There's few greater delights in life than a brilliant audiobook thriller. A mundane commute becomes an exciting hour to look forward to and you can't wait to go for a run so you can plug in your AirPods, shut out the world, and find out what happens next. Below, some of our favourite audiobooks in the thriller category.
The Stranger Diaries
by Elly Griffiths
***Shortlisted for the 2020 Edgar Allen Poe Awards***
The Stranger Diaries is a Gothic take on a modern mystery, with a fictional Victorian author, RM Holland, as a central part of the plot. The book has won a number of accolades, as well as being a Richard & Judy Bookclub pick, suggesting it’s also a relatively easy read. That said, it is educational: the book pulls you along, but you also feel the need to look up the ghost stories of MR James (on whom, one can’t help but presume, RM Holland is based), and reread Wilkie Collins.
Lethal White
by Robert Galbraith
In the fourth book in the Robert Galbraith/Cormoran Strike series, Lethal White, J.K. Rowling does what she did so successfully in the Harry Potter series, which is that she makes it better than the book before. Rather than getting tired of the formula, you feel that she is taking things forward, and you become interested in where it’s all going to end up. The murder plot is good and the settings (which include the Houses of Parliament) memorable. At this point in the series you’re really rooting for the lead characters and how their lives will turn out.
The Woman in the Window
by A. J. Finn
You have to have just a little patience with The Woman in the Window, which starts off somewhat irritating because it reads like a combination of Rear Window and The Girl on the Train. Hang in there and you’ll find it’s really an excellent thriller with exciting plot twists.
I Know a Secret
by Tess Gerritsen
I Know a Secret is the 12th book in Tess Gerritsen’s series featuring Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles. As always with Gerritsen, the plot is strong and makes an impression. Apart from a short part at the beginning, there is no real need to take on the rest of the series, I Know a Secret works well as a standalone thriller.
Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn
Gone Girl, the bestselling thriller by Gillian Flynn, is a lot of fun to listen to as an audiobook. The plot does degenerate somewhere along the line, but by then you’ve had so many hours of suspenseful listening already, it’s hard to be too exasperated with the author for not holding it together.
The Girl on the Train
by Paula Hawkins
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins has sold millions of copies, been translated into umpteen language and made into a movie. There’s a reason for that: it is a really good thriller. It was Hawkins’s first novel, and has that semi-autobiographical feel to it that comes out in many first time novels.
If you haven’t read it yet, it does also make a good audiobook, with multiple narrators.
Prime Suspect
by Lynda La Plante
Prime Suspect started as a TV series, starring Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison. It was so successful that screenwriter Lynda La Plante has, ever since, made a career as a bestselling novelist as well. These are gripping books and we’ve included them just in case you didn’t know about them.
The Moonstone
by Wilkie Collins
Viewed by TS Eliot as the inventor of the modern English detective novel, Wilkie Collins’s books remain some of the best mysteries ever written. Opinions vary whether The Moonstone or The Woman in White is better, one thing is for sure: if you like one, you’ll want to read the other. The audiobook of The Moonstone is really nicely performed by the English character actor Peter Jeffrey (1929-1999).
Cast, in Order of Disappearance
by Simon Brett
Published in 1975, Cast, In Order of Disappearance is the first book in the series featuring one of the funniest anti-heroes in crime fiction, the seedy, alcoholic, out-of-work (mostly) actor Charles Paris. Simon Brett (who’s been on Five Books recommending his favourite whodunnits) continues to write the occasional book in the series just because they remain so popular. The audiobook is actually a BBC dramatisation starring Bill Nighy, an excellent choice for the louche actor he portrays.
Note: if you take your thrillers very seriously, this is not the book for you.
The ABC Murders
by Agatha Christie
There’s nothing quite like an Agatha Christie when it comes to listening to a whodunnit as an audiobook, and because they were written in the 1930s, they’re good for listening to with children as there is no swearing or graphic violence. Often it’s actors we’ve got to know on TV or in movies who narrate them. The ABC Murders works particularly well as an audiobook, performed by Hugh Fraser (who played Captain Hastings, Hercule Poirot’s sidekick, in the TV series).
