5 #Audiobook Mysteries That Are Better Than The Book

A good mystery book can sometimes be better experienced as audiobook! The suspense, tense situations, and wide variety of characters will keep you interested and involved. And if the narrator is good, he’ll make it so that it’s as if you’re actually there, picturing everything that’s happening. Here are 5 of our fave mysteries that we recommend you try the audiobook version.

✤ Kim ✤

The Naturalist by Andrew Mayne

Narrated by Will Damron

I just finished this and loved it. Some reviewers thought this book was too far fetched and others thought the plot was totally creative. You’ll have to be the judge. The narration is fantastic!

Professor Theo Cray is trained to see patterns where others see chaos. So when mutilated bodies found deep in the Montana woods leave the cops searching blindly for clues, Theo sees something they missed. Something unnatural. Something only he can stop.

[Buy The Naturalist @ Amazon]

The Likeness, Tana French

Narrated by Heather O’Neill

I have listened to all but the first Dublin Murder Squad books on audio and I much prefer audio. The Likeness is particularly fun on audio because the story is about a detective going undercover to impersonate a woman that was found dead. So she looks and sounds uncannily like this woman and has to fool the closest people in her life to find her killer.

Six months after the events of In the Woods, an urgent telephone call beckons Cassie to a grisly crime scene. The victim looks exactly like Cassie and carries ID identifying herself as Alexandra Madison, an alias Cassie once used. Suddenly, Cassie must discover not only who killed this girl, but, more importantly, who is this girl?

[Buy The Likeness @ Amazon]

A Rule Against Murder, by Louise Penny

Narrated by Ralph Cosham

Not all of the Inspector Gamache books are narrated by the same person. This one, in particular, is read by Ralph Cosham. Some of the others are narrated by Robert Bathurst. You’d think this would take away from the series but both narrators do such a phenomenal job.

It is the height of summer, and Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache are celebrating their wedding anniversary at Manoir Bellechasse, an isolated, luxurious inn not far from the village of Three Pines. But they’re not alone.

[Buy A Rule Against Murder @ Amazon]

✤ Tanya ✤

The Widows of Malabar Hill, Sujata Massey

Narrated by Soneela Nankani

This book is set in India, and is rich with culture and customs of different facets of Indian society. The audiobook is vibrant and brings to life the characters and life in Bombay. It’s like I could imagine the traffic on the street – it was that vivid.

Bombay, 1921: Mistry Law is handling the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen, one of the first female lawyers in India, goes through the papers, she notices something strange: all three have signed over their inheritance to a charity. What will they live on if they forfeit what their husband left them? Perveen is suspicious.

[Buy The Widows of Malabar Hill @ Amazon]

Harry Hole (Series), Jo Nesbo

Translated by Neil Smith. Narrated by John Lee

This is one of my favorite detective series, and one I recommend ALL the time! You don’t have to read in order, but it will help you get some of the references to the detective’s past in later books. I jumped in at #9 with the audiobook of The Phantom, and was hooked! I’ve since experienced all the books in the series as audiobooks, with he last one being #11, The Thirst, another edge of your seat thriller. John Lee was the original narrator of the series (books 1 and 2), and there were others until he came back for book 10 and then 11. He does an amazing job of getting us into the head of Harry Hole and his battle against his demons.

Harry is inextricably drawn back into the Oslo police force. A serial murderer has begun targeting Tinder daters – a murderer whose MO reignites Harry’s hunt for a nemesis of his past.

[Buy The Thirst @ Amazon]

For more recommendations, check out Book Riot Listen Up: Books We Recommend on Audio Instead of Print. What are some of the mystery / thrillers that you’d recommend we listen to on audio?

(Photo by Konstantin Dyadyun on Unsplash)