a teapot that they had discovered together before she passed away. And he, he is very, very guilty. And he feels like, you know, it was my daughter’s mother and, you know, I need to tell her.

[00:52:22] Tim: So he planned to, he had buried the teapot in the graveyard, and when they start construction stuff, they end up covering it with cement. So now he can’t dig it up and give it to the daughter and say, I’m sorry. And so he can’t live with that. And so he takes his medicine and ends his life. That’s the, that’s his plot.

[00:52:45] Tim: He can’t live with the guilt. And he writes the note to Joyce and she reads it out, uh, in the, in the club. So they all hear, uh, what went on. So 

[00:52:57] Donna: I do think [00:53:00] I can see, I think they wanted to keep the film

[00:53:07] Donna: a a little lighter and I, I’m assuming that’s why so much of this was kind of in the back background. They, the characters were still there. It’s not that they didn’t exist, but, um, I just felt like the intention of the, of the director was, uh, of Chris Columbus was to keep it lighter. He does, he keeps things lighter, doesn’t he?

[00:53:35] Donna: He doesn’t, he, he’s not a, 

[00:53:38] Tim: I could, I could see the, the, uh, deletion of that one. I think the one with Father Mackey might have been better in, in it and, which is probably why they filmed it and then had to cut it for time and, okay, well let’s show it. ’cause it was, it was important. 

[00:53:54] Rebekah: So what did you guys, that’s what I wanted to know.

[00:53:56] Rebekah: So Josiah, what were your thoughts as well on [00:54:00] the cutting of those two plot lines? Like, do you think it was good or do you think it made the movie not as good? 

[00:54:06] Josiah: I guess if I had to have an opinion, I guess it was good in the book, and it was fine that it was cut in the movie, you have more room in a book to do things like this, and they’re streamlining it for the movie, and that’s okay.

[00:54:26] Donna: And I think that movie was two hours, nine minutes. It was like a couple hours long. So, um, definitely, I, I could definitely see that concept or that thought 

[00:54:40] Tim: you always have to do trimming. I mean, we’ve talked about that in all of the. The book to film adaptations. We’ve talked about somewhere they have to cut ’cause books are longer than a two hour film.

[00:54:54] Donna: And, and I can also see Chris, Chris Columbus in this too. Some of the [00:55:00] decisions he made, I didn’t realize 

[00:55:01] Tim: he was the director this time. I didn’t look. 

[00:55:03] Donna: Uh, another characterization we wanna mention is Elizabeth and Steven and their charming relationship, uh, gets a little more screen time than it did word count.

[00:55:17] Donna: They, they do a little more with them in the film. It’s clear in both works that she adores him, uh, and she’s very saddened by his memories fading due to dementia. And she, they kind of established that pretty early on in the film too, which I think is fine. Um, the film takes it a step further by adding.

[00:55:42] Donna: Some tension there. And I mentioned that before in Elizabeth’s fear that Bogden had poisoned her, him. And, um, there’s a charming scene at the end where they dance together. And I thought this was, um, I thought this was just a [00:56:00] lovely addition. I think the two actors are, uh, I thought they acted well together.

[00:56:07] Donna: I thought their chemistry was there. Um, interesting that she can leave him a lot. And it was kinda weird that she gave him sleeping a sleeping medicine, 

[00:56:24] Josiah: sedated him. 

[00:56:24] Donna: Yeah. Like that was a little, 

[00:56:28] Tim: his and her medicine to do it. Yeah, she said, she said to Bogden, I think in the book, I, some of it’s his and mine to make sure that he sleeps.

[00:56:39] Tim: She said that he has good days and he has bad days. Yeah. So, you know, 

[00:56:43] Donna: so it’s like, how do you, 

[00:56:46] Tim: but in the book she says that she’s not, she doesn’t have any fear of leaving him. He never has cooked, and so he’s not gonna turn on the stove. And, um, she feels like he’s safe enough in the room. Um, yeah. 

[00:56:59] Donna: And, [00:57:00] and yeah, 

[00:57:01] Tim: in their apartment.

[00:57:03] Donna: But just, just as far as their chemistry was concerned, I loved that. I, I thought it was believable. Um, and I liked that they didn’t just keep him out of it. He had very lucid moments and, and things like that. So, I mean, that, that’s all right. Um, I almost think they made more of the dementia. I almost think they made more of it in the movie.

[00:57:30] Donna: Like it was a, it was a more pronounced. 

[00:57:35] Tim: I, it was definitely background in the book on just, just mm-hmm. Faint background. 

[00:57:40] Donna: Yeah. But it, I don’t know if he was trying to make her look more noble because she, you know, sacrificed. I don’t know. I, it, it gave me a little bit of a weird feeling, honestly, about the way, it was just the way it was handled 

[00:57:56] Rebekah: in the film, you mean?

[00:57:57] Rebekah: Yeah. Yeah. So I think [00:58:00] part of this may come down to the way that they did. I didn’t include it in our like, characterization changes. ’cause I think, I think it was really subtle, but in general, um, Elizabeth is a little more, she’s not sinister, that’s not a good word, but she’s a little more like Machiavellian I think was a word that I saw describing her in one of the articles.

