English author Richard Osman is rewriting the rules of crime fiction

I’m in the middle of signing 10,000 books, so this is such a welcome relief to speak to you,” Richard Osman, the English television presenter, producer and novelist, genially tells me over a WhatsApp call. The author of the multimillion bestseller The Thursday Murder Club series, where four retirees in a retirement home chase and solve murders, had his latest and fifth book in the series, The Impossible Fortune, released at the end of September. Prior to his international fame as an author, Osman was best known as the host of BBC’s Pointless, the iconic British television quiz show.

Osman’s books, inspired from the literary canon of great detective works like Agatha Christie’s, foreground characters more than the mystery, and have come to pioneer the “cosy” crime fiction genre. The book’s amateur detectives include the steely Elizabeth, who used to be a spy; the gregarious Joyce, who is a nurse and a baker; former trade unionist and suspicious-of-everything Ron; and the cautious therapist Ibrahim.

Cosmopolitan India learns why Osman has a difficult relationship with the term “cosy”, his writing template, his involvement in the Netflix’s movie adaptation of his works, and the humongous success of his books.

Cosmopolitan India: You seem put off by the term “cosy crime fiction”.

Richard Osman: Well, I don’t think my books are cosy. I think they’re funny, and I think, at first sight, you think, “Oh, it’s for older people, and they’re solving crime.” That sounds cosy, but I try to write about real characters, and I try to write about truth, and I try to write about grief and pain, and I try to make people laugh. So, I think I’m writing stuff about life as it’s lived, and then I throw a bit of murder in there. But, I definitely don’t think it’s cosy. There’s cake and there’s tea, but, you know, there’s more cocaine and murder, I would say, than cake and tea.

Maybe the impulse to term it “cosy” comes from the fact that the hard edge of grittiness and realism is absent, and instead there is a clear penchant for gentleness and fun? To me, crime fiction is not about plots, and it’s not about people having all their limbs chopped off and [getting] blood everywhere. I like to write books about characters. If you’ve got characters who people love and believe in, then you’ll follow them anywhere. So right from the very beginning, I never even thought about crime fiction or anything (of the sort). I thought: “I love these four characters, and now I’m going to make bad things happen to them.” And that seems to be a template that works.

CI: How involved were you in the making of the adaptation of the first book of The Thursday Murder Club?

RO: I wasn’t involved at all, because my job is to write the next book. That’s the thing I’m best at. When Steven Spielberg, Chris Columbus and all these incredibly talented people come on board, you just have to let it go. So I didn’t write it. I never gave any notes. Occasionally, I would ask if I could come down to the set, and they were always lovely to me. But I just made sure I wasn’t kind of looking over anyone’s shoulder and telling them what they should do.

CI: The sales of your books are comparable to the Harry Potter series.

RO: The more people read me, the happier I am, because I love these characters so much and I am proud of the story. It’s definitely not a competition—you can’t think in that way. Readers love Joyce’s diary. And I get excited for Joyce, that people love her and people are reading her. So for me, the more sales, the better, because I love the books and want as many people as possible to love them too.

CI: If you would like to switch genres, would it be easier because of the success of the series, or would it be harder because it would be a jarring shift for your readers? Is your ‘brand’ as an author and a public personality going to limit the tone of what you work with, if not the format?

RO: I think that I can only write as I am. So, I try not to think about genres particularly. The key thing about being an author is to have your own voice. There might come a time in 10 years when I want to do something completely different—I want to write a historical romance or something like that, or, a sci-fi work about a planet populated only by bears. But I doubt it, because I love writing about real people and real life, so I just never really think about how I’m writing.

CI: How has your parasocial relationship with your fans changed since you switched formats from television and also added author to your resume?

RO: I think readers tend to have a parasocial relationship with characters rather than authors. Having worked in television for years, that’s definitely a parasocial relationship. But the lovely thing about books is people fall in love with the characters. So people definitely feel Joyce, Ron, Ibrahim, and Elizabeth are real.

I think in our modern culture, that parasocial relationship can be a very dangerous one. But I think in literature, it’s always been a really, really important one—we have to think of characters in a book as our friends, because we just immerse ourselves in that world.

CI: How do you feel about being prolific?

RO: If I’ve got a favourite book, I don’t want to wait two years for the next book. I’ve got quite a good work ethic. I made the pact very early on that if people keep reading these books, I will do one a year, because it feels like the least I can do. I’m here to give people a really, really good time. I’m here to give people page-turners, which they’ll go back to time and time again, that will make people laugh and cry.

This article first appeared in Cosmopolitan India's September-October 2025 print edition.

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