25 Amazing mystery audiobooks to satisfy your craving for suspense

Audiobooks are fantastic because they allow you to read on the go. Whether it’s chores around the house, light work, staying fit with a run, or weight training, you can boost it all with an audiobook, and I find that mysteries are the best way to stay hooked.

There are thousands of mystery books in 2024 and just as many audiobooks. That makes it incredibly difficult to pick ones that you know you will be interested in and will appeal to that sense of intrigue that’s so unique to all of us. I know not all mystery books hit that same sense of suspense for me as they do for my wife, which is why it’s important to always be on the lookout for great entries. That’s why I’ve put together this list: to help you avoid the duds and get right to the meaty and gripping mystery audiobooks that are filled with suspense.

Amazing mystery audiobooks to satisfy your craving for suspense

is a fantastic mystery audiobook that’ll keep you guessing until the very end. Protagonist Amy works in personal security and ends up on a private island looking after a famous author. However, when a body and bag of money turn up, Amy has to turn to her father-in-law, Steve, to help her track down the killer and stay one step ahead of them so she doesn’t become a victim herself. You feel like the protagonists are always on the back foot in the best way possible, making you want to listen to just one more chapter before you turn it off.

is an intriguing audiobook about a love affair in 1914. Venetia Stanley is an aristocrat and bohemian, a member of a socialite group called The Coterie. She’s sleeping with the then-Prime Minister, who writes to her with explicit details of his desires and state secrets. After the war breaks out, an intelligence officer is assigned to uncover the source of the leaked top-secret information, and Valentia is in the firing line.

tells the story of a small retirement village where a group of four unlikely friends gather every week to investigate unsolved murders. However, when a murder occurs within their retirement community, the group jumps on the chance to use their skills and knowledge. After all, nobody takes old people seriously. But maybe they should because who knows what they get up to while we’re not looking?

In , popular podcaster Alix meets Josie one night while celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. It turns out that the pair share the same birthday, and after another chance encounter, Josie convinces Alix to work with her on a new story for her podcast. Josie is unsettling, but Alix can’t resist the chance to keep chasing the scoop. That is, until Josie disappears, leaving Alix a terrifying legacy that puts her and her family in danger.

follows Lowen Ashleigh, a writer struggling to make ends meet when she’s hired by a prestigious author’s husband to finish his wife’s work following a family loss. Lowen uncovers an unfinished memoir amid a chaotic office and reads every page, knowing the revelations within would ruin the family and devastate her employer. Complications arise when Lowen develops feelings for her, making the choice between letting him read the undiscovered memoirs or keeping them a secret even more important. It’s a decision that won’t have the outcome anyone is expecting or hoping for.

is the brutal story of how protagonist Grace Bernard discovers that her absentee millionaire father rejects every plea for help her mother sends his way. She’s dying, and he won’t lift a finger for her. That’s why Grace meticulously plans out the murder of six members of her family before going about the rest of her life without a single regret. It’s cold-blooded murder at its purest and in a form you can actually get on board with for once.

has a great story, and the audiobook is read by none other than Jodie Comer, which I think is a great reason to listen to anything. It revolves around top criminal barrister Tessa Ensler. She’s fantastic at her job, getting anyone off the hook as long as they’ve to plead not guilty. She never really considers the impact of what she’s doing until a coworker assaults her. All she wants to do is make the thoughts go away and forget it ever happened. But she knows she needs to fight. As she lives through what so many victims do, having evidence turned against her, she pushes and fights for what is right in a system that’s very obviously broken.

While Comer gives an outstanding performance in this audiobook, it’s the intrigue and the flow of events that’ll grip you. The law is something that seems so intangible and hard to grasp unless you have a deep knowledge of it, and that’s exactly how the story ensnares you and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

is a collection of some of Stephen King’s best short stories. Each one looks at a darker part of the world, the universe, and fiction in general. There’s a tale about inheritance with major strings attached, a mystery about how two gentlemen acquired a specific set of skills and a psychic burst that upends the lives of a group of people out of nowhere.

I think King does a great job of looking at the world and asking questions we simply don’t want the answers to. It’s not that the stories aren’t intriguing, but the possibilities that lie between facts he explores are parts of the mind that you feel are best left untouched. Don’t listen to these right before you go to bed.

is the first book in an engrossing series. It follows a group of MI5 agents who have all ended up at Slough House. It’s where agents who have screwed up, gotten in the way of others, or become too reliant on a bottle are sent to while away the tatters they have left of their careers. However, each agent in this particular group wants to get back to their real jobs, hunting down enemies of the state and doing something for their country. They’re willing to do anything to make that happen, even work together, which is no easy feat when you’re a bunch of what are effectively failed spies.

begins as an upbeat tale about Libby Jones. She receives a letter that changes her entire life. She discovers who her birth parents were and that she’s the sole inheritor of a luxurious house in a decadent part of London. The story soon takes a turn, though, because Libby’s not the only one who has been waiting all these years for her to find out the truth. Her history is soaked in blood and shrouded in mystery, and a group of people she doesn’t know are about to remind her of it.