[00:58:21] Rebekah: And she’s more like, you get a little more of her. Um. Background as like kind of ruthless in the book. And so I wonder if it kind of goes to that in the film she was kind of made to look a little sweeter, but then the, the like medication thing, like seemed to be more like her book character. So I think maybe some of that just wasn’t quite as clean as it could have been.

[00:58:45] Josiah: When DCI, Chris Hudson and PC Donna Deus find out about the bones discovered by Boan in the graveyard, they become very angry. They threaten to arrest all four members of the [00:59:00] Thursday murder club in the book. This happens asserting that they have committed a serious crime. It was mostly glossed over in the film, there aren’t any open threats made about impending arrests of the main four.

[00:59:15] Rebekah: I thought that was annoying in the book. I was like, shut up. They’re helping you be nice. You want their help? Yeah. 24 hours, it’s fine. And it’s clearly a body that’s been. There for years, you’re No, nothing changed in 24 hours. 

[00:59:29] Tim: Yeah, but they British people, but they did dig the body up. Bogden did. Then he buried it again, then he dug it up again so Elizabeth could see it and buried it again.

[00:59:39] Tim: And then Elizabeth came back with the former. Whatever he is, coroner or whoever. He was their friend and they dug it up again, but I mean, it was dug up three different times, so I mean, it could have been messed up. Well, another character, uh, Jason Ritchie [01:00:00] plays a big role in both the book and film, but in the book, he serves more as a helpful support to the Thursday murder Club.

[01:00:08] Tim: His final hurrah in the book was to set up a fake date with Karen Playfair, a book only character that Jason briefly believed was behind Ham’s murder. In the film, however, Jason is absolved of Tony Curran’s murder by proving with a timestamped selfie that he was in fact having an affair with Ian Ham soon to be ex-wife.

[01:00:31] Tim: During the minutes, Tony Curran was bludgeoned to death, which is very different than the book. Yeah, 

[01:00:39] Rebekah: I, we talked a little bit about his other changes and like how he’s just more of a bad boy in the film. I mean, I thought it was a pretty punchy thing to be like, well, that’s why I didn’t wanna tell you where I was.

[01:00:50] Rebekah: You know, like when the police are like, well, there’s no other explanation, but that you killed it. And it’s like, no, actually the explanation is he was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. Um, but I thought that was murder. Murder’s not [01:01:00] murder. It’s not illegal murder. Yeah. Also, oh, the, oh, go ahead mom.

[01:01:04] Rebekah: Sorry. Not a death crime. Not a death crime, but a bad idea. Mm-hmm. Um, it also was interesting, he, um, the whole thing with Karen play Fair in the book, he basically says he like goes on Tinder and Joyce has his whole diary entry about how Tinder works. And it’s silly. It’s very funny. But I thought that was interesting ’cause I actually was so unable to follow what he was trying to say happened and who he thought was responsible.

[01:01:32] Rebekah: And so. I don’t know. I thought that this was, I, as much as I, I liked Jason in the book a little bit more. I didn’t love the Bad Boy side in the movie as much. I did think that it made more sense to just cut the Karen Playfair thing out. Like that was very confusing to me. 

[01:01:49] Josiah: Both the book and film mentioned Joyce’s daughter, Joanna.

[01:01:54] Josiah: I feel you, Joan, Joanna. [01:02:00] Joanna purchases Cooper’s Chase in large part due to her mother’s joyful demeanor. Since living there, it’s a great place. You know, they say that money can’t buy happiness. However, in the book, it’s a happy gesture that comes as a surprise to Joyce, whereas the film highlights it as part of the blackmail deal Elizabeth made.

[01:02:26] Josiah: With Bob Ana. 

[01:02:27] Music: Hmm. 

[01:02:28] Rebekah: I found it confusing. That was so confusing to me because again, he didn’t murder anybody. Why is he the only person that gets blackmailed? But then you let another murderer just beach hill and you’re worried, making sure that he’s fixing your window sill. Like, I don’t know it, that’s confusing to me.

[01:02:44] Donna: Uh, little spot of trivia here. The actress Ingrid Oliver, who portrays Joanna, um, she is actually the wife of author Richard Osmond. So I thought that was nice that she got a little, got a little piece in there, [01:03:00] piece of herself in the film. Nepotism 

[01:03:02] Rebekah: at this point in the plot, I thought it’d be interesting too, for those of you who only watched the movie, if this is not really your genre of book and you’re just listening ’cause you’re curious.

[01:03:11] Rebekah: Um, I wanted to explain the four murders that do get solved through the course of the books and just kind of give you a quick rundown of actually how that happens and who does what. So. First of all, let’s go in chronological order. Oldest to newest. Actually, let’s do newest to oldest Ian Van. Them is killed Last.

