A bodyguard, her retired cop father-in-law, a series of questionable deaths, and a villain who’s using ChatGPT: NPR’s Scott Simon talks with Richard Osman about his new book, “We Solve Murders.”
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Richard Osman, whose popular “Thursday Murder Club” books have sold millions and are being made into a movie, has now rolled out a new cast of characters. “We Solve Murders” follows Amy Wheeler, a bodyguard to a star for an agency called Maximum Impact Solutions. And her father-in-law, Steve Wheeler, is a former London cop and a widower living in semi-retirement in a small British town with his cat, Trouble, and finding lost dogs. But Amy calls Steve back into the crime-fighting life when several of her firm’s clients are dispatched by a supervillain who uses ChatGPT to disguise his email communications. Richard Osman joins us from the BBC in London. Thanks so much for being with us.
RICHARD OSMAN: It’s a pleasure, Scott. That book sounds great. I wish I hadn’t written it. I could read it.
SIMON: (Laughter) It is great. Tell us about Amy. She’s been assigned to guard a famous writer.
OSMAN: I wanted to write a detective duo, really, ’cause my previous books, everyone’s an amateur detective. And I thought, well, Amy’s a bodyguard for billionaires, so she needs to have a client. And the first thing I always do if I start writing is I just have conversations between my characters to get to know them a little bit until one of them says something where I’m like, oh, that’s an interesting thing. So I had her talking to this Rosie D’Antonio, who’s sort of like a Jackie Collins of crime. And after the first scene with Rosie, I thought, oh, my God, I have to keep you around. So it turned from a detective duo, Steve and Amy, into a detective trio – Steve, Amy and Rosie.
SIMON: The story, in many ways, begins with the death of an influencer, Andrew Fairbanks, who’s shot and thrown off his own yacht. Without giving too much away (laughter), the last line you write in that sequence is, that’s show business.
OSMAN: Yes.
SIMON: You’re also a television producer and a comedian. Take personal pleasure in that line?
OSMAN: Yes, I do. I think the point is when he dies, everyone wants a piece of him. But I say after the sharks are finished, there are no pieces left. And that’s show business. I have a lot of fun with the idea of fame and famousness and how people make their living and what it does to their ego in this book. There’s a film star in there as well called Max Highfield, who’s sort of a Jason Statham type. And I love writing about that world. I love writing about Rosie being an author as well. It’s a world I’ve worked in for so many years, and it’s endlessly hilarious, I think.
SIMON: Do you have a special regard for seniors?
OSMAN: Yeah, I think so. I mean, “The Thursday Murder Club,” as you know are all late 70s, early 80s. Rosie is described as age-fluid. No one quite knows how old Rosie is. She could be anywhere from sort of 60 to 80. I think she’s probably nearer the 80 mark. Yeah, I like writing about people who we begin to underestimate. But I love how little they care about the consequences of things sometimes because you think, well, what’s going to happen to me? I’m 80. What’s the worst you can do to me? So, yeah, I love writing about people who become invisible, and I love using their wisdom against a world that thinks it’s somehow smarter than them.
SIMON: Am I wrong? Almost everybody in your books turns out to be basically nice.
OSMAN: I mean, my view is always – you know, I love Scandi noir books, and I love books about pure evil and, you know, the battle between good and evil and all that kind of stuff. But that’s not the world that I live in particularly, and most evil people are not evil all the time. I always think the serial killers have to go to the dentist, too, right? Most serial killers don’t wake up in the morning thinking, I’m going to do some more serial killing. Most mornings, they wake up and go, oh, no. I’ve got to take the cat to the vet. That’s really annoying.
And so I try and write human beings. And I find pure unpleasant evilness (laughter) quite hard to do. And I’d rather see someone’s internal monologue being like yours and mine, and then, you know, we’re slightly taken by surprise when they turn out to be the baddie. But there’s always clues. I always make sure that no one’s really, really lovely, and then they’re a murderer for no reason whatsoever. So it’s – I try and have my cake and eat it a little bit.
SIMON: The – I’ll call him a supervillain of this book, makes such clever use of ChatGPT. I found myself thinking, wow, I think I’m going to try that.
(LAUGHTER)
OSMAN: For your next bit of supervillainy.
SIMON: Well, I haven’t attempted that yet, but it’s – maybe we should explain a little. I mean, he says, make me write like I’m a British gentleman, I think.
OSMAN: Yes. Quite often, when you write a murder mystery, you want to be inside the head of the killer. It’s quite a fun thing to do. And often, if you do that, the real challenge is hiding their identity. And so right at the beginning, I thought the killer is going to be a worldwide criminal who has to send emails, has to talk on the phone. And ChatGPT was perfect.
So my killer says, turn me into an English gentleman in everything I write and say. And all the way through, we have no idea who it is because ChatGPT has absolutely flattened out their personality and the way they speak in the way that ChatGPT does. So lovely to be able to find a way of ironing that out, but also lovely to be able to make that point, which is ChatGPT does iron us out. It can write a great letter to our electricity provider, but it’s never going to write a great novel.
SIMON: Between your books – and you’re also a presenter and a producer and a comedian – how many plots do you have competing in your mind?
OSMAN: Well, I always think we fetishize plots sometimes. For me, books is just character. It’s not what happens in the book. It’s, why do I care what happens in the book? But if there’s a thread through all the jobs that I’ve ever done, firstly, it’s enjoying words, but also just having my mind open to the world all the time. I’m just fascinated by stuff that happens around me. I like people, which is becoming increasingly unfashionable. I love being around new people and hearing new stories. And if you’re curious about the world, you’ll find yourself a plot pretty quickly.
SIMON: Your “Thursday Murder Club” mystery novels, as we’ve noted, have been so successful. Why begin another series?
OSMAN: Because you have to, don’t you? If you’re a writer, you know, you want to create new worlds, and you want to introduce people to new friends. I’m going to go back to “The Thursday Murder Club.” They’re coming back in 2025. But this is the thing I want to be doing for the next 20, 25 years. I want to spread my wings, have fun with a new group of characters.
And I’m comfortable that the characters in “We Solve Murders” exist in the same world as “The Thursday Murder Club.” They’re an hour and a half down the road. And I’m comfortable that the same heart and wit and warmth goes into both of those books. But for me, it’s really, really lovely to just have a slightly different palette for me to write on and to find a new world of jokes as well.
SIMON: Richard Osman, his new novel “We Solve Murders.” Thank you so much for being with us.
OSMAN: It’s an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much, Scott.
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