Full Book Summary of The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman
Check out a summary of the third book in the Thursday Murder Club series, The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman. Your favorite main characters are back to solve a new mystery tied to their community. They’re also back with some unlikely new friends and a new nemesis.
Use these chapter-by-chapter summaries to refresh on the main points of the book before you read my full book review. I highly recommend reading the whole thing if you haven’t yet to get all the tiny details that make for great characters and a fun mystery.
If you also need a refresher on the previous books, I have a review and summary for the first book The Thursday Murder Club as well as a summary and review of the second book, The Man Who Died Twice.
Part 1
Chapters 1-5
Elizabeth Best and the Thursday Murder Club members get a local news legend Mike Waghorn to come do a story on Coopers Chase to ask him about his old colleague that was murdered. About ten years ago, his cohost’s, Bethany Waites, car was driven off a cliff with her blood and clothes inside even though her body was never found. Bogdan Jankowski and PC Donna de Freitas start going out, and Connie Johnson starts planning how to get back at Bogdan and Ron from prison.
Chapters 6-10
The members of the Thursday murder club ask Chris and Donna to look in the Bethany Waites case and the case of fraud by Heather Garbutt that Bethany was investigating when she died. For a few days, Elizabeth receives threatening text messages from an unknown number and is hit from behind while on a walk with her husband, Stephen. She wakes up blindfolded in a moving van next to Stephen.
Ron goes on a date with Pauline Jenkins, a makeup artist from Mike Waghorn’s show who also knew Bethany.
Chapters 11-15
Elizabeth and Stephen are taken to a man Elizabeth dubs The Viking, who wants Elizabeth to kill Viktor Illyich, a Russian who owned the diamonds Elizabeth and the group stole. At first, Elizabeth refuses, but then the Viking threatens to kill Joyce. Once the man lets them go, Elizabeth tells Stephen that Viktor is an old enemy turned friend and former KGB hitman that she doesn’t want to kill and won’t kill her either.
Ibrahim visits Connie in prison asking her to talk to Heather Garbutt who’s also a prisoner here in exchange for being Connie’s therapist once a week.
Chapters 16-19
Connie tries to ask Heather about Bethany’s death, but Heather refuses to talk about it because she says it’s too dangerous. Mike Waghorn comes to a meeting of the Thursday Murder Club to tell them that Bethany was receiving threatening notes at work before she died. Chris and Donna show up to tell them that Heather was found dead in her prison cell.
Part 2
Chapters 20-24
The murder club find out from Joanna, Joyce’s daughter, that in Heather’s financial records the only clue is that the money laundering once went to a company owned by Heather’s boss Jack Mason. Through mutual friends, Ron meets with Jack Mason who tells him that he didn’t not kill Heather or Bethany but he knows for certain Bethany’s dead.
Chapters 25-29
The chief constable of Kent, Andrew Everton, comes to ask Ibrahim why he was visiting Connie in prison, but Ibrahim won’t say because of patient confidentiality as Connie’s therapist. The murder club also invite Andrew Everton back to do a reading of his detective book on a Thursday afternoon, so they can actually ask him about the Bethany case. Chris and Donna check out an apartment complex they think Bethany visited on the night she died, and note down the resident’s license plates.
Chapters 30-34
Joyce has lunch with Pauline because she thinks Pauline knows something about Bethany from working with her, but Pauline says she doesn’t. Because Elizabeth keeps getting threats from the Viking, she and Joyce head to London the next day to visit Viktor’s luxury penthouse. Elizabeth tells Joyce what happened with the Viking, and, when they get to the apartment, Elizabeth takes Viktor to the bathroom to shoot him.
Chapters 35-39
In Heather’s old prison cell, Connie finds pages of writing that look like a poem to show Ibrahim. In Viktor’s apartment, Elizabeth has Joyce destroy her phone because Elizabeth had figured out the Viking had cloned Elizabeth’s phone in order to hear and see everything she was doing. Elizabeth had pretended to shoot Viktor and got Joyce’s natural reaction to convince the Viking.
With Bogdan’s help, they smuggle Viktor out of the apartment, and he comes to stay in Joyce’s spare room at Coopers Chase. Viktor tells the murder club the Viking is a young rival who wants him dead, and they agree to help get rid of the Viking.
