Pun Salad

This is the fifth book in Richard Osman's "Thursday Murder Club" series, and the core team's all here (Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim). Over the first four books in the series they've picked up some semi-regular assistants too. Yes, if you have to ask: you should read the books in order, starting with the first one.

Joyce's daughter, Joanna, is getting married to Paul after a whirlwind romance. On the big day, someone notices that the best man, Nick, has had a bomb attached to his car. He drops a note to Elizabeth asking for her help, but then promptly vanishes. (Which kind of makes sense when someone's attached a bomb to your car, but maybe someone's managed to dispose of his corpse? Or kidnapped him?)

It all involves the titular "impossible fortune": long ago, Nick and his business partner Holly, accepted a Bitcoin payment for services rendered. Nick and Holly squirrelled their access code safely away in "cold storage", and used split-key security between them to ensure that they had to cooperate in order to retrieve it. Over the years, the bitcoin has appreciated in value considerably!

Oh, and it turns out that Ron's daughter Suzi is married to a dangerous rotter. There's something that will need resolving too.

It's Mr. Osman's usual blend of hilarity, mystery, and thrills. A lot of fun.