[01:03:31] Rebekah: Okay. He is the developer that, at first everybody thinks killed Tony Curran because he benefits from his death quite a lot. Um, by gaining his, uh, his portion of the ownership of the Cooper’s Chase area, Ian Ham was actually killed. By, uh, John Penny’s husband, John Penny and John are a married couple.

[01:03:51] Rebekah: Penny is in the hospice ward. Um, she has been, she’s not, I don’t know if she’s in a coma or how that works, but she has had a condition for a long [01:04:00] time. Penny was one of the original members of the Thursday murder club, and she was Elizabeth’s best friend. She and Penny and Elizabeth Penny and John and Steven were all friends.

[01:04:10] Rebekah: Uh, before all of this. So 

[01:04:11] Tim: Penny was actually a police officer? 

[01:04:14] Rebekah: Correct. Penny was a female police officer. The only woman on her, uh, district at the time, and that will come up later. John is the one who kills the, invent them, uh, by stabbing him with a syringe with fentanyl in it. And that’s how Ian vent them dies.

[01:04:29] Rebekah: And you find out at the end, you know that it was John and John was doing it because, uh, he did not want Ian vent them to get rid of Cooper’s Chase because his wife lived there and. And 

[01:04:43] Tim: they buried the body of another murder victim. Yes. 

[01:04:47] Rebekah: So that’s the oldest murder. So we can go back to that. ’cause that is connected.

[01:04:51] Rebekah: The original, well not the oldest murder. Um, oldest two murders. Yeah. Well, true. Let me keep going back in the order I was doing Go ahead. So the one who was killed before Ian during the [01:05:00] course of this book slash film was Tony Curran. He was one of the co-owners of Cooper’s Chase. Tony Curran was killed by Boden in the book.

[01:05:10] Rebekah: He was killed by Boden after Boden, waited many years to, um, kill him in exchange for the fact that Boden watched him kill a friend of his decades earlier. And, um, I believe, laugh about it. And Boden was just biting time in the movie. Boden said it was like he killed him as part of a scuffle and it was an accident.

[01:05:29] Rebekah: So we’ve already discussed that he’s trying to, to get 

[01:05:30] Tim: his passport. 

[01:05:31] Rebekah: Yeah, it was a scuffle, whatever, but in the, in the book, in the book, bogged In is Never Arrested. Um, and no one really seems to be all that concerned with him coming to justice for Tony Curran’s murder. So really, Tony Curran’s murder, which was like the big first point of like plot changes is a really meaningless, it seems like there’s not, no one really cares in the book in the, a little more significant then the two other murders occurred.

[01:05:58] Rebekah: Half a century [01:06:00] earlier. So the first of them was a young woman in a white dress, um, and she was killed nearby. Her murder was never solved. The Thursday murder club was originally investigating her murder. Elizabeth found the files in Penny’s belongings and didn’t understand why Penny had never introduced this to the Thursday murder club as something to, uh, you know, try and solve.

[01:06:23] Rebekah: And as it turns out, it’s because the second murder, the boy was the boyfriend. I don’t remember his name, who cares? He was abusive. Um, the boyfriend of the girl in the dress in white that died, uh, penny basically knew that he was guilty of the murder of his girlfriend, but the male police officers on her district believed his story, believed that he was innocent.

[01:06:47] Rebekah: Whatever stranger did it. Yes, penny took his death into her own hands, and he was the body that Boden found buried on top of another grave in the [01:07:00] graveyard next to the Abbey. So Penny killed the, or the boy. A boyfriend killed his girlfriend. Penny knew that that boyfriend was guilty, and so she vigilante killed him.

[01:07:10] Rebekah: And then in the present day, Tony Curran was killed Irrelevantly. And then Ian Benham was killed to hide the, uh, guilt of Penny and John. 

[01:07:21] Tim: Not to mention the lady who died and her ashes were there and the other nun who had killed herself were, were buried there. Lots of parties. Those were not murders, but four murders.

[01:07:32] Tim: Yes. 

[01:07:32] Rebekah: And in the book and film, penny and John Penny is obviously, like I said, she’s not aware. John, who was a veterinarian, um, and had had access to the Fentanyl because of his previous work. Uh, he does, uh, take his and Penny’s lives and Elizabeth basically allows it to happen. Tells him that she’s gonna call the police and then walks off and in both book and film, it’s a little differently done, but pretty much the same outcome.[01:08:00] 

[01:08:00] Donna: I, I was very, I was okay with the other kind of stuff. They find stuff, the Penny and John. With the police. Yeah. They’d find stuff with the poli and they didn’t share with the police, and then Donna would be like, why didn’t you share? Or, that could be dangerous, or whatever. Okay. Who? Yeah, it’s not gonna be dangerous.

[01:08:15] Donna: We are who we are. And then Elizabeth’s a IL is a, an I six, you know, whatever. I could deal with all that from the standpoint of they’re older people and they’re just, they’re gonna take these risks and they’re clever, whatever. But this where she just, I, I didn’t want Penny to go to jail, but they’re not gonna lay her in a cell bed.

