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The Bullet That Missed

2022 Richard Osman novel

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ136659365
Source-derived summary

The Bullet That Missed is the third murder mystery book in the Thursday Murder Club series, written by British author and television presenter, Richard Osman. The book and its audiobook edition, read by Fiona Shaw, were published by Viking Press in September 2022.

Characters

The main characters are four pensioners who reside at the fictional Coopers Chase retirement village:

Elizabeth Best, an ex-spy

Ron Ritchie, a former trade union leader

Ibrahim Arif, a psychiatrist

Joyce Meadowcroft, a retired nurse

Supporting characters include:

Police Constable Donna De Freitas

Detective Chief Inspector Chris Hudson

Builder, Bogdan Jankowski

Drug dealer Connie Johnson

Plot

The Thursday Murder Club reopens the cold case of a journalist who died while exposing a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme. Their search intertwines with Elizabeth’s secret past, threatening the safety of her friends at Coopers Chase.

Reception

The book debuted at number three on The New York Times Best Seller list and was the UK's bestselling hardcover book of 2022, according to The Sunday Times.

Reviewers commenting on Osman's funny and heartwarming writing.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “The Bullet That Missed” as 2022 Richard Osman novel. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bullet, Missed and Richard.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2022—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Bullet, Missed and Richard providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “The Bullet That Missed”, the useful work is to connect “2022 Richard Osman novel” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q136659365. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2022.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Bullet That Missed”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Bullet That Missed primary sources, The Bullet That Missed archive and Bullet research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Bullet That Missed”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Bullet That Missed” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.