While there are four key members of the Thursday Murder Club, Joyce might be considered the protagonist, as she is the only one with her own first-person chapters. These chapters take the form of entries in her diary and offer more insight into her character than the reader gets with anyone else. A widow in her late seventies, Joyce lives in Coopers Chase with her dog, Alan. She has one child, a daughter named Joanna, and develops a string of crushes on handsome elderly gentlemen throughout the series.

Joyce begins the series as a doddering foil for the ever serious and professional Elizabeth, but The Last Devil to Die sees her evolving into a more confident and reliable investigator, demonstrating that significant character growth is possible even in old age and thus developing the theme of The Resilience and Resourcefulness of Elderly Individuals. She is no longer Elizabeth’s sidekick in their outings but an active and equal participant—and sometimes leader. When Elizabeth and Joyce visit Fairhaven Council to get the address of Kuldesh’s lock-up, it is Joyce who takes over after Elizabeth’s attempts fail. As Joyce explains, “So [Elizabeth] then pulled my usual party trick of breaking down in tears.