[01:08:42] Donna: Well, they’re not. Right. So, and that wasn’t gonna happen. But to allow that and just let it go was just kinda like, really? Did you, did I, that was my personal opinion. I just got a very bad kind of icky taste in my mouth over it. So 

[01:08:56] Rebekah: I was just, it bothered me a lot because it didn’t [01:09:00] seem consistent, like you don’t care.

[01:09:02] Rebekah: That bogged in seems to have been maybe guilty of Tony Curran’s murder, but you would tell your friends you’re gonna turn them in for something that happened 50 years earlier. They obviously aren’t still trying to hurt anyone. It probably, it seemed like it was very clearly a one off thing and the person who was responsible is in a coma and it was your best friend.

[01:09:20] Rebekah: Like, it’s so character wise, I felt like it was so inconsistent with everything else we saw. 

[01:09:26] Tim: But John, the husband committed Ham’s murder, the most recent murder now just to cover up the previous murder. So I guess 

[01:09:35] Rebekah: it was, so it really was about him coming, like she didn’t feel right, leaving him Uncaptured, I guess, for that.

[01:09:43] Rebekah: So 

[01:09:43] Tim: how does, how does that end in the book? 

[01:09:45] Rebekah: This, I mean, it’s, it’s the same. Like she says, I’m gonna call the police. The only difference is that she said like, I’ll give you time to say goodbye and then we’ll escort you back to your room, and then I’ll call the police to come in the morning. But I mean, the same thing happens that he still, [01:10:00] um, takes his and, and his life.

[01:10:02] Tim: Yeah. In the, in the film, I, uh, I guess I missed it maybe, but in the film, I didn’t get the impression she said, we’re going to say something, but all of them are there when Yes, she said, she says, I’ll give you time to say goodbye this blah, blah, blah. But when she says, we’ll give you time to say goodbye, the camera cuts to the drawer of needles.

[01:10:25] Rebekah: And yeah, she knew that it, it’s implied that she knew what John, what John was gonna do. Okay. Yeah. So I, I didn’t like that either. So I get it, mom. 

[01:10:35] Tim: It’s an uncomfortable way to, to end it. And, and, uh, I mentioned when in a text that we had together, there are some moral dilemmas that, that the film and the book bring up.

[01:10:49] Tim: Um, 

[01:10:49] Donna: um, wrapping up the, the film, it shows a few brief clips of the funeral for Penny and John, uh, where the book just mentions it after the [01:11:00] fact. It stated in the book that Elizabeth declined to attend, though she does attend the funeral. In the movie you do see her there and Ibrahim. Gives a touching speech, which is also a screen only feature.

[01:11:14] Donna: So, 

[01:11:15] Tim: Hmm. At the funeral we’re shown the pendants labeled TMC for Thursday, murder Club that the three original members share in a touching film only scene. Elizabeth presents pennies pendant. Joyce dubbing her an official permanent member of the club. The book doesn’t mention any such pendants, nor is the question of Joyce’s membership in question beyond the first few chapters.

[01:11:40] Tim: And actually Joyce becomes part of the group because they’re trying to solve this first murder. And Elizabeth asks her the question, since they need medical, you’re a nurse, would this woman die from this fall? Probably not. She’d had, you know, as long as she got help or whatever. So that starts the ball rolling, so.

[01:11:59] Donna: Mm-hmm. [01:12:00] And immediately endears you to Penny too, because when she asks the question, she’s like, I wanna see. Yeah. Let me see. Yeah, I thought that was. That was clever. All right, let’s go into some numbers. Trivia. There’s not a lot for Netflix streaming, and not a lot I could find. Uh, I think the last one we did, uh, like this same situation.

[01:12:26] Donna: It’s just hard to find. I did find production cost for this was slated at about 60 million, and I think even that was a little weird before. But, um, the book release was in September, uh, 2020. On September 3rd, it released the movie released. And I didn’t know this until I started researching. Uh, it actually had a film premiere on August 21st in Chester Square in London.

[01:12:54] Donna: The next day after the Chester Square, uh, release, it [01:13:00] was also shown in 30 select cinemas, and then it came out on Netflix streaming on August 28th. Um, the Good Reads book rating was 3.86 out of five, uh, rotten Tomatoes movie, uh, rotten Tomatoes rating was 78. Fresh. IMDB gave it a 6.5 out of 10, which I thought was interesting.

[01:13:27] Donna: Eh, we’ll see how, how you all think about that later. Uh, the Flixter audience score is 53. That’s so low. Really? It was lovely than I thought, and I don’t, I’m just so curious. I was gonna, I was thought about reading through some of the reviews and I, I just didn’t take the time to do it, but that was such a low number.

[01:13:48] Donna: I was kind of, oh, 

[01:13:49] Tim: so it was a, so it was a theatrical release and 

[01:13:54] Donna: I think that’s just in released 

[01:13:55] Tim: on Netflix almost. Yeah, almost immediately. 

