Summer walks, hikes, gardening, or even cleaning out the garage can all be made more enjoyable with a good audiobook. Fortunately for mystery audio enthusiasts, several new additions to popular series have been released recently.
Fans of Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series have come to expect a new audiobook every July. A DEATH IN CORNWALL, the 24th audiobook in the series and an Earphones Award winner, is narrated by Golden Voice Edoardo Ballerini. Ballerini took over from Golden Voice George Guidall with the 21st audiobook. Ballerini brings to life all of the returning characters plus some new ones. As the legendary Israeli spy Gabriel Allon is now retired, living with his family in Venice and working as an art restorer, Silva has had to become quite inventive in drawing Allon into intriguing plots with international thriller implications. He does so with great success here, and coupled with Ballerini’s brilliant talent for accents, delivers a wonderfully engaging listening experience.
Easy Rawlins fans will be thrilled to step into the 16th book in the series, FAREWELL AMETHYSTINE, narrated by Michael Boatman. This Earphones Award winner transports listeners to 1970s Los Angeles, where Rawlins get caught in a web of police corruption when trying to track down the ex-husband of the alluring Amethystine. The story goes back and forth in time and place to reveal more of Rawlins's backstory. Boatman is exceptional at voicing the multitude of characters of different ethnic backgrounds, genders, and ages. Those new to the series will find enough character descriptions of the key players to easily follow along.
With LOST BIRDS, Anne Hillerman continues to build on the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee series created by her father, Tony Hillerman. She has made the series her own by focusing on the life and work of officer Bernadette Manuelito. Canadian actor Jessica Matten, of Red River Metis and Cree heritage, is perfectly suited to voice the recurring characters and the new ones, from all cultural backgrounds. Several storylines dovetail to make for a listen that keeps you interested from beginning to end.
Fans of Sara Paretsky’s Chicago private detective V.I. Warshawski will be delighted with the 22nd audiobook in the series, PAY DIRT, narrated by Susan Ericksen, the voice of the series. This adventure takes listeners out of Chicago and all the way to Kansas, where Warshawski goes for fun and finds herself instead embroiled in a complex web of crimes and criminals. Susan Ericksen again performs a genuinely engaging listen.
Television and film actor Steven Weber is known to mystery audio enthusiasts as the voice for Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar series (and Coben’s other series and standalones). He delivers once again with THINK TWICE (Myron Bolitar #12). Listeners who enjoy the team of Myron and his good friend Windsor Home Lockwood III (Win) will find everything they expect from the tense plots in the series—lots of twists and turns, some violence, humor, and plenty of action. Another great listen.
Finally, the third installment in a newer series, CAMINO GHOSTS (Camino, Book 3) by John Grisham and read by Whoopi Goldberg, is an Earphones Award winner. What mystery audio enthusiast could resist a Grisham novel read by Whoopi? The plot revolves around a battle over the development of a haunted island off the coast of Florida, settled in the 1700s by escaped enslaved people. Fans of the series will recognize the returning characters from Camino Island and enjoy the introduction of new characters specific to this tale. It's not too late to get into the series.
