Saved by Wild Ponies

An Equine-centric Review of Richard Osman’s “We Solve Murders”

A photo of one of the New Forest’s wild ponies, lensed by London-based travel photographer Liam Pearson (📸 @lundonlens).

For a book explicitly sectioned by the locales it jet-sets between, Richard Osman’s mystery-novel-that’s-not-quite-a-mystery-novel We Solve Murders is remarkably insular. We spend time in airports and in taxis with unflappable drivers, in generic rooms and pubs, on a golf course—wandering with little wonder. Rarely exploring in any genuine way the places the novel name-drops: South Carolina; St. Lucia, the Eastern Caribbean island nation crowned by twin volcanic peaks; craggy County Cork, Ireland; corrupt (according to the novel) Dubai.

The view across Soufrière and the two Piton mountains in St. Lucia, one of the novel’s splashier locales. (📸 AWL Images)

The only location that gets any real flavour is the New Forest in south-central England, singled out by William the Conqueror in 1079 as royal hunting grounds. An area of ancient woodlands and fairytale villages. And, notably, free-roaming ponies.

The New Forest’s ponies singularly stand out in my mind after waking up from the spell that the book—like any book, accomplished or not—cast over me. A few of the thousands of semi-feral ponies that range freely across the New Forest National Park show up to charm one of the central characters, Steve Wheeler. In real life, these max 148cm tall ponies shape the landscape as they graze and encourage the growth of rare wildflowers such as chamomile and wild gladiolus. They are described quite adorably by The New Forest website as “hardy and adaptable, with a reputation for gentle temperaments and sure-footedness.”

📸 The New Forest website.

In the book, Axley, New Forest and its ponies steal the show, as well as all of Osman’s descriptive prowess:

“If you were to visit Axley—and you should, you’d like it—you might think you had found the perfect English village. A gently sloping High Street, looping around a touch at the bottom where it skirts the bank of the village pond. There are two pubs, The Brass Monkey and The Flagon, identical to the tourists but teeming with subtle and important differences to the locals. For example, one flies a Union Jack and the other the Ukrainian flag. There’s a butcher, a baker. No candlestick‑maker, but you will find a little gift shop selling scented candles and bookmarks.

Striped awnings, bicycles leaned against shopfronts, chalkboards promising cream teas or tarot readings or dog treats. There is a church at the top of the village, and a small bookmakers at the bottom of the village, take your pick. Steve used to visit both, and now visits neither.

And, all around, there is the New Forest. The forest is the whole point of the place. The village itself simply found itself a small clearing and settled in. There are walks and trails, the chirrup and buzz of wildlife, and the backpacks and rain macs of the tourists. Stray New Forest ponies some days wander on to the main road and are accorded due reverence. It was their forest long before it was yours, and it will be theirs long afterward too. Axley simply shelters among the trees, curled into a little nutshell.”

And a little later on:

“A lone pony wanders by the side of the pond, head bobbing as he walks. Steve eyes him suspiciously. Well, Steve eyes him. His looks are always suspicious. He gets in trouble for it in the pub all the time.

‘You should be asleep,’ he tells the pony.

The pony turns his head toward Steve, as if to say, ‘So should you.’ Steve accepts that the pony has a point. The pony continues his slow walk, moving across the High Street and down the passage alongside the greetings card shop, stopping to nuzzle something in a dustbin along the way.”

And perhaps this loving specificity is the point. Steve Wheeler does not want to be on a globetrotting adventure chasing after the international criminals who have been offing influencers and framing his daughter-in-law. He wants to be home in England, where he communes with his dead wife and frequents pub quizzes. Everything else to him is just bothersome beige.

Wild ponies trodding down a central New Forest street. (@stableexpress.com_insta)

We Solve Murders is a comic novel, first and foremost, before it is a mystery or a thriller. Osman seems determined, in fact, to take the air out of much of the suspense, feeding us solutions long before the protagonists reach them. Humour crowds out much of the plot, which is fairly thin and relatively flavourless. The meagre details repeated and repeated again, like candies you may not remember popping—Osman having you chew them once more in case you’ve forgotten the taste.

Thankfully, every time you think the jokes will eventually fall flat, that the muchness will become too-muchness, Osman keeps the engine running. He is a maestro of sardonic omniscience. Narration that winks, frequently, at the reader. And he populates his fiction with the kind of people you wouldn’t mind sharing a drink with (though I prefer a martini to a pint). Pleasure to be had in their banter, their antics, their bonds.

Although the typically stoic hero Amy Wheeler is rather wooden, boasting, “I haven’t cried since I was twelve,” her romance novelist sidekick Rosie D’Antonio—though just as stoic—is full of riotous energy. She’s a brassy, red-blooded dynamo and she’s a joy to be with; a grounding force as the pages and incidents flip by.

📸 @hang_ross76

And, of course, there are the ponies. Just look at the shaggy-haired faces of the ones above. Despite not being enamoured by Osman’s attempt at high-octane intrigue, I am fully invested in the ponies of New Forest. The area is now on my British Bucket List, along with neighbouring Isle of Wight, a beach-lined, fossil-strewn island off the southern coast. So, I have Osman to thank for that.

Happy globetrotting,
Mikey