The Marlow Murder Club is about three women from different walks of life who unite to solve murders in their town. The characters are quirky and fun, and the story is intriguing and funny.

Judith Potts is swimming naked in the Thames River when she hears a gunshot from her neighbor’s property. Swimming naked is something she does to relax and clear her mind. On this night, though, she is not relaxed because she can’t get out of the river to find out what has happened to her neighbor, Stefan. Instead, she has to swim back to her house and call the police who go to her neighbor’s house, but find nothing they say.

Judith decides to return to her neighbor’s house the next day and finds him floating, dead, in the river. She’d already decided the police weren’t doing their job when they didn’t find him the night before. Now she really believes she could do a better job finding her neighbor’s killer so she starts asking questions around town herself.

She meets Becks Starling, the vicar’s wife while looking for information about the murder. Becks, normally a bit refined and proper woman, is hiding in the closet in the church choir room when Judith finds her, trying to avoid dealing with members of the congregation. Before long Becks is pulled into the mystery as well, seeing it as a way to break out of her mundane life of helping her husband with church business.

Not long after the first murder, there is another one – this time a taxi driver. Judith runs into Suzie Harris, the second murder victim’s dog walker.

While Judith is fairly eccentric, slightly uptight, and methodical, Suzie is a bit of an airhead and all over the place. She is scattered and drives a bit of a beat-up dog walking van.

Judith begins to wonder if the two murders might be connected and suddenly we have three women joining together to find out what in the world is going on in their small town.

Each woman has their own “secrets” to work through as well.

DS Tanika Malik is on the police force and the head investigator on the murder since the main investigator is currently on an extended break. Judith is more than willing to help her but Tanika isn’t interested – not at first, at least. Soon, though, she sees she’s going to need some extra help and lets the women help as much as they can.

The exposition at the end of the book was quite long and, as my husband said, would be better suited for TV, which is fitting since Thorogood created the hit cozy mystery show Death in Paradise and also wrote a mini-series TV version of The Marlow Mystery Club for Amazon. I watched the show after I read the book and it was good and well-acted, but did have a few changes from the book. The confrontation with the guilty person – or one of them – was drawn out like in the book and a bit unrealistic but still a nail-biter and fun to watch.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. I guessed at least part of the mystery before the end, but I didn’t mind because the characters and how they got to the solution were so interesting and fun.

For people who prefer their books without swear words, sex, or violence this one almost fits that bill. There is no sex or violence, but there was a large swear word very close to the end of the book that did not fit with the rest of the book and came out of nowhere. It didn’t take away from the rest of the story, though, and I’d still recommend the book.