Looking for an honest The Bullet That Missed book review? You are in the right place.
Richard Osman’s 2022 novel, the third installment in the Thursday Murder Club series, delivers everything fans have come to expect while quietly raising the emotional stakes in ways that catch you off guard.
What begins as a cozy crime story gradually reveals itself to be something warmer and more serious beneath the surface.
I read it across two sittings and found myself genuinely reluctant to put it down. In this review, I will cover the plot, themes, characters, and share my personal response.
Let us get into it.
Synopsis of The Bullet That Missed
The story opens in the quiet English retirement village of Coopers Chase, where the Thursday Murder Club, a group of four sharp and aging residents, gathers each week to investigate cold cases. This time, they become entangled in something far more dangerous than their usual puzzles.
The case at the center of the novel involves Bethany Waites, a television journalist who died in a car accident ten years earlier. The official verdict was suicide. The Thursday Murder Club is not convinced.
When their investigation starts attracting the attention of a genuinely deadly criminal organization, what began as an intellectual exercise becomes something with real consequences for people they love.
Major Themes in The Bullet That Missed
A funny, surprising, and quietly moving novel about aging, loyalty, and what it costs to keep fighting for what is right.
The Dignity of Growing Older
The Thursday Murder Club novels are built on a premise that sounds like a joke but is treated with complete seriousness. People in their seventies and eighties are still fully alive, still sharp, and still capable of real courage. Osman never condescends to his characters. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron are people of genuine depth, and the novel honors that at every turn.
Friendship as a Form of Survival
These are people who have lost spouses, careers, and versions of themselves they once relied on. What they have found in each other is treated with real tenderness. The friendships at the center of this story carry its emotional weight even when the plot is moving at full speed.
Justice Outside the System
The group has always operated at the edges of official procedure, and this installment pushes that tension further. What does justice look like when the systems meant to deliver it have already failed? The novel does not offer easy answers, but it asks the question honestly.
The Cost of Holding On
Multiple characters are carrying things they cannot bring themselves to release, a cold case, a grief, a secret. Osman handles these threads with real delicacy for a book that also contains car chases and contract killers.
Character Analysis
Through quick wit, genuine warmth, and moments of unexpected gravity, the novel examines what it means to still be fighting for something when the world has largely stopped expecting anything of you.
Elizabeth
Is the group’s leader and a former intelligence operative. She is imperious, occasionally ruthless, and completely devoted to the people she loves. This book gives her more vulnerability than previous installments, and the effect is deeply earned.
Joyce
Narrates sections through diary entries, and her voice is one of the great pleasures of the series. Warmer than Elizabeth but just as sharp, her observations land with a cheerfulness that catches you off guard.
Ibrahim
Carries a heavy emotional burden in this novel. Watching him work through it while still showing up for the people who need him is one of the book’s quietest and most affecting threads.
Ron
Is the most politically outspoken of the group and the easiest to underestimate. The novel uses that underestimation to great effect at several key moments.
Bogdan
A young Polish builder and extended member of the group’s orbit, continues to grow in importance. His friendship with Joyce is one of the series’ most warm running threads, and this book develops it further.
Writing Style and Narrative Voice
Sharp, conversational, and consistently funny while doing more emotional work than the tone initially suggests.
Comic Control
Osman’s prose is consistently funny across multiple registers, wordplay, character comedy, and a drier wit running beneath the louder jokes. None of it comes at the expense of the story’s serious intentions. He has an unusually reliable instinct for when to pull back from a joke and let a moment breathe.
Plot Structure
The plotting here is tighter than in the first two books. Osman manages multiple threads without losing tension, and the pacing holds through the middle section where many crime novels tend to lose their grip. The climax earns what it asks of you emotionally, which is not a guarantee in this genre.
The Diary Format
Joyce’s diary entries break up the third-person narration throughout and add both comic relief and real structural value. They give the reader access to information the other characters do not have, functioning as an emotional ground level against which the larger plot events can be measured.
Critical Reception
The Bullet That Missed was published in September 2022 and debuted at number one on the Sunday Times bestseller list.
It received warm reviews from critics and readers alike, consolidating Osman’s reputation as one of the most commercially successful and genuinely enjoyable British crime writers working today.
Notable Reviews and Ratings
Goodreads: 4.4 out of 5 stars based on over 200,000 ratings
Amazon: 4.6 out of 5 stars across tens of thousands of reviews
Awards and recognition: Sunday Times number one bestseller; widely featured on end of year best crime fiction lists for 2022
My Personal Reading Experience
The Bullet That Missed was not the book I expected, and I mean that entirely as a compliment. I had come into the series expecting something pleasant and undemanding, the literary equivalent of a comfortable afternoon. What I got was that, but with a beating heart underneath it.
The scenes involving Ibrahim affected me most. Osman writes his struggle with such specific and unsentimental care that the novel’s emotional resolution, when it comes, lands with real force.
There is a conversation between Elizabeth and Joyce near the end of the book that I read twice because the first time I was moving too fast and missed what was actually being said beneath the surface of the words.
This is the kind of novel that reminds you why comfort reading, done well, is not a lesser form of fiction. It is simply fiction that has prioritized a different set of questions. Those questions, it turns out, matter quite a lot.
The Movie Adaptation
A film adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club is currently in development, with Steven Spielberg attached as director and a screenplay written by Ol Parker.
The film is set to star Helen Mirren as Elizabeth, Ben Kingsley as Ibrahim, Celia Imrie as Joyce, and Pierce Brosnan as Ron.
Rather than adapting a single book, the film is expected to draw from the broader world Osman has built across the series, bringing the core characters to a global audience for the first time. Production details and a confirmed release date have not been announced as of early 2026.
About the Author Richard Osman
Richard Osman is a British author, television presenter, and producer born in 1970. He is best known as the co-host of the BBC quiz show Pointless, which he presented for over a decade.
He published his debut novel, The Thursday Murder Club, in 2020, and it became the fastest-selling debut crime novel in UK publishing history.
He has since published four novels in the series, each debuting at number one on the bestseller lists. The Thursday Murder Club is currently in development as a film adaptation.
Conclusion
I hope this The Bullet That Missed book review gave you what you needed. This novel works on several levels at once, a satisfying crime story, a sharp social comedy, and a genuinely moving look at friendship and aging.
Osman refuses to be dismissed as a light read, because underneath the humor there is a real argument about what it means to still matter and still show up for the people you love.
It stayed with me well beyond the final page, and that is the clearest measure of a book that has done its work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Bullet That Missed based on a true story?
No, it is fiction. Osman drew on real details of English village life and contemporary crime to ground an entertaining and emotionally grounded story.
How long does it take to read The Bullet That Missed?
The novel is approximately 400 pages. Most readers complete it across four to eight hours, typically over a few sittings.
What age is appropriate for reading The Bullet That Missed?
The book suits readers aged 14 and up. It contains mild violence and some mature themes, all handled with warmth and a light touch.
Is The Bullet That Missed part of a series?
Yes. It is the third book in the Thursday Murder Club series. While it can be read as a standalone, reading the first two books first will deepen your appreciation of the characters and their histories.
Is there a film or television adaptation of the Thursday Murder Club series?
A film adaptation is currently in development. No confirmed release date has been announced as of early 2026.
