Genre: Fiction | Satire |
Release Date: Expected 3rd August 2023
Publisher: Headline
You don’t have to be dead to work here, but it helps!
Dr Miriam Price is dead. And she’s really not happy about it. Someone killed her, but the police are trying to blame her for her own death, claiming it was the drinking that killed her. Now, her lack of sobriety that might be why she didn’t see the killer — but it was murder.
Now faced with the prospect of Limbo if her death remains unsolved, she’ll have to figure it out herself. But unfortunately, the only person can seem to hear her reaching out is her neighbour, and nemesis Winnie. Which means she’s probably dying too, and Miriam doesn’t even have time to laugh about it.
But it’s all she’s got; now it’s time to catch a killer — but the list of people Who might have wanted some revenge isn’t short; her the ex lover and his disgruntled wife, her exhausted, hurt husband, her default best friend, the ex patients who blame her for their losses and problems. Maybe even Winnie for all the fish she’d hidden in her curtain poles.
Miriam has spent her entire life saving lives — can she save her afterlife?
"Guess again, Belinda Carlisle. Heaven ain't a place on earth."
Wickedly clever, morbidly hilarious and utterly absurd — this satirical murder mystery from beyond the grave had me laughing, cringing and shaking my head.
Our narrator was rude, abrupt and entirely in likeable — but that didn’t stop me being charmed by her and desperately wondering where her chaotic chase of her murderer would end up. Her voice was blunt, even professional as she speaks to us — but her cynical, dry voice was definitely refreshing when it wasn’t abrasive. We spend a lot of times alone with her thoughts, as she makes witty remarks about the invisibility of middle-aged women and the painful boredom that life, and death can bring. Admittedly at times I found her attitude a little grating and repetitive, but she’s dead so I’ll cut her a break.
The story moves along slowly, full of tangents, little snippets and moments in an almost dream-like way, as she comes to terms with her death, navigates afterlife bureaucracy and has a gloriously chaotic adventure to solve her death with the most unwanted of companions and scream silently as she watched the terrible mistakes the still living were making in front of her. I loved Evans' interpretation of the afterlife — the inane rules, the strange administration, and the entire idea was highly entertaining and refreshing.
Miriam and Winnie were delightful — they drove me insane, but I loved how their fraught relationship evolved even though they were forced together. They bickered, they fought, they insulted — but they worked together and found a strange, albeit dicey kinship, and as Winnie tried to learn about Miriam to solve her death, Miriam was learning about herself, and the people she’d left behind too.
Irreverent and riotously funny with a surprising amount of heart , this afterlife drama is definitely one you won’t forget.
⭐⭐⭐
I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review.
cw; alcohol, recreational drugs, Covid, death, funerals, affairs, homophobia, addiction, suicide, animal death, ableism.
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