Author becomes first debut novelist to score Christmas number one
(PA)
Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club has become the first debut novel to score a Christmas number one.
The Pointless host’s mystery, about a group of pensioners who set about solving the murder of a property developer in a luxury Kent retirement village, beat Barack Obama to the top the festive chart.
The novel sold 134,514 copies in the week ending December 19, according to sales monitor Nielsen BookScan.
Richard Osman (Matt Crossick/PA)
This was more than twice as many as A Promised Land, the first volume of the former US president’s memoirs of his time in office, which sold 66,531.