“Antiques shop. Geezer called Kuldesh Sharma. Not our usual, but the only one we could find open. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

All the trouble that takes place over the course of the book occurs because Kuldesh is the only antiques dealer whose shop is open the day after Christmas. His murder, the missing heroin, and the scramble to obtain the box that was used to smuggle it all stem from this mere accident of fate. However, it isn’t an accident to Kuldesh: His shop is open because he is a lonely widower and doesn’t have anything else to do with his time. The Impact of Aging, Dementia, and Mortality is thus embedded in the novel’s inciting incident.

“Joanna bought me a lovely present: it’s a flask they use in space, and it has Merry Christmas, Mum! Here’s to no murders next year engraved onto it.”

At the beginning of The Last Devil to Die, the Thursday Murder Club has been involved in three mysteries in a very short space of time, and it is now about to be involved in another. Joyce’s daughter’s gift suggests that she finds it odd that her nice, elderly mother and her closest friends spend their free time cavorting with underworld kingpins and solving murders the police can’t; however, doing so helps the members of the group maintain a sense of purpose in old age, demonstrating