Chapters 40-45
With the help of Pauline’s make up skills, the murder club stages Viktor in a grave to send a picture to the Viking. The Viking goes to Viktor’s apartment, sees a bullet hole in the ceiling, and realizes they tricked him.
Chapters 46-50
Stephen has forgotten about the Viking because of his dementia when Elizabeth asks. Later, while playing chess with Bogdan, Stephen tells him about a library he was in recently with very rare and expensive books that should have been in a museum. Bogdan realizes Stephen is talking about the Viking’s library and thinks this may help find him.
Chapters 51-55
Bogdan, Donna, and Stephen visit Stephen’s old collector friend, Kuldesh, who promises to ask around for the rare books. Elizabeth and Joyce visit an old coworker of Bethany, Fiona Clemence, who said she didn’t like Bethany but was also receiving the threatening notes. While playing snooker, Jack Mason admits to Viktor and Ron his partner killed Bethany, buried her with Heather’s phone for blackmail, and then pushed Bethany’s car off the cliff.
Chapters 56-60
Bogdan tells Donna that Pauline lives at the apartment complex that Bethany visited before she died, but Pauline tells Donna that lots of crew and cast of the show live there. When Joyce comes home, the Viking is waiting, but she knocks him out with sleeping pills in his tea. The Viking awakens to the whole group plus Pauline and Viktor interrogating him.
Stephen comes with the Viking’s real name, Henrik, and they convince him not to kill anyone. Viktor convinces him to go back to his money laundering and forget about Viktor. Then, they ask for the Viking’s help with the money launderers records and have him stay with Ibrahim for the night.
Chapters 61-65
Elizabeth convinces the chief, Andrew Everton, to help them in exchange for the information Jack Mason gave them. She convinces the chief to dig around the garden of Heather’s old house because Jack Mason had bought it right away keeping it empty. While digging in the back, they find an assault rifle and some money.
Chapters 66-69
Henrik helps them find another name in the financial trail of Bethany’s case that Joyce recognizes. When Donna and Chris go to question Jack Mason about the gun, they find him dead.
Part 3
Chapters 70-74
The crew sets up a trap at Henrik’s house, and, then, Andrew Everton shows up to the house. Joyce recognized the name in the financial records as a character from Everton’s detective book she started reading. Then, Elizabeth let slip to Everton that a money laundering criminal was after her.
Chapter 75-78
With the help of Henrik, the murder club gets Everton to confess to money fraud because he needs Henrik’s help to get the money back. They livestream the whole confession on Fiona’s Instagram, who has millions of followers. Viktor comes in and gets Andrew to admit to murdering Bethany as well.
Chapters 79-84
In prison, Connie Johnson thinks about finding Heather’s real suicide note and getting rid of it to ‘help’ with the murder investigation in order to get a shorter sentence. Bogdan and Donna go to see Stephen, but Stephen forgets how to play chess.
Chapter 85
Away from the rest of the group, Ron confronts Pauline that one of the names on the financial records points to her. Pauline tells Ron that Bethany showed up asking her for a wig and makeup to change her appearance along with a mannequin. Pauline always suspected that Bethany faked her death because she knew someone was after her.
When Ron asks more about it, Pauline never told anyone because it would hurt Mike and all Bethany’s friends and family. The name on the account was made by Bethany with the money to pay Pauline for her help.
Chapters 86-88
In Dubai, Bethany is living under the name Alice Cooper and living off the money from the fraud. With investigating and learning about money laundering for work, Bethany figured out how to get the money into new accounts she could access. She decided to fake her death when Everton threatened to kill Mike if Bethany didn’t stop her story.
Chapters 89-End
In prison, Everton thinks about how he lied about killing Bethany, so the Viking would help him but did get away with killing Jack. However, Chris figures out and proves that Everton did kill Jack. Viktor talks to Elizabeth about coming to live at the retirement community because he’s been lonely and wants good friends around.
Read the Full Review
Now that you’re reminded what happened in the book, check out my book review. And if you want another fun murder mystery, there’s recommendations of what to read next. I also have a summary and review of The Last Devil to Die, the next book in the series.
