Book Summary of The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
Check out my book summary of the fourth book in Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series, The Last Devil to Die. Our favorite main characters are back to solve the murder of an old friend that involves drug dealers, art forgers, online fraudsters, and one mysterious, dangerous package.
This is just a summary to help you remember and understand the book before you read my full review. If you haven’t read the whole book yet or the other Thursday murder club books, I highly recommend you do! The best parts about these books is the dialogue and little details about the characters that you miss in the summary.
Part 1
Chapters 1-5
On Boxing Day, Mitch Maxwell is overseeing a heroin shipment that they bring in a terra cotta box to Kuldesh’s shop for pick up. Antiques dealer Kuldesh Sharma doesn’t know what’s in the box, but is told someone will come in tomorrow to buy it. At Coopers Chase retirement village, the members of the Thursday murder club exchange Christmas presents and invite a new friend Mervyn, another one of the residents of Coopers Chase, who they think is the victim of an online romance fraud.
Chapters 6-10
Chris and Donna find the body of Kuldesh shot in his car and note it looks like a professional job. Donna tells Bogdan about Kuldesh’s death who mentions it to Elizabeth. At Kuldesh’s antique shop, Donna and Chris find it ransacked not being able to tell if anything was taken, but they do find a cell phone. Art forger, Samantha Barnes who’s an antique dealer is busy making fake Picasso prints.
Chapters 11-16
Donna and Chris won’t let Elizabeth and Joyce into the crime scene and ask them not to investigate. Ibrahim, who’s still acting as Connie Johnson’s (the local cocaine dealer) therapist, asks her about the murder, and she gives him the names of Dominic Holt based on the description Elizabeth got from a cafe owner near Kuldesh’s shop. A higher up officer, Jill Regan, from the NCA takes over the murder case from Donna and Chris without explanation, so they keep the cellphone they found without telling her.
At Kuldesh’s funeral, the murder club agree to work together with Chris and Donna who share that Kuldesh made an untraceable call and a call to an archaeology professor the day he died. Then, the shop owner across the street from Kuldesh’s shop tells them he bought a shovel the afternoon before he died. Later, Elizabeth’s husband, Stephen receives a letter from himself a year ago informing him that he has dementia and should go to a place they can take care of him all the time so Elizabeth doesn’t have to even though she protests.
Part 2
Chapters 17-21
The club members are watching Dominic’s warehouse when he comes up to their car and threatens them to leave even though he insists he didn’t kill Kuldesh. Elizabeth and Joyce visit the professor, Nina Mishra, Kuldesh called who doesn’t know anything about the missing shipment of heroin but advises them to visit Samantha Barnes.
Chapters 22-25
Elizabeth comes home to the kitchen sink overflowing because Stephen forgot to turn it off, and Stephen is crying because he can’t remember if it’s his kitchen. While Bob and Ibrahim try to help Mervyn again, Ron goes back to his apartment and Mitch Maxwell is there waiting for him about his missing heroin. After the rest of the crew come over, Mitch tells them he didn’t kill Kuldesh even though he did ransack his shop looking for the heroin.
Chapters 26-30
Elizabeth figures out that the unknown number Kuldesh called could probably be Samantha. Ibrahim and Joyce visit Samantha and her husband Garth, but they won’t tell them anything. Elizabeth brings Stephen to Viktor to settle if they should send him for care somewhere else.
Chapters 31-35
Bogdan and Donna get box seats to a football match through one of Bogdan’s friends where they see Dom Holt. But he immediately knows who they are and leaves. Chris goes to Dom’s warehouse at the same time to see if he can get in.
Chapters 36-40
Chris finds Dom shot in the head inside the warehouse, but he calls Ron and Joyce to come call it in because he’s not supposed to be there. Before the police show up, Joyce takes pictures of all Dom’s files. At the same time, Garth breaks into Joyce’s apartment to look around.
Chapters 41-45
The Thursday murder club has to call another resident, Bob, to get the pictures of the files on the TV. From the files, the group along with Donna and Chris find out Lucia Buttaci is the one who was supposed to pick up the heroin. Donna and Chris talk to Ron’s son Jason who’s heard that Connie Johnson has been sniffing around the heroin drug trade and has had a mysterious woman visiting her in prison.
