Morning All,

After a very rainy and miserable Thursday, it’s nice to see a touch of sunshine today. It’s still rather chilly, so as I did yesterday, today I will be sat with my headphones on, listening to a book, with a fire burning behind me and feeling super cosy. I think it’s fair to say that my favourite time of year is definitely here.

Book 📖

Thank you to @HarperCollinsUK and @Jeffrey_Archer for this advanced audio copy of Over My Dead Body in return for an honest review. Over My Dead Body is due to be published on 12th October 2021 and you can get a copy here.

Description 🔖

Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick is (as usual) in the middle of a whirlwind of cases. In London, his team at Scotland Yard have been assigned a selection of murder cases that have gone cold. In Geneva, William’s long standing enemy Miles Faulkner is pretending to be dead and living as a different person. On a luxury liner half way to New York, a wealthy family are insisting that the man at the top of their hierarchy has died of a heart attack, whilst a few people are certain it was murder.

William tries to juggle all of this with the help of his faithful team. This time around, Ross Hogan has been pulled in from undercover work to assist, but will he adjust to life in plain clothes and will he and the team be able to catch all of the murderers and keep Miles Faulkner in their sights?

General Thoughts 🤔

I was taken by surprise when I started this book. I had a brief moment of panic when I thought that William Warwick wouldn’t have his team with him and he’d be riding solo. I should have known better though as of course William could never indulge in a holiday and actually switch off.

Once again, I loved the mix of old plot line with new in this book. Miles Faulkner has a standing role within this series and I really liked that he was here again for Over My Dead Body, but with new criminals and new crimes added into the melting pot.

One thing I did miss within this book was a court room battle. They were one of my favourite parts of the previous books and I know that they can’t all be the same but I was hanging on waiting for Sir Julian and Grace to show up and destroy some people in the witness box. It’s no big deal, just means I’ll have to hold on until the fifth book in the series.

Characters 👭👬👫

As the series progresses, I find it harder to write this section of the review unless my feelings about characters have changed. I still love William, I still love Beth, I still love the way William and his team work and bounce off one another. My only feelings that changed were towards Ross Hogan.

When I first met Ross he was working undercover and I had a lot of respect for him. He went to prison for goodness sake! Not many people would do that for their job. However when he was “brought in from the cold” I think he struggled with working with people and not doing his own thing. I think that this was the main reason for him running rogue a little; to feel like he had more control over himself. But I disagreed with some of his actions and I empathised with William for trying to help Ross whilst at the same time, not turn a blind eye (to quote a previous book title).

Writing Style ✍️

It goes without saying that I have become hooked on Jeffrey Archer’s writing seen as I have binged this entire series (what’s written of it to date) within the last week or so. I don’t doubt that I’ll probably go back and read some of his other series at some point. He is obviously an amazing story teller and I love that the story is all hung off the characters.

What I haven’t talked about so far is that I’ve listened to the audiobooks for all of these books. The narrator is the same throughout which is great for continuity and I have really enjoyed listening to him. He captured the spirit of each character perfectly and has helped me to envisage exactly what they’re like in my mind.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖️

Another William Warwick book that I enjoyed wholeheartedly. In summary I didn’t love this one as much as the third, but loved it just as much as the first and second. I’d say that’s pretty good going for four books. I recently learnt that Jeffrey Archer plans eight books in total for this series so I’m very happy to know that I’m only half way towards the end. Hopefully the wait isn’t too long for the fifth book.

😍😍😍😍😩