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Though the book follows the four friends— Joyce, Elizabeth, Ibrahim, and Ron—solving the murder, the only first-person POV is Joyce’s via her diary. Why do you think the author chose to show her perspective in such a way?
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I think because Joyce is new to the Thursday Murder Club group, she can write about her perspectives of Elizabeth, Ibrahim, and Ron with “fresh eyes” and share those impressions with the reader. She’s getting to know them at the same time we are. She becomes the narrator, who can recap the events and impressions for us but in a comical way and with an “insider’s knowledge.” And because it’s not any of the other characters, Osman can hold back some secrets about Elizabeth and Ibrahim and Ron that he might have had to share if they were the ones sharing their POV.
The other thing is that we get to know Joyce’s character better through her diary. She is very clever but underestimated and says this about herself when she says she’s often overlooked. We get to know this about her as the book goes on, and I was surprised (and delighted) by what she observes and says. But I think these traits (which are her quiet observation skills) would have been harder for Osman to convey in third-person scenes. So he has a shortcut way of revealing more about Joyce through her journals. I was somewhat expecting journal and diary entries from the other characters, at the beginning but again, I can see why Osman focuses on Joyce, because she is the newcomer to the group.
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