Reading – We Solve Murders

Little did I know that Taskmaster Series 2 contestant Richard Osman was a mystery writer, author of The Thursday Murder Club. With the recent television adaptation, I went looking for the source material and discovered many more works by Osman.

The pitch – Amy, a talented bodyguard, gets targeted for assassination and finds herself on the run with her current client, Rosie, a celebrity mystery writer. Amy calls upon her father-in-law Steve, a retired cop now a private investigator dealing with sleepy town mysteries like lost pets and cash gone missing from the till. Together these three must unravel the identity of an elusive money launderer while dodging the police and hired guns.

We Solve Murders I’d describe as a light read, with plenty of gentle humour for a book involving a web of hidden agendas and murder. Overall, I enjoyed it. The chapters are short and the action moves quickly. I could definitely see it being adapted to television as well. By the end of it, to no surprise things are set up for a sequel if not an ongoing series. Osman even promises that we haven’t seen the last of several minor supporting characters.

Can I Use This In My Game?

I’ve got a stack of investigation RPGs (Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, Night’s Black Agents, Brindlewood Bay) and shamefully I have yet to get most of them to the table. I could totally see the characters from the book working well with the mechanics of Night’s Black Agents as it has some dynamic action (some gunfire, some melee) as well as following up on clues and tracking down the mysterious Master Criminal at the top of this conspiracy. Likewise there are plenty of misdirects that would play out well in Brindlewood Bay in terms of false conclusions, or in the mechanics of the game – an attempt to solve the mystery based on the evidence failed the roll.

The structure is a solid one shot / limited series with the potential for further games using the same characters, deftly taking advantage of modern communications tech to share information while being spread across the world. I can totally take inspiration from the connections of client, father-in-law, and even husband (for a very brief bit) worked really well for such a random assortment of characters (dilettante / writer / celebrity, bodyguard, retired cop turned PI, accountant), something that can be a real challenge in some games.