[01:13:58] Rebekah: I think it was UK 

[01:13:58] Donna: maybe 

[01:13:59] Rebekah: released a week later, [01:14:00] or am I wrong? It was planned as a Netflix only release. I’m sure they did the extra stuff just to, 

[01:14:05] Tim: well. I have a, I have a question for Josiah.

[01:14:08] Tim: Does that, does that change the possibility for awards? 

[01:14:13] Josiah: That’s what I was thinking. Yeah. It needs for it to be like Oscar eligible. It needs to, there’s like a specific rule last I checked that it needs to premiere in a specific movie theater in Los Angeles. Uh, or it needs to show for at least a week there.

[01:14:32] Donna: And I think BAFTA could have similar, so 

[01:14:36] Josiah: mm-hmm. I don’t know BAFTAs rules, but they probably have similar rules. 

[01:14:41] Donna: Interesting. Um, then, uh, the rating, uh, the, the movies rated PG 13, which I think is fair. Um, they filmed in Surrey England at Shepparton Studios, and then some filming in the market town or civil parish [01:15:00] of, and I included this because I loved.

[01:15:02] Donna: These names of Beaconsfield in Buckingham Shire, England. 

[01:15:08] Rebekah: So you mentioned there’s obviously it was a $60 million film, but there’s not money information ’cause it’s streaming. I did find one article that said that it made about 500,000 pounds in ticket sales for the very limited release in the uk. And then there was something that looked like it had about six and a half million views within the first week on Netflix.

[01:15:31] Rebekah: So streaming, obviously you’re not gonna make the same as ticket costs, but I’m also looking at some of the reviews. I was just curious what I could find. And a lot of the, a lot of the audience reviews that are low were readers who didn’t like how it was adapted or. Like people saying it was like really rushed terrible writing, or that they didn’t wanna watch a movie about old people.[01:16:00] 

[01:16:00] Rebekah: I was like, those are, those are the common denominators. Anyway, we had a couple of interesting trivia pieces that we wanted to review too before final verdicts. 

[01:16:09] Josiah: Yeah. For instance, was the comment Steven made to Elizabeth stating that she looks just like the queen, A nod to Helen Neon’s portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the Queen.

[01:16:23] Josiah: That’s what I was thinking when it happened. You know, all these British, famous British actors, they’ve all played famous people in British movies and stuff, but as it happens, Jonathan Price, Steven the husband, played the role of Prince Philip in the Crown. He was the third Prince Philip. So they each 

[01:16:40] Tim: played the king and queen, or, yeah, king or the queen and prince, excuse me.

[01:16:47] Tim: Uh. Yeah, I bet that was a nod. It was a tongue in cheek reference. 

[01:16:51] Rebekah: Seems intentional. 

[01:16:52] Josiah: And I think the queen, I’m, I don’t want to get this wrong, but I think the Queen and the crown were, uh, run by the [01:17:00] same person. Hmm. It was the same person behind the scenes, 

[01:17:03] Rebekah: uh, author Richard Osmond has had little to do with the production of the film, which we hear a lot of times.

[01:17:09] Rebekah: Like authors sometimes wanna be really involved or sometimes contractually do not obligate themselves. Uh, he stated that he’s focused on future books in the series, and he was such a big fan of Spielberg’s work all the way back to ET that he knew the fan films in great hands, wasn’t worried about it.

[01:17:25] Tim: It’s interesting. So it’s Spielberg or Christopher Columbus as the producer? Producer. The producer. Producer. Spiel. Spielberg. Spielberg was the producer. Okay. Mm-hmm. Chris Columbus directed. ‘

[01:17:34] Josiah: cause the producer really makes the film. That’s famously what everyone agrees upon. 

[01:17:39] Donna: Listen, if Richard Osmond hears this, you know, we don’t want him be hurt.

[01:17:42] Donna: But I thought the exact same thing when I read it. 

[01:17:44] Tim: The Daily Mail, UK reported quote on its publication in 2020, the Thursday Murder Club became the only book to have sold more than 1 million copies in the same year as its release. And the [01:18:00] third highest selling hardback novel after Dan Brown’s the Lost Symbol and JK Rowling’s, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows end quote.

[01:18:11] Tim: That is fascinating to me that they hit a million in the same year and that’s the first one to do that. 

[01:18:19] Donna: Which is Wow, weird. 

[01:18:21] Tim: Of course 

[01:18:21] Donna: it 

[01:18:22] Tim: might have had something to do with the year of its release, which was, oh, 2020 when the world was, 

[01:18:30] Donna: and it released in September. Crazy of 2020. Crazy. So it’s a million in less than half a year.

[01:18:34] Donna: I I could definitely in September, it’s 

[01:18:36] Tim: million in the last quarter. Mm-hmm. 

[01:18:38] Rebekah: I will say, while a lot of us tend to be more sci-fi fantasy people, and that’s more our speed, uh, murder mysteries are actually like one of the, it’s like second only to romance novels. Um, they’re like the highest grossing or like most popular genre.

