• The Fourth Friend

  • A Jackman and Evans Thriller
  • By: Joy Ellis
  • Narrated by: Richard Armitage
  • Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (7,801 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The Fourth Friend  By  cover art

The Fourth Friend

By: Joy Ellis
Narrated by: Richard Armitage
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $16.35

Buy for $16.35

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Crimebusting duo DI Jackman and DS Evans are back, solving another crime that will make your skin crawl.

Police detective Carter McLean is the only survivor of a plane crash that kills his four best friends. He returns to work, but he is left full of guilt and terrible flashbacks. So for each of his four friends, he decides to complete something that they left unfinished.

Eighteen months before the crash, Suzanne Holland disappeared, leaving a room with traces of blood but no other leads. Suzanne was the wife of one of Carter’s four best friends. Adding to the pressure, the boss’ niece has a stalker. Due to the sensitivity of the Holland case, Carter is put on this investigation.

DS Marie Evans is the only person Carter can confide in. But even she begins to doubt whether he can really cope and whether he is actually losing his mind. DI Jackman and DS Evans of the Fenland police face a battle to untangle three mysteries, and can they really believe their friend and colleague Carter?

©2017 Joy Ellis (P)2017 Audible, Ltd

What listeners say about The Fourth Friend

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5,319
  • 4 Stars
    1,853
  • 3 Stars
    516
  • 2 Stars
    94
  • 1 Stars
    19
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5,971
  • 4 Stars
    1,027
  • 3 Stars
    198
  • 2 Stars
    20
  • 1 Stars
    10
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4,764
  • 4 Stars
    1,685
  • 3 Stars
    574
  • 2 Stars
    131
  • 1 Stars
    34

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

A bit of a disappointment

This is a tough one. I truly enjoy Joy Ellis’s work. After the first two books in this series, Jackman and Evans and their team have become interesting and I’m curious as to where things go with them. For that reason I finished this book. Oh, and Richard Armitage’s narration helped a great deal, too.

The story itself was difficult. I couldn’t get invested in the players, mainly Carter. I had to force myself to keep going.

I smiled at the mention of Nikki Galena (one of my favorite characters) and I want to know more about Orlagh in the basement.

This is my least favorite book in the series but I’ll continue with it while waiting for the next Nikki Galena book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

23 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

I did finish the book

I thought this book was OK, and I did finish it, The characters were fine, but the actual story did not sit well with me. SPOILER ALERT: I would like to listen to a police procedural where the criminal, murderer, victim, etc. is not the police, main character, co-worker, friend, spouse, neighbor, pet, or partner. I would like to listen to a book about a police team working together to solve a case using a list of suspects outside the police circle. Can't a police team work together to solve a mystery without being a part of it?. The story was not happy, and had a dreary ending. Not a bad writer, but I would like to see a different story-line in the next book. I haven't decided if I want to listen to another book by this author. There won't be many fictional police left in the UK to write about, since most of them end up dead or guilty of a major crime. Too many books turn out the same way.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Ellis/Armitage knocks it out of the park again!

Wow! Joy Ellis never disappoints. Her attention to character development and details is superb. Her attention to police investigative techniques and forensics adds to the richness of her stories that grabs you from the start. Richard Armitage makes Ellis's stories a living, breathing story that cannot fully be described. You are transported as if you are standing right next to each person and inside each scene. He electrifies all five of your senses and holds your attention where you cannot stop listening. You have to know what happens next.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Best novel of the series

THE FOURTH FRIEND is Book 3 in the six novel (so far) Jackman and Evans series by British author Joy Ellis. For some unexplained reason I failed to listen to it until now. It's a marvelous psychological thriller, the only psychological thriller in the modern detective series. The narration by British actor Richard Armitage is flawless. Very highly recommended!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointing

So sorry, but I have to disagree with all the five star reviews here. The book is ok, but just DEPRESSING with a capital D. Guy survives a plane crash that kills all his friends, and we watch as he sadly schleps around trying to get his life back while his burnt up, dead friends haunt him to finish "their stuff". I kept waiting for it to get better (all those 5 star reviews!), but it didn't.
Not a horrible mystery, but the story overall just left me feeling depressed. Doubt I'll bother trying the other books in this series, none of the characters really resonated with me.

Richard Armitage was great with the delivery of the story and the only reason I finished the book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Nah

This was a let down after how much I enjoyed "Their Lost Duaghters". The narrator is one of my favorites but this story fell flat for me. There was simply no flow and I found it difficult to figure out where the focus was intended. Was it the crash, the missing wife, the fued with the super, the dead guys? None of it panned out and how it was all explained was weak, making the end predicable and a bit absurd. I wouldn't suggest this book to a friend and I don't think it's any where close to as good as other books I've read by Joy Ellis.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Happily not what I expected.

I read the book first and then saw that Richard Armitage was the narrator in the audible version. I had to listen. While I enjoyed reading this book Richard's narration was spot on and gave me a whole new perspective. Going to have to check out more collaborations between Joy and Richard!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Best one in the Jackman/Evans Series

The Fourth Friend, by Joy Ellis. I listened to this on Audible. Narrated by Richard Armitage (North & South). The third installment in the Jackman and Evans series, DS Evans allows Detective Carter McLean back to work following his being the only survivor of a plane crash that killed his four best friends 18 mos earlier. When he confides in her that he sees his friends all the time and that they are each having him help them complete one last request, she wonders if she's made a mistake. When it turns out a missing woman is the wife of one of those friends, things get even dicier. I enjoy the characters in these books so much. Adding mental illness or the supernatural made the story even more interesting. Joy Ellis is very skilled at combining character, 3 different mysteries and elements of surprise making her books hard to put down. Richard Armitage is a stellar narrator moving seamlessly between character voices, leaving no doubt in your mind, which one is speaking. Enjoyed this very much.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved it

I would say this is the best one yet, but they are all good, Narrator is fantastic.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Not the best in the series, but solid.

I prefer police procedurals that focus on a case, not completely focus on the internal team dynamics. I make an exception for this series because it is so well written and while I was initially wary when I noticed how focused the story was on Carter here, the way it’s laid out won me over completely. A lot of authors would have made a mess of this type of framework, but this works very smoothly.

The case is not that interesting in isolation but because of how complicated it gets, and how the suspicion dances around different suspects, including Carter, it keeps it interesting. Carter is a wild card – literally having visions of his dead friends and you wonder more and more if Carter’s guilt is just about how they died, or because he was somehow involved in the original murder. He feels more and more like a ticking time bomb and you wonder how long it will be before he snaps and how bad that will be.

Do I even have to bother mentioning how amazing Richard Armitage is at this point? His array of voices are incredible – even his female voices are impressive and his ‘old people’ voices are jaw dropping. Best voice actor I’ve heard on Audible, and that’s quite the compliment.

This series is an impressive example of the police procedural – I would usually be put off by the focus more on the team than the crime, but it’s so well written that I will read all of them without hesitation. Another strong entry. I don’t feel book 2 and 3 lived up to the exceptional #1, but still a very enjoyable read. What’s a bit missing from 2 and 3 is a great case to work on – the cases in 2 and 3 feel almost like an afterthought, an emphasis on the team and their methods and far less on the case itself. The case in #1 was fascinating, and I think if you added a more interesting case to this formula, you’d return to the excellence of #1. This one is a definite improvement on 2 and 3, if you want to focus on the investigators more than the investigation, then the story has to be interesting enough to distract from the case itself – this is an example of it done right. I was never bored or not interested, I was always curious where it was going. Not the best in the series but very solid.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful