The Impossible Fortune (2025) is the 5th book in the Thursday Murder Club series, written by the always entertaining British author and television presenter, Richard Osman.

The cast of the Netflix film is impressive:

• Helen Mirren as Elizabeth Best, a retired MI6 officer
• Pierce Brosnan as Ron Ritchie, a retired twice-divorced union leader
• Ben Kingsley as Professor Ibrahim Arif, a retired psychiatrist
• Celia Imrie as Joyce Meadowcroft, a retired trauma nurse

Ibrahim is my favourite, for sure.

Four pensioners, friends at a retirement village in Kent, England decide to solve murders as a retirement hobby.

This book is a little different. They investigate a crypto scheme. Not a bad plot.

In her Library Journal review, Liz French wrote, “The crime, though ingeniously plotted, with many red herrings, is not the main attraction. It’s the growing love and respect among the Thursdays and their kith and kin, including a few criminals and cops, that is the biggest draw.”

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. This is based on book 1.

Slow Horses series 5 may be my favourite, so far.

Roddy Ho features prominently in the plot. Honey trap.

Nick Mohammed as Zafar Jaffrey, the Mayor of London is good.

James Callis as Claude Whelan (series 4–5), the bumbling, over-promoted new Director General of MI5 or ‘First Desk’ is fantastic.

Bad guys are Libyans.

I laugh out loud at every episode. Especially at Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) being so hilariously inappropriate. 😀

Looking forward to season 6.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Harlan Coben is one of our best working authors.

I can’t imagine how he comes up with his complex plots.

His 2025 book is Nobody’s Fool.

It’s something of a sequel to Fool Me Once (2016) which was adapted into an excellent TV series.

Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There’s a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He doesn’t know what happened. His screams drown out his thoughts—and then he runs.

Twenty-two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who’s working off his debts by doing low level surveillance jobs and teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City.

One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna. It’s unmistakably her. As soon as Kierce makes eye contact with her, she bolts. For Kierce there is no choice. He knows he must find this woman and solve the impossible mystery that has haunted his every waking moment since that terrible day.

His investigation will bring him face-to-face with his past—and prove, after all this time, he’s nobody’s fool.

Clown Town (2025) is 9th in the Slough House series of books.

Like the rest, it’s worth reading for the outrageous behaviour of Jackson Lamb. And the smart, funny, cutting dialogue.

Plot? … well don’t worry too much about the plot in these books.

This time around, MI5 First Desk Diana Taverner tries to keep secret an old scandal that might come to light.

Jackson Lamb refuses to help. But his crew of Slow Horses somehow get involved anyway. Something to do with an old book of Cartwright’s grandfather.

In the end, Lamb takes action.

The TV series is better than the books. Season 5 is streaming now.

I managed to get through season 3.

Very confusing.

I DO admire Apple for making the attempt to adapt Asimov’s books to screen.

On the upside, the Mule has finally arrived. We have an interesting bad guy.

Foundation Season 3 centers on the emergence of the Mule, a powerful telepath who throws Hari Seldon’s carefully planned psychohistory into chaos.

A major 152-year time jump sees the Foundation reset, the Galactic Empire’s Cleonic dynasty fracturing, and Gaal Dornick confronting a new reality with the Second Foundation.

The season ultimately concludes with a game-changing finale featuring the Mule’s shocking true identity, the death of major characters, and the revelation of Earth. 

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.