[01:18:56] Rebekah: So I, this was not like Josiah and I said earlier, [01:19:00] this is not my like, cup of tea necessarily. It wasn’t bad. Um, it wasn’t my thing, but it is an incredibly popular genre and it might have been a, you know, perfect storm kind of thing too. ’cause Richard Osmond already had. Notoriety on his own. So being someone who was already famous and then published a book, and it’s, I mean, it’s really well written, and it’s published by Penguin Random House, which is the largest trad publisher in the entire world.

[01:19:23] Rebekah: So they put a lot behind it, I’m sure to make sure that that happened. 

[01:19:27] Tim: Ms. Marble Murder, she wrote Agatha Christie. Um, yeah, so Knives Out. 

[01:19:34] Donna: Oh yeah, for sure. Um, I don’t wanna go in a rabbit hole here, just a yes or no answer. The Guardian referred to the book series as the new Harry Potter. You, you see that or not?

[01:19:47] Donna: I don’t know if it’s, uh, 

[01:19:49] Josiah: yes or no. 

[01:19:51] Rebekah: Okay. First of all, no. I don’t know if it’s racist to say that because there, here’s what they had in common. They’re British. [01:20:00] Yeah. Oh, oh. Chris Columbus directed. Well, there’s murders involved. Like that’s, I’m not, I’m kidding about the racist thing, but I mean like, that’s such a weird why 

[01:20:10] Tim: I think it’s the popularity of the book.

[01:20:12] Donna: That’s why I put it, that’s why I added it to it, because it’s just such a weird statement to me. 

[01:20:18] Tim: It, it has to be with now popularity though, not, not the same or even similar genre. 

[01:20:25] Rebekah: Yeah. Well, per Variety does report that Osmond was paid more for the publishing rights than any other debut author in a decade.

[01:20:33] Rebekah: It’s another book whose film rights were acquired by Spielberg before the book had been published. So. I mean, again, he already had such a large following probably that, you know, yes, he’s a debut author, but he’s not an unknown. Um, and generally in fiction, debut authors are often unknowns. They’re not necessarily people with a large audience already.

[01:20:58] Rebekah: Um, that’s more common in like nonfiction. [01:21:00] So, 

[01:21:00] Tim: and, and church world. Yeah. A lot of authors in church world are pastors of large 

[01:21:06] Rebekah: churches. Yeah. They have, yeah. Nonfiction in general is like, you sell more if people already follow you a lot online and sign up for your email and stuff like that. Fiction to become big, you really have to have a good story, but your influence is a much smaller part of what makes it sell or not.

[01:21:24] Tim: Listen, when you go to a bookstore and you look at the number of new books, even at Barnes and Noble, that front section where the new books, you’re thinking of all of those, very few of them will become. Famous, there’s so many, it’s such a large, um, fire hose of stuff. Mm-hmm. For one or two to become really popular and famous.

[01:21:54] Donna: So for, uh, to carry on, the topic of famous mom has a short mini [01:22:00] game and it will be short. Um, there are two Oscars Oscar winners in the cast. So the question is gonna be couple, uh, who were they, and bonus points if you know the role in the film that they were in, and extra bonus points. For whatever, uh, in what year did the film win?

[01:22:23] Donna: Okay, so first, who were the two Oscar winners? 

[01:22:27] Rebekah: I don’t know. I’m guessing Helen Mirin. And I’m gonna say because of her portrayal of the Queen. That’s only because I, that’s the only person I could tell you was in anything else, at any other point in time. So I, uh, I surrendered the remainder of my time thing.

[01:22:42] Rebekah: I recognize them kings. I 

[01:22:44] Donna: know they’re famous. I just don’t remember why. James, I’m so glad. Can I say I love you? Yeah, go for it. So what do you think, 

[01:22:49] Tim: Ben? Kingsley for Gandhi. 

[01:22:53] Donna: Okay. That’s 

[01:22:53] Tim: what I was 

[01:22:53] Josiah: gonna say. Okay. 

[01:22:54] Donna: Yeah. Helen Kingsley. Those are the queen. Like, oh 

[01:22:59] Josiah: man, it’s the queen in like oh five. [01:23:00] And Ben Kingsley was Gandhi.

[01:23:02] Josiah: Maybe that would’ve been 86. I’m gonna go 

[01:23:05] Rebekah: with, I think it’s the nineties, but you said Gandhi. So Ben Kingsley was eighties. Ibrahim? 

[01:23:10] Josiah: Yes. Yes. 

[01:23:11] Rebekah: Okay. 

[01:23:12] Josiah: He is half British, half. Indian, maybe Indian. 

[01:23:16] Donna: And if you go look at pictures of Gandhi, it, it’s pretty much looks like being Kingsley. So well cast. He was cast well what year?

[01:23:23] Donna: Yeah. What year? Uh, okay, the years. So, uh, the Queen won, it was in 2006 but won in 2007. Did I get that right? 

[01:23:32] Josiah: Yeah. 

[01:23:33] Donna: Yeah. And Kingsley won. I think that was a wild guess. King Kingsley, it was mentioned in 

[01:23:38] Josiah: the trivia. 