is a real treat of an audiobook I discovered a couple of years ago. It follows Jonathan Pine, the night manager for a very posh hotel in Zurich. He’s learned to fear and hate one of the most powerful drug and arms dealers in the world in the power gap created by the end of the Cold War, Richard Onslow Roper. He wants nothing more than to have him taken down and for life to feel safe again, which is why he’s willing to work with secret government agents to provide intelligence and immerse himself deep into Roper’s life.

is an incredibly successful crime thriller series. This audiobook encompasses the first three entries—Deadly Games, Fatal Justice, and Death Track—and is a great way to get yourself some suspense-filled mystery audiobooks with a coꩵmmon thread woven through them. All three books follow the journey of a detective and forensic psychologist as they work together and grow to be a team who use their specific skills to h💮unt down criminals and bring them to justice in unorthodox ways.

is a gripping tale about a house in the countryside that acts as a refuge for fallen women. Those who come to live there have lost their way in life and have been rescued from destitution and death. The trouble is, not every woman who arrives necessarily wants to be there. To make matters even more complicated, the benefactor behind the house and its legacy has just discovered that her old stalker is out of prison and back on the streets, meaning she’s now more unsafe than those her household helps.

is one of the best mystery thrillers out there, and while other books can get you close to the l🎉evel of suspense it brings to the table, very few are better. The story follows Alicia Berenson, a famous painter married to a just as famous photographer, Gabriel. That is until he returns late one night and gets shot five times by his wife. This would be an open-and-shut case if she’d talk, but she never does. Not until criminal psychotherapist Theo Faber manages to sit down with her to ascertain the truth. Even then, it’s him and his motivations that are on trial instead of hers.

is a thrill ride from start to finish that’ll keep you guessing even once it’s ended. It sees protagonist Eve go about her business as a math teacher at a local high school before things take a turn for the worse. The school was rocked by a student-teacher affair the year before, one that centered around Addie. Eve knows there’s much more to the story all too well, and Addie will do anything to keep the truth, the real truth, from getting out.

follows the fall of Campbell Flynn. Through five interconnected families and their rise and fall through fame and power, the secrets of Caledonian Road will be exposed as every world comes crashing together. It’s a tale woven through the movements of every family and its place in the pecking order, one that you’ll find yourself suddenly gripped by when you think it’s time to turn it off, even if you weren’t from the first chapter.

is the first entry in an incredibly engrossing series. It follows protagonist Jenny Cooper as she flees her broken life, a husband who has left her, a son she can’t connect with, and far too much wine, as she becomes a coroner and massively oversteps in a case she can’t let go of. She dives into the politics, motivations, and every little piece of information surrounding a death that doesn’t sit right with her and uncovers much more than she bargained for.

is about a wealthy couple who likes to ruin self-starters who manage to claw their way close to the top and make a bit of cash—enough to be comfortable, at least. However, the couple picks a fight with one woman who has been fighting and scrapping all her life, and she’s not about to break just because these people want to play games with her.

needs no introduction. The titular train is packed with guests, including renowned private investigator Hercule Poirot. After getting stuck in a snowdrift, someone is murdered in their cabin, and Poirot sets about questioning everybody in an attempt to uncover the culprit. It’s a classic whodunit with a cast of memorable characters I love returning to because it’s just such a joy to be enveloped by. A really great starting point for anyone dipping their toe into the genre.

is a tale of two friends who have their close relationship ruptured by something they were both a part of one summer. Years later, they must re♚turn to the forest where their innocence was lost. Tensions are rising with local workers, and the environment is threatening. All of this will reveal a terrible secret, one that could cause serious damage to the locals and the surrounding area.

is a book about Chloe. She’s a typical college student who loves frat parties but who also lacks empathy, doesn’t feel guilt or fear, and never stops planning to murder the childhood friend who wronged her. She’s part of an experiment monitoring seven young people like her until one of them is murdered. From there, it’s a game of cat and mouse as Chloe fights for her life and to bring her own plans to fruition now that the study has been tampered with.

is a story of revenge from the perspective of a wronged soldier. James Reece’s entire squad was murdered as part of a government conspiracy, one that he intends to uncover and bring into the light after it’s made out to be a terrorist attack. He’s on the hunt for blood with nothing to live for, no one he cares for to be threatened, and everything to gain by taking down some of the most powerful people on the planet.

In , we follow Lily, a woman who awakens from a car accident with no memory of anything except a few Bible verses and the image of a man with a bloodied head, a poor murdered woman left in a dumpster, and Kylie, the local town’s only detective. The three are all tied together by events that the dead woman and Lily share, but Lily’s memory is going to need to return if they’re ever going to solve the mystery behind what happened to them.

When David Shelley, a retired bodyguard, is called back in by the family that employed him to investigate the death of their daughter in , it’s revealed that she fell into a seedy underworld. Her father demands retribution, but even Shelly wouldn’t tangle with some of the characters he wants to take down, but he has to if justice is ever going to be served.

In , you’ll find an intriguing tale of Avery Mason. She’s a TV host who knows when a story will be a hit with her audience, and she’s found a fantastic one. A woman named Victoria died while accused of the murder of her married lover. Before her death, she called her sister, Emma, and asked her to prove her innocence. Now Avery is working with Emma to uncover the truth behind this murder 20 years later and figure out what really happened to the married lover, a successful author found hanging from a balcony all those years ago.