Chris Hudson

The detective responsible for the real investigation

Chris Hudson is the police detective working with Donna De Freitas when the Thursday Murder Club becomes involved in a live murder enquiry. He has professional experience and the obligations of a serving officer: cases must be investigated officially, and information cannot simply be handed around because four residents are curious. The quartet’s ingenuity makes that position difficult. Elizabeth is not easily diverted, Joyce is disarmingly sociable, Ron has little patience for authority and Ibrahim can ask very precise questions. Chris has to decide how to deal with useful people who rarely wait for permission.

Donna as colleague and ally

Donna’s partnership with Chris is an important continuing thread. She is ambitious and frustrated by work that initially makes too little use of her abilities. The club helps bring her into more substantial investigative work, and Chris benefits from having a capable colleague. Their styles differ without making him foolish or her infallible. He knows the machinery of a police enquiry; she is ready to see potential in the residents’ unconventional contributions. Together they connect official procedure with an amateur group that has its own contacts, motives and ideas about what should happen next.

Food, loneliness and Patrice

Chris’s personal life begins in an unhappy place following his divorce. Food is a source of comfort, and his domestic loneliness contrasts with the lively company around Coopers Chase. Patrice, Donna’s mother, becomes important to him as the books continue. That relationship puts an affectionate but awkward overlap into his partnership with Donna: the same person can be a boss, a colleague and someone involved in a parent’s life. Chris’s interest in companionship gives him an emotional story beyond being outmanoeuvred by pensioners. The novels let a police detective want ordinary happiness as well as a solved case.

Decency beneath the comic frustrations

Chris’s frustrations are often funny because the quartet has already moved ahead unofficially. That does not erase his experience or his concern for doing the job properly. He is persistent and decent, and the residents gradually draw him into something more personal than an exchange of information. He belongs to the extended circle of friends that includes Patrice, Donna, Bogdan and the Best household. Those connections give the recurring investigations continuity. A new case may bring a different suspect or setting, but Chris still has to manage people he knows, respects and sometimes finds intensely exasperating.

Where to begin

Read The Thursday Murder Club first for Chris’s introduction to the residents and the beginning of his partnership with Donna. Continue in publication order for his relationship with Patrice and his growing attachment to the wider village circle. He is especially enjoyable alongside Donna because their professional conversations can have a second, personal layer. His comic difficulties with the quartet are also worth reading in context: the humour works because he is trying to maintain an official investigation while the residents pursue their own leads. The book guides provide case premises and reading order without requiring you to learn who committed the crimes.

On screen

Daniel Mays plays Chris Hudson in the 2025 Netflix film. See the full actor-to-character cast guide and the film guide.

Read the books and extracts

Start with The Thursday Murder Club. Our reading order follows the novels’ publication sequence. The publisher’s extracts below let you meet the characters in Osman’s own prose; review and cast links offer further background.

• The Thursday Murder Club: opening chapter
• Penguin’s guide to the four club members
• Netflix’s character and cast guide