The Thursday Murder Club ending explained: What was changed from the book?

Much like the book, the film introduces us to four sleuthing residents of a retirement village – played in the starry cast by Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie – who are suddenly faced with a very real murder case when property developer Tony Curran suddenly winds up dead.

There are immediately several suspects: including his shady former business partner Ian Ventham (David Tennant) and former employee Bogdan (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), and it doesn't take long until the gang have infiltrated the investigation with help from junior cop Donna De Freitas (Naomi Ackie), much to the annoyance of her superior DCI Chris Hudson (Daniel Mays).

From there, the film takes a fair few twists and turns – some of which will be familiar to book readers but others of which are new for the film. Read on to have The Thursday Murder Club ending explained, along with full details of what's been changed from the novel.

The Thursday Murder Club ending explained: Who killed Tony Curran?

With the club already chasing several leads, things really take a turn at the protest against Ian Ventham's continued developments and his plans to dig up the graveyard.

Ian is facing down the protestors when he suddenly collapses and is soon afterwards pronounced dead at the scene – with the probable cause of death given as an overdose of Fentanyl.

Shortly afterwards – with the gang realising they are all suspects – Elizabeth mentions the photo that was found at Tony's murder scene, which saw him standing alongside a notorious criminal by the name of Bobby Tanner and a man who appears to be Jason Ritchie, Ron's son (although she withholds this information from the others).

She explains that Tanner had been joint owner of Cooper's Chase along with Tony and Ian – who are of course both now dead – and is therefore now the only surviving owner, with the gang agreeing to try and track him down.

When Elizabeth returns to her apartment, she finds that Bogdan (who she had previously introduced herself to as Marina, hoping to get information from him) is there playing chess with her husband Stephen – and that he has found out the truth about her identity. He also says he has something he wants to show her that night in the cemetery.

That night, Elizabeth meets Bogdan as promised and he shows her something very suspicious he'd found while digging up the graveyard: bones that had been placed on top of a coffin several years earlier, appearing to show evidence of someone trying to hide a body.

The following evening – after the remains have been dug up and Elizabeth and the gang get a dressing down from Chris for continuing to interfere in police matters – Elizabeth notices an intruder in her apartment who has mysteriously left flowers along with card that reads "back off".

Then, the next morning, Donna tells her that the bones belonged to a man named Peter Mercer, which instantly prompts Elizabeth to take her to see former Thursday Murder Club member Penny (who is now in a coma) and her husband John.

Later, while Chris is questioning Jason – who has been arrested on suspicion of Terry's murder – the gang (minus Elizabeth) arrive in his office to derail the interview, and Jason admits that the real reason he had been cagey was that he was with Ian's wife at the time of the murder – and that they'd been having an affair. That rules him out as a suspect and he walks free.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth works out where the flowers she'd been sent had come from and is thus able to track down the sender: Bobby Tanner himself. She takes Donna with her to visit him at his florist business, and they question him – asking him directly if he'd had Tony and Ian murdered to get their shares at Cooper's Chase. He denies it and says he is looking to sell the land as fast as he can.

During their discussion, one of Bobby's workers come down and explains how he's just picked up "another three Polish workers in Amsterdam" and had taken their passports.

Turns out, Tony and Bobby had been engaging in a practice of bringing in people to work illegally for their businesses and keeping their passports from them. This information appears to make things click for Elizabeth, who instructs all the rest of the gang – and the police – to rush back to her apartment as soon as possible.

All this time, Bogdan has been playing chess with Stephen again, with the latter beginning to question him about Tony's murder – saying that he believes it was Bogdan himself who had committed the crime.

Bogdan calls him clever and reluctantly admits to his crime, saying it was an accident – that he had no intention of killing Tony and that he had merely been trying to get his passport back.

After this confession, Stephen succumbs to one of his bouts of memory loss, and Bogdan goes to make him a cup of tea, appearing to briefly toy with spiking it with some nearby medication. Elizabeth and co arrive back just after Stephen has taken a sip, and they stop Bogdan from escaping as he becomes aware of what is going on.