Chapters 46-50
Connie won’t tell Ibrahim who the woman is when he does to visit. Elizabeth and Joyce go to see Kuldesh’s storage unit with the professor, Nina, but they don’t find anything. Elizabeth and Joyce confront Jill because Elizabeth thinks the NCA purposely let the heroin into the country to track it until it got lost.
Chapters 51-55
Hanif, a heroin producer from Afghanistan, arrives in London and threatens Mitch and Luca to find the heroin. Elizabeth invites Nina, Samantha, Garth, Mitch, and Luca to a lunch with the group to discuss the murders and heroin. Nina purposely lets slip that Kuldesh has a storage unit, and Luca accidentally corrects Elizabeth on Jill’s name even though he shouldn’t know who that is.
For Mervyn’s online fraud case, Ron, Ibrahim, and Donna set up a money drop to catch someone in person.
Chapters 56-60
Mitch and Luca both show up at the storage spot to look for the heroin while Garth goes to see Nina about it and ends up making a deal to split any profits. Samantha is at home when she’s hit from behind and killed. After the talk with Viktor, Stephen decides to self administer an injection to take his life because he doesn’t want live like this.
Chapters 61-67
The group and some friends attend Stephen’s funeral. Afterwards when she can’t sleep, Elizabeth realizes that her own residence comes up as an unknown number, and Kuldesh probably called Stephen the day he died. Stephen had said some things about Kuldesh and his own garden allotment that Elizabeth thought was from dementia, but now she realizes that Kuldesh had buried the heroin here in Stephen’s allotment.
Part 3
Chapters 68-71
Bogdan helps the group dig up the heroin to then keep at Joyce’s. Ibrahim purposely lets slip to Connie Johnson that they have the heroin. Garth asks Mitch and Luca to meet because they’ve all heard about the heroin, and Luca tells Garth he’s sorry about his wife. Garth throws him off the top of the car park because only the cops and the killer know his wife died.
Chapters 72-76
The man coming to get Mervyn’s money shows up at Joyce’s place when they’re all there waiting. They ask the guy if he can help them sell some heroin for five thousand pounds in exchange for him keeping the rest. He sends them the money, the same he stole from Mervyn, and heads out with the heroin where Donna is waiting for him.
Jill comes to Chris for help because she did let the heroin through on purpose and had Luca working for her before the heroin went missing.
Chapters 77-81
Garth and Mitch make it Coopers Chase retirement community and threatens the group at gunpoint. Garth, an antique stealer, and Elizabeth have realized the heroin is in a six thousand year old box worth tens of millions of dollars that’s actually made of bone. Stephen and Kuldesh had presumably known as well, and that’s why they hid it. When Joyce tells them she threw it out, Mitch runs away, and Garth calmly leaves.
Chapters 82-84
Now that they know about the box, Elizabeth knows who killed Kuldesh and brings the box to Nina’s boss, Jonjo, another archeology professor. During a fire alarm (set off by Joyce) the box goes missing from Jonjo’s office like Elizabeth knew it would. Then, Elizabeth has Garth meet up offering to buy the box off Nina who killed Kuldesh for the box.
Nina admits to Garth that she killed Kuldesh who’s recording it on his phone when Elizabeth shows up. Garth gives Elizabeth the recording, and Garth and the box disappear before Jill, Chris, and Donna show up to arrest Nina.
Chapters 85-89
Elizabeth organizes for the box now containing Stephen’s ashes to be returned to a museum in Baghdad. Mitch Maxwell has a fatal heart attack while digging through garbage piles looking for the box. Connie Johnson is setting up with the Afghans to be the new heroin dealer after killing Dom and Samantha to get them out of the way.
Read the Full Book Review
Now that you’re reminded of all that happened in the book, read my full book review. I also have books to read next in it if you liked this murder mystery and when the next book comes out. There’s also reviews and summaries of all The Thursday Murder Club Mystery books on my website if you search that up above.
