Nine Great Audiobook Mysteries
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By Jen Collins Moore
I listen to a lot of audio books. They fill the time when I’m chopping vegetables, folding laundry, or in the car. They are bonus books for me, ones that I can fit in outside of my regular reading time. Far from being a “less than” reading experience, books I’ve listened to stay with me in a way that physical books often don’t. It comes down to excellent narrators and wonderful books, and together they create a magic that’s hard to beat. Here are some of my favorites.
1) Anthony Horowitz’s The Word Is Murder, read by Rory Kinnear - Blockbuster author and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz writes himself into this fictitious modern-day series as the Watson to a disgraced police detective Holmes. It’s impossible to overstate how clever this series is. The ultra meta premise works incredibly well, and Kinnear’s reading is spot on.
2) Denise Mina’s The End of the Wasp Season, read by Jane MacFarlane - Denise Mina has a knack for atmosphere that can’t be beat. She brings the dark side of Glasgow to life in her Alex Morrow series following a conflicted cop in a tough city. If I’m honest, the preceding sentence doesn’t shout “Jen would love this.” Dark isn’t usually my style, but MacFarlane’s reading makes Denise Mina’s books some of my all-time favorites.
3) M. C. Beaton’s Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death, read by Penelope Keith - If Denise Mina writers books that are darker than I typically like, M.C. Beaton wrote lighter ones. Her Agatha Raisin books are classic cozies, with 32 novels in the series following a retired London marketing executive moving to the sleepy English countryside. What makes them great is that they are smart and funny, with an often-unlikeable detective who isn’t above bending the rules. (Or breaking them. In this one she cheats in a local baking contest.) With Keith’s narration, I can’t help rooting for Agatha to triumph.
4) Lucy Foley’s The Guest List, multiple readers - Set on an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather for a wedding and someone turns up dead. For any reader of classic mysteries, it’s clear from the start that this is going to be an Agatha Christie-style closed circle puzzle where everyone is a suspect. The pleasure is in the modern take on a classic structure and six different narrators bringing each section of the book to life. It is fresh and full of atmosphere.
5) Katherine Cowley’s The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet, read by Alison Larkin - Cowley’s series is one of my favorite additions to the roster of novels inspired by Pride and Prejudice. This one follows the plainest of the Bennet sisters, the rather dull and moralizing middle child Mary. With that characterization as a springboard, Cowley creates an engaging, sympathetic detective who unravels murders and mysteries in a small seaside community threatened by Napoleon Bonaparte’s possible invasion. Alison Larkin is one of my all-time favorite narrators, and in her hands, the book comes to life in a way that I couldn’t resist.
6) Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, read by Hugh Fraser – Do you really need me to recommend Agatha Christie? Before you say no, hear me out. Perhaps, like me, you’ve already read all of Agatha Christie’s books and are unlikely to spend your precious reading time revisiting her books. But for me, audiobooks are a different story. They are bonus time, and I love filling it with Christie’s classic stories, especially when they are read by Fraser.
7) T. E. Kinsey’s A Quiet Life in the Country (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery, Book 1), read by Elizabeth Knowelden - I’m a sucker for indomitable women solving crimes in the English countryside, and this one is loads of fun. Told from the perspective of the knife-throwing former acrobat turned lady’s maid, A Quiet Life in the Country transports readers to turn-of-the-century England with characters who are anything but predictable. What I loved most, though, was Knowelden’s range of voices for the different characters. She brought the story to life in a way simply reading it wouldn’t have done.
8) Emma Healey’s Elizabeth Is Missing, read by Davina Porter - The haunting story of an elderly woman suffering from dementia convinced her best friend is missing. It’s a psychological mystery that moves between the present day and the distant past, when another person went missing, all told through the lens of the narrator’s dissolving memory. It’s a heartbreaking premise that I’m not sure I would have read in physical form, but with Davina Porter’s narration, it was a story I couldn’t stop listening to.
9) Rhys Bowen’s Her Royal Spyness, read by Katherine Kellgren - I hesitated before adding this title because I’ve already written about the Royal Spyness series here, but Kellgren’s reading is so good I couldn’t leave it off the list. Kellgren was a multi-award winning narrator, and her Royal Spyness readings are some of her most popular. Audible’s tribute to Kellgren says, “The word that most immediately comes to mind when describing a Katherine Kellgren performance is delightful,” and I have to agree.
Photo by Daria Litvinova on Unsplash