Mystery audiobooks and standout authors ?
Need more mystery in your life? Check out a mystery audiobook from hoopla! We’ve looked through thousands of titles to bring you some great “whodunits,” from hidden gems to genre-defining classics—plus a list of standout mystery authors.
June 1, 2020
Need more mystery in your life? Check out a mystery audiobook from hoopla! We’ve looked through thousands of titles to bring you some great “whodunits,” from hidden gems to genre-defining classics—plus a list of standout mystery authors.
All of these audiobooks are available for immediate download on hoopla. We’re big fans of the hoopla app—it’s easy to use, and you don’t need to wait for holds! For even more ebooks and audiobooks, check out our other two services, OverDrive and RBdigital!
Audiobooks
The Alienist
Caleb Carr
New York, 1896: New York Times reporter John Moore is summoned to the East River by his friend Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a brilliant pioneer in the new and much-maligned discipline of psychology, the emerging study of society’s “alienated” mentally ill. There they view the horribly mutilated body of a young boy, a prostitute from one of Manhattan’s infamous brothels. Supervised by Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, the newsman and his “alienist” mentor embark on a revolutionary attempt to identify the killer.
Baby Teeth
Zoje Stage
Estranged from her own mother, Suzette is determined to raise her daughter with the love, care, and support she was denied. But Hanna is a difficult child. Defiant and anti-social, she refuses to behave in kindergarten classes, forcing Suzette to homeschool her. Suzette knows her clever and manipulative daughter doesn’t love her. She can see the hatred and jealousy in her eyes. And as Hanna’s subtle acts of cruelty threaten to tear her and her husband apart, Suzette fears her life may be in grave danger…
Before She Knew Him
Peter Swanson
Hen is an illustrator, and has found the right meds to control her bipolar disorder. Finally, she’s found some stability and peace. But when they meet the neighbors next door, that calm begins to erode as she spots a familiar object displayed on the husband’s office shelf. The sports trophy looks exactly like one that went missing from the home of a young man who was killed two years ago. Could her neighbor be a killer? Or is this the beginning of another psychotic episode?
The Blind
A.F. Brady
Sam James has spent years carefully crafting her reputation as the best psychologist at Typhlos, Manhattan’s most challenging psychiatric institution. When Richard, a patient no other therapist wants to treat, is admitted to Typhlos, Sam is determined to unlock his secrets. But she can’t figure out why Richard appears to be so normal in a hospital filled with madness. As Sam gets pulled into Richard’s twisted past, she can’t help but analyze her own life, and what she discovers terrifies her.
Dark Tides
Chris Ewan
When Claire Cooper was eight years old her mother vanished on Halloween. At fourteen, Claire was still struggling to come to terms with her disappearance when she’s befriended by a group of five teenagers who mark every Halloween by performing dares—until one year a prank went terribly wrong, changing all their futures and tearing the friends apart. Six years later, one of the friends is killed on Halloween in an apparent accident. But Claire, now a police officer, has her doubts. If she is going to stop a killer and unlock the dark secrets of her past, Claire must confront her deepest fears, before it’s too late.
A Most Wanted Man
John Le Carre
New spies with new loyalties, old spies with old ones; terror as the new mantra; decent people wanting to do good, but caught in the moral maze; all the sound, rational reasons for doing the inhuman thing; the recognition that we cannot safely love, or pity, and remain good “patriots”—this is the fabric of John le Carré’s fiercely compelling and current novel A Most Wanted Man.
One for the Money
Janet Evanovich
Watch out, world. Here comes Stephanie Plum, a bounty hunter with attitude. She’s a product of the “burg,” a blue-collar pocket of Trenton where houses are attached and narrow, cars are American, windows are clean, and (God forbid you should be late) dinner is served at six. Out of work and out of money, with her Miata repossessed and her refrigerator empty, Stephanie blackmails her bail bondsman cousin into giving her a try as an apprehension agent. Stephanie knows zilch about the job requirements, but she figures she can learn what it takes to catch a crook.
The Other Woman
Sandie Jones
HE LOVES YOU: Adam adores Emily. Emily thinks Adam’s perfect, the man she thought she’d never meet. BUT SHE LOVES YOU NOT: Lurking in the shadows is a rival, a woman who shares a deep bond with the man she loves. AND SHE’LL STOP AT NOTHING: Emily chose Adam, but she didn’t choose his mother Pammie. There’s nothing a mother wouldn’t do for her son, and now Emily is about to find out just how far Pammie will go to get what she wants: Emily gone forever.
Shutter Island
Dennis Lehane
Summer, 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels has come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to find an escaped patient. But nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is what it seems. Is he there to find a missing patient? Or has he been sent to look into rumors of Ashecliffe’s radical approach to psychiatry—drug experimentation, hideous surgical trials, and lethal countermoves in the shadow war against the Soviets… Or is there another, more personal reason why he has come there?
