The Marlow Murder Club

Robert Thorogood’s The Marlow Murder Club is a modern example of the “cozy mystery,” a subgenre of crime fiction. From the 1920s to the mid-20th century, detective fiction went through its Golden Age, with the hard-boiled detective novel taking prominence through books like Dashiell Hammet’s The Maltese Falcon (1930), Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye (1953), and Gerald Butler’s Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1940). Their novels portrayed a dark view of the world, giving rise to the term “noir fiction,” and often featured an antihero who was deeply rooted in the corruption and organized crime they fought. While the hard-boiled crime tradition is often associated with America, and specifically California, the “cozy mystery” emerged around the same time on the other side of the Atlantic, epitomized by the works of authors like Agatha Christie. Cozy mysteries typically feature an amateur sleuth (in contrast to the professional, private seen in hard-boiled crime fiction) and are set in small, comfortable, and close-knit communities. They maintain a lighthearted tone that deliberately contrasts with the grim subject of murder, while violence and gore are minimized. Ultimately, the focus of a “cozy mystery” remains on the intellectual challenge of solving a puzzle—rather than the dark impact of the murder itself. 

The Marlow Murder Club both employs and revitalizes these traditions. Judith Potts, a 77-year-old crossword setter, embodies the amateur sleuth archetype, driven to investigate after the police dismiss her account of a shooting. Judith is reminiscent of Christie’s heroine Miss Marple, featured in over a dozen novels like Sleeping Murder (1976) and A Pocket Full of Rye (1953), an elderly, seemingly mild-mannered amateur detective who uses her skills to help the police find evidence and make connections they missed. Like Miss Marple, Judith’s age and wisdom serve as a source of strength, subverting societal expectations and reaffirming the value of age. The setting of Marlow is presented as a quintessential English town, providing the idyllic backdrop characteristic of the genre. Instead of the criminal underworld where no one is safe, Marlow reveals the secrecy and immorality of everyday life while also providing the characters with a source of safety and comfort. By grounding the story in these familiar conventions, Thorogood creates a comforting narrative framework that allows the reader to focus on the intellectual puzzle of the murders, making the experience less about suspense and more about the satisfying process of solving a complex mystery.