This audio whodunit stands out because it is beguilingly set in fin-de-siècle Cracow. Featuring a self-important amateur snoop addicted to reading cozy mysteries, it should be stylish period fun, like Benson’s Mapp v. Lucia stories. Unfortunately, given the shrill bossy voice Moira Quirk gives our social-climbing housewife sleuth, Zofia Turbotynska, she comes across as insensitive and snobbish rather than hilariously transparent, and she’s not nearly as much fun to spend time with as she should be. Quirk’s European pronunciations are wonderfully atmospheric, and the plot, featuring murders in a fancy retirement home that only Zofia believes are connected, is engaging. The lost world of nineteenth-century bourgeois Polish society is the real draw here, and the period detail and social history are well worth the listen.
Pub Date: 2020
Duration: 10 hrs
DD ISBN: 9780358343455
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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
Emerson and Peabody are at it again! Uncovering antiquities takes a back-seat as the romantic archaeologists track down the master criminal who is stealing Egypt's ancient treasures. With the help of their precocious son, Ramses, the intrepid pair unravel this mystery in crowded bazaars, desert camps and the heart of the Black Pyramid. Barbara Rosenblat's reading fully measures up to the tale. She is a master of timing and nuance. Rosenblat's power for character interpretation has grown with each book in this amusing series. This is the best one yet.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 12 hrs
Publisher: Recorded Books Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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