The Silent Wife
A.S.A. Harrison
A chilling psychological thriller about a marriage, a way of life, and how far one woman will go to keep what is rightfully hers. Jodi and Todd are at a bad place in their marriage. Much is at stake, including the affluent life they lead in their beautiful waterfront condo in Chicago, as she, the killer, and he, the victim, rush haplessly toward the main event. He is a committed cheater; she lives and breathes denial. He exists in dual worlds; she likes to settle scores. He decides to play for keeps; she has nothing left to lose.
A Simple Plan
Scott Smith
Two brothers and their friend stumble upon the wreckage of a plane—the pilot is dead and his duffel bag contains four million dollars in cash. In order to hide, keep, and share the fortune, these ordinary men all agree to a simple plan.
Snap
Belinda Bauer
Jack’s in charge, said his mother as she disappeared up the road to get help. I won’t be long. So eleven-year-old Jack and his two sisters wait, bickering and whining until she comes back. But their mother doesn’t come back. She never comes back. Three years later, Jack’s fifteen and still in charge. Across town, a young woman wakes up to find a knife beside her bed and a note reading ‘I could of killed you.’ The police are tracking a mysterious burglar —and Jack, very suddenly, may be on the verge of finding out who killed his mother.
Sometimes I Lie
Alice Feeney
My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie. Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it.
What Doesn’t Kill Her
Christina Dodd
One secret, one nightmare, one lie. You guess which is which. 1. I have the scar of a gunshot on my forehead. 2. I have willfully misrepresented my identity to the US military. 3. I’m the new mother of a seven-year-old girl. Kellen Adams finds herself in the wilderness, on the run, unprepared, her enemies unknown—and she is carrying a priceless burden she must protect at all costs. The consequences of failure would break her. And Kellen Adams does not break.
What She Knew
Gilly Macmillan
Rachel is walking in a Bristol park with her eight-year-old son, Ben, when he asks if he can run ahead. Rachel has no reason to worry—until Ben vanishes. As days pass without a sign of Ben, everyone who knew him is called into question. Inevitably, media attention focuses on Rachel too, and the public’s attitude toward her begins to shift from sympathy to suspicion. As she desperately pieces together the threadbare clues, Rachel realizes that nothing is quite as she imagined it to be, not even her own judgment.
The Word Is Murder
Anthony Horowitz
A woman crosses a London street. It is just after 11am on a bright spring morning, and she is going into a funeral parlor to plan her own service. Six hours later the woman is dead, strangled with a crimson curtain cord in her own home. Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric man as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. And Hawthorne has a partner, the celebrated novelist Anthony Horowitz, curious about the case and looking for new material.
You’ll Never Know, Dear
Hallie Ephron
Seven-year-old Lissie and her four-year-old sister Janey were playing with their porcelain dolls in the front yard, when Lissie was distracted by a puppy. When she returned to the yard, Janey’s precious doll was gone… and so was Janey. Every year on the anniversary of her sister’s disappearance, their mother places a classified ad in the local paper with a picture Jane’s porcelain doll—offering a generous cash reward for its return. For forty years, there’s been no response. But this year, the doll came home.
Standout Authors
M.C. Beaton
Marion Gibbons was a Scottish writer of romance and mystery novels. Using the pseudonym M. C. Beaton, she also wrote many popular mystery novels, most notably the Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth mystery series. Both of these book series have been adapted for TV. She also wrote romance novels under the pseudonyms Marion Chesney, Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine, Helen Crampton, Charlotte Ward, and Sarah Chester.
Sandra Brown
Sandra Brown is an American author of romantic novels and thriller suspense novels, including seventy New York Times bestsellers. There are over eighty million copies of her books in print worldwide, and her work has been translated into thirty-four languages. She lives in Texas. Brown has also published works under the pen names of Rachel Ryan, Laura Jordan, and Erin St. Claire.
Dame Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is known for her sixty-six detective novels and fourteen short story collections, particularly those revolving around detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
Mary Higgins Clark
The #1 New York Times bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark was an American author of suspense novels. Each of her 51 books was a bestseller in the United States and various European countries. Her suspense novels have sold more than 100 million copies in the United States alone. Her daughter Carol Higgins Clark and former daughter-in-law Mary Jane Clark, are also writers.
Jeffrey Deaver
New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver is an American mystery and crime writer. He originally started working as a journalist, and later practiced law, before embarking on a career as a novelist.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer and medical doctor. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 when he published A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and more than fifty short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction. Doyle was a prolific writer; other than Holmes stories, his works include fantasy, science fiction,and humorous stories, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.