[01:23:39] Donna: Yeah. Kingsley won for the, she was point Gandhi in, uh, 82 Oscars. Oh, 

[01:23:44] Tim: 82. It was old. As old as you thought.

[01:23:47] Tim: No, I thought it was younger than that. 

[01:23:49] Donna: Uh, I think you did a great job, both of all three of you. I’m proud of all of you. Really? Mm-hmm. Thanks mom. Yeah. I appreciate you very much. Thanks, 

[01:23:58] Josiah: sweetie. [01:24:00] All right, all Rebecca, which one of the actors was James Bond? 

[01:24:05] Rebekah: Well, you said Pierce Broin. So now I know I didn’t.

[01:24:07] Rebekah: You heard? Oh, it was Joyce. I did. It was Joyce. It was choice. It was, yes, 

[01:24:11] Josiah: it was Celia Erie or whatever her name is. 

[01:24:15] Rebekah: Uh, well, let’s give our final verdicts. I’ll go first and just as a reminder, we’re giving ratings out of 10 for both book and film, and a quick descriptor of why we liked one over the other.

[01:24:24] Rebekah: So my final verdict, I have not read like a contemporary murder mystery in a while. I thought the book was like charming. It was very much, it felt like it got very much into like the character portraits, especially as they’re going through trying to solve the murder. Like you get to see a lot of. Really sad things happen and like the unfolding of like, some things that were really a kind of a bummer.

[01:24:52] Rebekah: Um, but in a lot of ways the, the book was still somewhat lighthearted, um, at different points until you get to like the last, you know, [01:25:00] 15% of it or so. I didn’t think it was bad. I probably won’t read it again, but I would put the movie on in the background. Like I actually thought the movie was really well paced.

[01:25:09] Rebekah: I thought the writing was fun, there was humor, but it also felt like it stayed true to the murder mystery genre part of it. So I didn’t have any major issues with it. I would probably say, um, I would rate the movie at like a six and a half out of 10, so it was fine and it was unobjectionable and I’d probably put the book at like, this is mostly based on my own personal enjoyment.

[01:25:32] Rebekah: I’d probably put the book at like a five and a half out of 10. It was well written. It’s just not like. Murder mystery, I don’t mind, but like the cozy murder mystery and like, there was a whole lot of, I said it in the, in the description like feigned elder ignorance where they leaned a lot on the fact that they were older people and people would just like let them get away with that.

[01:25:55] Rebekah: It was kind of funny, but like it lost its charm after the first time to me, like it was funny the [01:26:00] first time and so it just wasn’t super, my thing. It was a nice break from some of the heavy stuff we’ve read recently, so that part was nice. But yeah, I would say I would, I would edge the movie out mostly because while I do think they probably removed too much and there were a couple of things I didn’t like, uh, about what they changed, it did.

[01:26:20] Rebekah: Like, I think I enjoy that kind of thing. Like, you know, Josiah mentioned knives out there, there that kind of like silly murder plot sort of thing. I enjoy more on screen than I enjoy reading it. Um, whereas like maybe when I read, like I’ll read more fantasy than I really like to watch on screen, so I kind of have the opposite problem there.

[01:26:41] Rebekah: So 

[01:26:41] Tim: that’s my verdict. Well, um, I’ll go ahead and give my verdict. Um, I would probably give the. Uh, the book, uh, seven out of 10. Uh, that’s, that’s a comfortable place. Um, I thought it was well written. There were lots of red herrings [01:27:00] and things in the book to, for a, for someone to try and solve a mystery, uh, multiple, uh, mystery.

[01:27:08] Tim: I would give the film probably, um, I’d give it a seven and a half. I like the film better than the book, just a little bit because, um, it kept the lightheartedness, uh, sorry that it dropped, uh, one of the storylines, but, um, I, I thought it was good. I thought it was an enjoyable watch. And just as part of my, part of my verdict, um, things like Colombo, Poot diagnosis, murder, Matlock Monk, Midsummer Murders, Ms.

[01:27:39] Tim: Marrow, marble Castle, all of those things, Perry Mason, et cetera. Um, the mystery genre has been done in lots of different ways and it continues to be, uh, popular. Although it’s been a little while since we’ve had a good murder mystery [01:28:00] series. Perhaps it will become popular. 

[01:28:02] Josiah: Well, I enjoyed this film as much as I probably was going to.

[01:28:09] Josiah: It’s, um, you know, seven book, seven film. Kind of hard to tell the difference between the two. Even with the changes, it’s just cozy British murder mystery. Chris Columbus is a, he makes things that are. Saccharine and overly sentimental. Mm-hmm. Sorry, I should say sentimental. And Richard Osmond has, uh, Richard Osmond has a dry wit whenever I was on the same page as him, you know, the book made me chuckle a couple times.

[01:28:50] Josiah: I guess. Uh, I guess I’ll give it to the book, just barely book was better, but they’re, they’re pretty much the same in my eyes. [01:29:00] The book just has more room to, in very short chapters, explore more territory and, you know, give Joyce more personality and explore more stuff about Father Mackie, Bernard stuff.

