Looking to solve a mystery? You could do worse than a former James Bond, a dogged detective turned queen, an idolized world leader and a stealth jill-of-all-trades. That would be Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie, the stars of “The Thursday Murder Club,” Netflix’s adaptation of the first book in Richard Osman’s best-selling series.

The cast, all from Britain or Ireland, has appeared together in various permutations — Brosnan, 72, and Mirren, 80, on his very first movie, “The Long Good Friday” (1980), and the recent series “MobLand”; Kingsley, 81, and Mirren onstage; and Mirren and Imrie, 73, in “Calendar Girls.” And they all had an easy camaraderie as retirees in a luxe senior community who gather to investigate crimes. “It’s marvelous to have sort of a gang,” Imrie said.

The film, streaming on Netflix, was directed by Chris Columbus, best known for family fare like “Home Alone,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” (which also featured Brosnan) and the first two “Harry Potter” movies. With his production company, Maiden Voyage Pictures, Columbus has lately focused on producing for younger filmmakers like Robert Eggers (“Nosferatu”).

Columbus liked Osman’s novel more for its characters than its genre. “I never had any desire to do a murder mystery,” he said, finding the form “either procedural and very cold, or over-the-top, way too big in terms of performance. This one had incredibly sharp British humor, which I respond to, and an emotional complexity that you don’t usually see.”

In interviews in a Manhattan hotel, Brosnan and Mirren, and Columbus and Kingsley spoke about aging, first-day nerves and their real-life detective skills. Imrie chimed in by phone later, after participating in an event with the king and queen of England commemorating the 80th anniversary of V-J Day. “Did they talk about me?” she asked mischievously about her co-stars.