Audie Award-Winning Mystery & Thriller Audiobooks

Amy Tintera’s wickedly entertaining Listen for the Lie won an Audie Award for Best Mystery in 2025. Narrator January LaVoy has a lot to do with its success, as she excels at capturing the stormy and sarcastic internal voice of Lucy, the book’s main character. Years ago, Lucy’s best friend, Savvy, was murdered in their small Texas hometown. The killer was never identified. Lucy’s done her best to move on. But after a popular true crime podcast reopens the cold case, Lucy must return home to find out who killed Savvy. One complication? It may have been Lucy herself, as she has no recollection of what happened that terrible night or why she was found dazed and covered in her best friend’s blood. 

“Narrator LaVoy absolutely shines as the broken yet charmingly cheeky heroine. Her tale is organically intermixed with podcast excerpts delivered in honeyed and wry tones by Will Damron, each bookended by delightful ‘podcasty’ melodies” (Booklist). 

Jesse Q. Sutanto’s Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is a delightfully funny mystery that had us hooked from the start. It focuses on Vera Wong, a charming elderly woman who lives above her San Francisco tea shop and likes to puzzle out life’s little mysteries in her spare time. One day, she gets the chance to put her amateur detective skills to the test when she finds a dead man in her shop clutching a flash drive. Before the cops arrive, Vera swipes the flash drive. Then she gets to work, searching the device for clues as she sizes up her customers. Could a killer be sitting right under her nose? Winner of an Audie Award for Best Mystery in 2024, this audiobook features expert narration by Eunice Wong, a seasoned pro with over 100 novels to her name, including several by Sutanto. 

Horror maestro Stephen King knows how to conjure a bewitching tale. Case in point? Later, the author’s bestselling mystery novel that blends thrills and chills to masterful effect. The narrative centers on Jamie Conklin, a young man with psychic abilities whose mother urges him to keep his supernatural talents a secret from the rest of the world. When a desperate detective draws Jamie into a haunting police investigation, Jamie realizes why his mother urged him to stay quiet. But Jamie can see what no one else sees and hear what no one else hears. He may be the only one who can help solve the case of an otherworldly killer — who threatens to strike despite already being dead. Narrated by Seth Numrich, the audiobook version of Later took home an Audie in 2022, and with a run time of just over six hours, it's perfect for a single-day listen.

Søren Sveistrup’s The Chestnut Man won an Audie Award for Best Mystery in 2020 — and for good reason. It’s narrated by Peter Noble, a well-known acting talent with hundreds of audiobooks to his name. Sveistrup’s serial killer novel centers on a twisted villain who is terrorizing Copenhagen and has earned his nickname from the hand-crafted dolls he leaves at crime scenes. When forensics finds the fingerprint of a high-profile murdered girl on one of the dolls, detectives realize that there might be more to the grim case than they initially thought. This mystery audiobook is a commitment at 15 hours and 9 minutes, but we promise it’s well worth the listen. 

Louise Penny’s The Beautiful Mystery won an Audie Award for Best Mystery in 2013, and it’s simply too good for us not to spotlight. Narrated by late British actor Ralph Cosham, the narrative takes place in Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, an isolated monastery in the remote Quebec wilderness. Though the monks at the monastery take a vow of silence, they have a fantastic chorus renowned for their heavenly chanting. When the choir director is murdered, the monks must allow Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec into the hallowed halls of the monastery to find the murderer. 

Walter Mosley’s acclaimed mystery Devil in a Blue Dress is another can’t-miss audiobook for mystery lovers. It’s narrated by Michael Boatman, whom you might recognize from shows like Spin City and The Good Wife, or one of the dozens of audiobooks he’s narrated. An Audie Award winner in 2010, Devil in a Blue Dress is set in Los Angeles circa 1948 and introduces us to Easy Rawlins.  A Black war veteran, Easy recently lost his job at a defense plant. While drinking at a friend’s bar, he meets a man who offers him a serious chunk of change to track down Miss Daphne Money, a regular at the city’s Black jazz clubs. Needless to say, the case is far from easy.  

The audiobook version of Alyssa Cole’s celebrated thriller When No One Is Watching won an Audie Award in 2021, thanks in no small part to its voice talent. Susan Dalian and Jay Aaseng share narrating responsibilities, offering intertwining perspectives of the thriller’s two key characters. In the narrative, Sydney Green is disheartened to see her beloved Brooklyn neighborhood gentrify and her longtime neighbors disappear. She starts a walking tour, where she meets a new neighbor named Theo. It eventually becomes clear that Sydney’s old neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs as she thought — and that something far more disturbing is happening.

If you’ve yet to experience S. A. Cosby’s acclaimed small-town crime thriller All the Sinners Bleed, we urge you to check out the audiobook version, which earned an Audie Award last year. An act of violence at a school in Charon County, Virginia, leads Titus Crown — the county’s first Black sheriff — to uncover a serial killer who may have connections to a local church. Titus himself possesses a painful secret, and he must also contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade to celebrate the town’s Confederate past. Cosby’s narrative is packed with gripping detail, and narrator Adam Lazarre-White captures it all with style and grace. “Lazarre-White masterfully portrays people of multiple races, old and young,” says AudioFile. “He also delivers Cosby’s reflections on family, grief, and faith with genuine introspection and without distracting from the tense plotlines.”

New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica is one of the most popular thriller authors writing today, and Local Woman Missing is one of her best books. The audiobook, a 2022 Audie Award winner, features an engaging cast of five narrators who bring the story to vivid life. Shelby Tebow is the first person to vanish from a seemingly peaceful community. Then, Meredith Dickey and her 6-year-old daughter Delilah go missing, mere blocks from where Shelby was last seen. Though the disappearances turn the town on its head, the cases remain unsolved — until Delilah reemerges 11 years later, armed with a shocking story. 

J.D. Barker’s The Fourth Monkey won its Audie Award for Best Thriller in 2018. It’s the perfect listen for fans of creepy thrillers. Edoardo Ballerini and Graham Winton narrate the audiobook, and both bring their A game in delivering this twisted tale. The story focuses on the Four Monkey Killer, who has terrorized Chicago for years and whose dead body has just surfaced. Investigators realize that the killer may have taken a victim just before his demise — and that the unfortunate victim may still be out there. Detective Sam Porter finds a diary in the killer’s pocket, which forces him to go inside the mind of the deranged criminal as he taunts him from beyond the grave.