[01:29:18] Josiah: I think that that is my conclusion. 

[01:29:22] Rebekah: Did you give us 

[01:29:23] Donna: ratings for each? Seven. Seven. Yeah, he said seven. Seven. Cool. Okay. Whew. I’m, I’m It, uh, okay. I enjoyed both of them. I like these actors. We didn’t say a whole lot about David Tenet’s portrayal. He was fun. He does a, he a guy, he plays a sleazy guy. 

[01:29:52] Tim: Fine. Yeah.

[01:29:53] Donna: Yeah. He, he plays a good creepy guy. He plays a good, good guy. So, I mean, I, I like him in general. I enjoyed [01:30:00] watching these, these actors, these, and I enjoyed the characters. Like I said, the, the, uh, ending with Bernard and I mean with, sorry, with John and Penny was, it was hard. I, I just didn’t, it just gave me a bad taste in my mouth.

[01:30:18] Donna: It didn’t make me hate the whole movie. It was a decision they made and a lot of people make decisions I don’t like, so that’s okay. Um, I would probably say because I enjoyed Joyce’s diary entry so much, they were just fun and just very light. Um, I’d probably say seven and a half book, six and a half movie maybe.

[01:30:48] Donna: Um, I think I, I, I would go there. Um, I’ll definitely think I like the book better. Um, and honestly, a lot of this could be [01:31:00] tempered by the fact that Annihilation in 1984 have been, were heavier topics. And so this being so light, you know, would I give them, would I give them that higher rating if we hadn’t just come out of those?

[01:31:16] Donna: Who knows. Um, but I saw dad chuckling. 

[01:31:18] Tim: I was Chuck, I was chuckling because she chose those two and then the next one that was a little lighter was the Poseidon Adventure. 

[01:31:26] Donna: Yeah. Yeah. I almost 

[01:31:27] Tim: everyone dies. Yes. Alright. 

[01:31:29] Donna: Well, but yeah, it, it still wasn’t as dark, but it That’s true. That okay. Yeah. I 

[01:31:33] Tim: mean, you’re correct.

[01:31:34] Tim: It’s just strange. 

[01:31:36] Donna: But all that being said, I still enjoyed it. If he, if they make the next one, which I’m kind of thinking they will. Um, I, I would say just in current events world, Netflix is having a bad week. And so I would say anything they could do that’s uplifting like this, um, they’re, they’re having some issues right now with some controversy.

[01:31:59] Donna: So I [01:32:00] think anything they might do going forward like this, that would bring in just a, a calmer, just a, uh. Fun entertainment, wanting a, again, audience unobjectionable. I think that’s like the word. I like un 

[01:32:16] Rebekah: objectionable 

[01:32:17] Music: because 

[01:32:17] Rebekah: it’s like, yeah, I think that’s, it’s just not, it’s not likely to create controversy.

[01:32:21] Donna: Right. It’s, it’s just what it is. It’s, it’s, it is purely entertaining and I think we find that in everything. Other things, you know, everything we read, I try to look at, is this gonna change my, is this gonna challenge my social construct or whatever? Or is this really just entertaining? This was really just an entertaining, fun thing to read and watch.

[01:32:45] Donna: So it’s kind of. 

[01:32:46] Rebekah: Well, I think that about wraps it for today. If you had fun listening, we appreciate five star ratings and reviews. Uh, those are one of the best things you can do if you enjoy listening to help us out, uh, and get more [01:33:00] listeners. Uh, we haven’t had one in a while and it’s sad. We like getting them new ones.

[01:33:05] Rebekah: Not in a while. We’ve gotten a bunch of new Spotify ratings and, uh, some people liking our videos on YouTube, so that’s been cool. Um, our episodes are now live on YouTube, so that is really helpful as well. Uh, if you want to support the podcast, the other way you can do that other than a review is to support us on Patreon.

[01:33:24] Rebekah: We are live and there is a link in the episode description you can click to get more information. That’s a great way to get notified about. New episodes, special events we’re doing, um, and all sorts of fun details. You can also find us online at book is Better pod on most major social media networks. And if you have any questions for us, uh, our Discord server as the time as I’m, uh, at the time I’m saying this is still, uh, up for grabs for free.

[01:33:50] Rebekah: So probably in the new year we’re gonna be closing that down only to paid Patreon subscribers, but we are, you know, we’re grandfathering in [01:34:00] anybody who’s in now. So get on it while you can and we like to just chat over there. It’s easy way to hang out with the Paul crew and uh, yeah, until next time, get out there and like, uh, I don’t know, insert yourself into police investigations and uh, make up for the fact that your local murder investigators might be lazy.

[01:34:18] Rebekah: I don’t know, whatever. The takeaways that I’m supposed to have. So Josiah, help us out. Goodbye.

[01:34:31] Rebekah: Bye baby listeners. Bye.

[01:34:48] Donna: Sorry it gets all bunched up. Okay. That’s what she said. So I [01:35:00] think.