Five minutes with… bestselling author and presenter Richard Osman on his new book and filmmaking

He rubbed shoulders with Dame Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Sir Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie on the set of the film adaptation of his 2020 novel The Thursday Murder Club – and Richard Osman is now hoping to bring his new book series to the screen.

The bestselling author, TV presenter and producer has written We Solve Murders, the first instalment in a new series that sees former cop Steve Wheeler and his stepdaughter Amy, a private security guard, join forces to track down a money-grubbing kingpin and his associate assassins, who are taking down social media influencers acting as couriers for his company.

The book also features a “Jackie Collins” character in Rosie D’Antonio, a glamorous, world-renowned, thrill-seeking, and mischievous novelist who has been targeted by a Russian oligarch who doesn’t appreciate appearing in one of her novels.

It’s a game of cat and mouse that takes them across the world, as Amy, who has been tasked with protecting Rosie, also finds herself the target of a killer.

“It was supposed to be a duet, but I had the idea for Rosie and I thought, oh this is fun, Jackie Collins. I love Rosie so much, she’s full of mischief, she always has a martini in her hand and a real story of Hollywood and success. So it went from a duet to a trio. So she’s back,” Osman says.

He says, however, that he did not base Rosie on the late, great and best-selling author Jackie Collins. “There’s always a little bit of a starting point. You can have a character that’s Jackie Collins, but then that character reveals itself to you and becomes a very different person. I never base my characters on anyone in the real world.”

Osman, 53, whose four novels in The Thursday Murder Club series have sold 10 million copies worldwide, says he can certainly see the new book series being adapted into a film – and that a deal is being negotiated but he cannot reveal details at this stage.

“As a series, it would be a lot of fun. The idea is that they’re detectives, which gives them more freedom. I think we’ll definitely do a movie adaptation. I think it’ll be more for TV, but hey, it’s all about TV these days.”

In addition to his writing career (he stepped down as co-presenter of Pointless in 2022 to devote more time to his books), he presents the BBC Two game show Richard Osman’s House Of Games and co-hosts the podcast The Rest Is Entertainment with Marina Hyde. He lives with his wife, Ingrid Oliver, in west London, where he writes his bestselling novels.

How involved are you in The Thursday Murder Club?

“I have nothing to do with it. It’s lovely and they invite me on set and I’m so thrilled and incredibly excited, but I didn’t write it, I don’t need to be involved in it at all. I’ve handed it off to brilliant people and, like everyone else, I’m incredibly excited to see what they’re going to create, so it doesn’t take up a lot of my time.”

But you are an executive producer?

“Yes, but I’ve worked in television long enough to know that the title of executive producer can mean a lot of things. I’m telling you right now, I’m not going to come into the office at nine in the morning and leave at five to be credited as an executive producer.”

How did the meeting with the actors on set go?

“It’s very funny, it’s very special. I love being on set and they all have little golf carts and stuff like that, it’s very Hollywood, but I’m aware that I’m taking a vacation from that world and they’re doing the heavy lifting.”

Why did you decide to write a new series?

“I hope to write for another 20 or 30 years, and at some point you have to introduce people to a new world and new characters. I love the first four books of The Thursday Murder Club, but I thought they probably needed a year off.

“It was time to find new people and a book that was a little more globe-trotting, with more gunfire and helicopters than there would have been in The Thursday Murder Club.

How did that differ from writing The Thursday Murder Club?

“Not a lot, because my brain is the same and my natural instincts as a writer are the same. If people like The Thursday Murder Club, they’ll like this book because the British sensibility, the wit and the warmth are all there, but it’s nice to put it all on a different canvas.”

Have you visited the locations – St. Lucia, South Carolina, Dubai and Dublin – that you talk about in We Solve Murders?

“Yes. I don’t like to do research, so I thought I could just write about places I’d already been, so I did. I needed them to go somewhere exotic and I had been to St. Lucia a few years ago, which I love, so I wrote about that.”

Have you ever imagined which actors would play the characters?

“No. I can’t imagine someone playing a character. That’s not how my brain works at all. I never write thinking about what it’s going to look like on screen one day, or what an actor might do with it. I like to be in the characters’ heads and I like to think that they’re very real.”

“It’s very funny when people talk about casting, but when you’re writing, it’s impossible. When I’m writing, I go upstairs, close the door and Liesl, the cat, sits on my lap.”

Do you deliberately avoid graphic violence and sex in your novels?

“I’m not interested in that kind of thing. I’m fascinated by evil, by the violence of people, by the underworld, by everything that happens behind the doors of ordinary streets, that we don’t see.

“I’m fascinated by the world we live in culturally – we’re constantly told that we hate each other, that no one can ever agree on anything – but I really believe in the power of kind, strong people and the power of empathy. That’s at the heart of all my books.”

How many more novels are you writing?

“I’ll definitely do a few more Thursday Murder Clubs, and probably another one like this. But that’s a question for the readers and whether they want more.”

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman is published by Viking, priced £22. Available now.