Thankfully, Joyce realises that Stephen hasn't been poisoned, and furthermore that, since Stephen records all his chess games, Bogdan's confession is on tape.

Faced with this knowledge, Bogdan reiterates that it was an accident, and that he had killed Tony in self-defence when the latter had lashed out after refusing to give his passport back. He also confirms that he didn't poison Stephen, who he considers as a friend.

Who killed Ian Ventham and Peter Mercer in The Thursday Murder Club?

While that clarifies what had happened to Tony, it leaves things murky as to the murder of Ian – whose death now looks to be unconnected to Tony's – and the remains of Peter Mercer.

While the rest of the gang are watching Jason competing on Dancing on Ice, Elizabeth decides to look back at previous files concerning the latter and comes across some very interesting information, which she then takes to her old friend John – who remains at Penny's bedside.

She reveals that the file – which Penny had suspiciously never suggested as one of the cold cases during her days on the Thursday Murder Club – concerns a previous case in which Mercer's girlfriend had been killed by a supposed masked intruder. Only, there had been no intruder – it was actually Peter himself who had killed her, and he had gotten away with it.

Looking at the photos, Elizabeth realised that, knowing Peter was guilty, Penny had taken matters into her own hands, killing him and hiding his body at the cemetery with John's help. It was those bones that Bogdan had dug up all these years later.

John admits that Elizabeth's theory is right, and also that he had killed Ian Ventham using a massive dose of Fentanyl to stop the grave from being dug up and exposing the crime, protecting his beloved wife.

Elizabeth admits that she'll have to tell the police but agrees to give John a bit of time with Penny first, seeming to realise that John will use that time to apply both himself and his wife with a fatal dose of the remaining Fentanyl.

We then flash forward to Ibrahim delivering a eulogy at their funeral, saying: "Sometimes, good people do bad things. But what John did, he did for love. For the love of Penny. And their enduring love will span time and space, dancing into the stars together. We shall miss them, and we shall remember them always."

How is The Thursday Murder Club film ending different to the book?

Although showing many of the same events, the film actually differs from the book in quite a lot of key ways – especially concerning the plot around the murder of Tony Curran.

There's a whole plot involving Tony's ties to drugs and organised crime – including a character named Turkish Gianni, the murder of a taxi driver, £100k in stolen cash and a trip to Cyprus – that is not featured in the film.

Meanwhile, although Bogdan was the killer in both the film and book, his role is significantly changed.

The whole passport scheme is a new plot line for the film, with the motive for murder in the book having been tied to the fact he had stolen £100k of Tony's money many years ago after shooting Gianni in retribution for his own best friend being shot to cover up Tony's murder of a taxi driver many years earlier.

He had been waiting for a chance to kill Tony ever since to complete his revenge, and does so while helping him install a new security system.

As for the plot involving Ian Ventham and Peter Mercer (named Peter Weber in the book), this is also altered, albeit less dramatically. Aspects of the story involving characters called Gordon and Karen Playfair and an increased role for Father Mackie are cut, making the version of the story in the film rather more streamlined.

Speaking about the changes to his original plot on The Rest Is Entertainment back in February, Osman explained: "There were certain people who part of their deal would be, 'You will have complete creative control over the whole process, you can write it,' which I didn't want to do.

"With Amblin and Spielberg, when they came in, they said, 'It's definitely going to be in England, we'll give you that assurance, but someone else is going to write it.'"

He added: "The plot, as I understand it, for The Thursday Murder Club movie is based on the first book but it's not entirely the same, because you have to change things, is the truth," he said.

"To have me looking over their shoulder every five seconds telling them that they couldn't do this or they couldn't do that I think would be hard."

The Thursday Murder Club is now playing in select UK cinemas and will stream on Netflix from Thursday 28th August 2025. Discover a world of crime & mystery with Sky Essential TV for just £15 a month.

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