John Connolly
John Connolly is the author of the Charlie Parker series of mystery novels, the supernatural collection Nocturnes, the Samuel Johnson Trilogy for younger readers, and (with Jennifer Ridyard) the Chronicles of the Invaders series. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.
J.A. Jance
J. A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, the Ali Reynolds series, and five interrelated thrillers about the Walker family, as well as a volume of poetry. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.
Lisa Jewell
Lisa Jewell is the internationally bestselling author of eighteen novels, including the New York Times bestseller Then She Was Gone, as well as I Found You, The Girls in the Garden, and The House We Grew Up In. In total, her novels have sold more than two million copies across the English-speaking world and her work has also been translated into sixteen languages so far. Lisa lives in London with her husband and their two daughters.
Faye Kellerman
Faye Kellerman is an American writer of mystery novels, in particular the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series. She lives with her husband, New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman, in Los Angeles, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Mary Kubica
Mary Kubica is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Good Girl and Pretty Baby. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children and enjoys photography, gardening and caring for the animals at a local shelter.
Donna Leon
Donna Leon is the American author of a series of crime novels set in Venice, Italy, featuring the fictional hero Commissario Guido Brunetti. Donna Leon lived in Venice for many years and now divides her time between Venice and Switzerland.
Archer Mayor
Archer Mayor is the author of the highly acclaimed Vermont-based series of mystery novels featuring detective Joe Gunther, of which Tag Man was a New York Times bestseller. He is a past winner of the New England Book Award for his body of work, the first time a writer of crime literature has been so honored. He also works as a death investigator, a sheriff’s deputy, and a volunteer firefighter and EMT. He lives in Newfane,Vermont.
Louise Penny
#1 New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling author of ten Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels, Louise Penny has won numerous awards, including a CWA Dagger and the Agatha Award (five times) and was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel. She currently lives in a small village south of Montreal.
Anne Perry
Anne Perry is a bestselling author of historical detective fiction, most notably the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series and the William Monk series, both set in Victorian England. The William Monk series of novels features a Victorian police officer turned private investigator. Perry’s novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world and she has over twenty-five million books in print worldwide. She lives in Scotland.
Kathy Reichs
Kathy Reichs is the author of nineteen New York Times bestselling novels and the coauthor, with her son, Brendan Reichs, of six novels for young adults. Like the protagonist of her Temperance Brennan series, Reichs is a forensic anthropologist-one of fewer than one hundred and fifteen ever certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. A professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, she is a former vice president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and serves on the National Police Services Advisory Council in Canada. Reichs’s own life, as much as her novels, is the basis for the TV show Bones, one of the longest-running series in the history of the Fox network.
Ruth Rendell
Edgar Award–winning author Ruth Rendell has written more than seventy books and sold more than twenty million copies worldwide. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she is the recipient of the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Crime Writers’ Association. Her popular crime stories featuring Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford were adapted into a long-running British television series starring George Baker.
David Rosenfelt
David Rosenfelt is the Edgar-nominated and Shamus Award-winning author of several stand-alone thrillers and more than a dozen Andy Carpenter novels, including Outfoxed. He and his wife live in Maine with their ever-changing pack of rescue dogs.
Lisa Scottoline
Lisa Scottoline is a New York Times bestselling author. She also writes a weekly column, “Chick Wit,” with her daughter Francesca Serritella, for The Philadelphia Inquirer. She has won an Edgar Award and Cosmopolitan magazine’s “Fun Fearless Fiction” Award, and she is the president of Mystery Writers of America. She teaches a course on justice and fiction at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, her alma mater. She lives in the Philadelphia area.
Daniel Silva
#1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva has been called his generation’s finest writer of international intrigue and one of the greatest American spy novelists ever. Compelling, passionate, haunting, brilliant: these are the words that have been used to describe his work.
Karin Slaughter
Karin Slaughter is one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed storytellers, and has been published in 120 countries with more than 35 million copies sold across the globe. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project-a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, she lives in Atlanta. Her standalone novel Pieces of Her is in development with Netflix and the Grant County and Will Trent series are in development for television.
Wendy Corsi Staub
Wendy Corsi Staub is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than seventy-five novels. Renowned for her tales of suspense, she has twice been nominated for the Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award and is the recipient of the prestigious Rita Award, as well as numerous other awards. She lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband of more than twenty years and their two children.
Charles Todd
Charles Todd is the pen name used by the American mother-and-son writing team Caroline and Charles Todd. The bestselling authors are known for the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries, the Bess Crawford mysteries, and two stand-alone novels.
Stuart Woods
Stuart Woods is the author of more than forty novels, including the New York Times bestselling Stone Barrington and Holly Barker series. An avid sailor and pilot, he lives in New York City, Florida, and Maine.