Features AudioFile Spotlight: Mystery and Suspense Audiobooks

AudioFile’s Editors have five thrilling new audiobooks from favorite authors, including Don Winslow and Stacey Abrams, as well as a breakout listen from Margot Douaihy. These mystery audiobooks make excellent companions for your evening walks, backyard listening, and summer road trips. Read on to discover your next great listen.

CITY OF DREAMS: City on Fire, Book 2
by Don Winslow | Read by Ari Fliakos
AudioFile Earphones Award
Harper Audio | 8 hrs.

Ari Fliakos uses his skill with accents, pacing, and ratcheting up narrative tension to deliver this second novel in a trilogy. In the first, City on Fire, Irish mobster Danny Ryan led a mob war against a rival Italian gang. The war continues, and Fliakos allows Ryan’s desperation and exhaustion to creep into his narration. He portrays Ryan with intelligence, humanity, and flashes of vocal fireworks. The story is one for the ages, and this audio version is one of the best ways to experience its violent and heartbreaking world.

REVIEW

THE DONUT LEGION
by Joe R. Lansdale | Read by Joe R. Lansdale, Kasey Lansdale, Finlay Stevenson, January LaVoy, Marc Vietor, Brad Sanders, Greg Littlefield
AudioFile Earphones Award
Hachette Audio | 7.5 hrs.

Portraying ex-private eye Charlie Garner, author Joe R. Lansdale gives the role a Mike Hammer flavor with a Texas twang. The appearance—and disappearance—of Garner’s ex-wife sends him on the trail of a cult that is linked to donut shops. He gets help from his brother Felix, Felix’s girlfriend, and a writer. Voiced by an excellent cast that includes Greg Littlefield, Finlay Stevenson, and January LaVoy. Their investigation runs afoul of Police Chief Stone, voiced by Brad Sanders. Even fans of the hard-boiled detective genre will enjoy the surprising humor Lansdale and the rest of the cast bring to this mystery.

REVIEW

SCORCHED GRACE: A Sister Holiday Mystery
by Margot Douaihy | Read by Mara Wilson
AudioFile Earphones Award
Zando | 10 hrs.

Mara Wilson gives an incredible performance of this hard-boiled, sexy, and sometimes very funny whodunit. Sister Holiday is a queer, tattoo-covered nun brimming with a talent for solving mysteries. Jack, the janitor at St. Sebastian’s School, where Sister teaches art, falls to his death from the school gym window, and the gym bursts into flames. Wilson’s emotional range brings listeners right into the story.

REVIEW

ROGUE JUSTICE: A Thriller
by Stacey Abrams | Read by Adenrele Ojo
AudioFile Earphones Award
Random House Audio | 15 hrs.

Adenrele Ojo returns to portray smart, feisty Supreme Court clerk Avery Keene in her second adventure. Avery is swept into a dangerous situation, this time involving a threat to the power grid. Listeners get a disturbing insider’s view of the complicated and competitive relationships among federal agencies and the U.S. government, including the Supreme Court. Ojo perfectly performs Avery’s passion for details, curiosity, and need to protect those she loves. Listeners will be chilled by the potential of real threats and thrilled by the intense, fully engaging listening experience.

REVIEW

SMALL MERCIES
by Dennis Lehane | Read by Robin Miles
Harper Audio | 10.5 hrs.

Robin Miles shines in this compelling story about family, culture, and justice. The story is set in Boston against the backdrop of the 1974 protests against public school integration. Mary Pat Fennessy has lived in the Southie housing projects all her life. One summer night, her daughter Jules doesn’t come home, and a young Black man is killed. Miles captures the dialect of the community, as well as Mary Pat’s desperation and determination to find the truth.

REVIEW