Rory Kinnear delivers an engaging and well-paced performance of Anthony Horowitz's third mystery featuring PI Hawthorne and Horowitz himself as a character. The amusing, sometimes befuddling, conceit mingles a fictional plot with facts from Horowitz's actual life. This time, the murder of a critic who panned Horowitz's London play implicates the playwright. Kinnear's chesty-sounding Hawthorne is engaging, intransigent, and offhand; his accent is cleverly hard to place on the social register. His higher-pitched Horowitz is hapless and comically whiny as a disbelieving victim. Most of the action involves Hawthorne conducting interviews in order to unmask the true killer, but Kinnear doesn't let things drag and offers distinctive and droll character interpretations that maintain our interest through to the surprise conclusion.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
Duration: 8 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780063271920
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Novelist Benet Archdale and housemaid Carol Stratford are two young, single parents who have no reason to know each other. They become tangled in a nightmarish spiral of kidnap, fraud, family violence and death. Ruth Rendell creates psychological suspense in thrillers that are compulsively readable or, in this case, listenable. British actress Imelda Staunton's reading is perfectly paced, and the characters are well defined. You'll have a hard time turning it off.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 9 hrs
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America/ Chivers
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
C.J. Box writes about life in wild Wyoming, short stories of people living a rugged life by choice or by circumstance. David Chandler narrates in a rough-edged whiskey voice that suggests summer heat, bitter winters, and windswept prairies, guiding the listener through 10 adventures of men like Fish and Game Officer Joe Pickett. Chandler brings the listener into this strange world where, more often than not, men have to create their own justice. His performance of the economical stories, some rarely seen, is perfect. The tale of the frozen body of a Native American basketball player turned speed freak, her arm reaching through the ice of a lake in a final jump shot, is one of the most fascinating in the collection.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 7 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9781470392796
Publisher: Recorded Books Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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