Listen up! We've run the numbers, and can now reveal the most popular audiobooks on the Library's BorrowBox app in 2024.
It turns out you've all turned to crime - listening to crime fiction, that is. Yes, it's a crime-heavy Top 10, with every single title featuring some sort of murder mystery to be solved.
So here they are - your most listened-to audiobooks this year:
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10. The Edge - David Baldacci
When CIA operative Jenny Sikwell is murdered in rural Maine, government officials have immediate concerns over national security. Her laptop and phone were full of state secrets that, in the wrong hands, endanger the lives of countless operatives. In need of someone who can solve the murder quickly and retrieve the missing information, the U.S. government knows just the chameleon they can call on.
Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine spent his time in the military preparing to take on any scenario, followed by his short-lived business career chasing shadows in the deepest halls of power, so his analytical mind makes him particularly well-suited for complex, high-stakes tasks. Taking down the world’s largest financial conspiracy proved his value, and in comparison, this case looks straightforward. Except small towns hold secrets and Devine finds himself an outsider again.
9. Burial of Ghosts - Ann Cleeves
Abandoned as a baby, twenty-five-year-old Lizzie Bartholomew spent her childhood moving between foster homes and has had more than her fair share of troubles.
Now a holiday in Morocco seems to be the perfect escape. Especially when she meets Philip, a fellow tourist. After a brief affair, Lizzie returns to England, only to find a solicitor's letter waiting for her.
Philip Samson has died and has left Lizzie a gift of £15,000 in his will. But there are conditions attached to this unexpected legacy that will soon force Lizzie to confront terrifying secrets from her past life...
8. Taste of Blood - Lynda La Plante
Detective Inspector Jane Tennison was beginning to feel she'd made a big mistake.
Having requested a transfer to a station nearer her home, she's now wondering if any serious crimes are ever committed in Bromley. Especially since the first case she's assigned to involves nothing more dramatic than an altercation between neighbours over a disputed property boundary.
Jane's new boss wants her to wrap up the enquiry as quickly as possible, but something in the apparently trivial case doesn't add up.
Why was Martin Boon so adamant that David Caplan shouldn't install a new set of gates when they wouldn't encroach on his own property?
Against her boss's orders, Jane decides to dig deeper, and soon uncovers a trove of dark secrets in sleepy Clarendon Court involving a tragic death and a forbidden love affair. As Tennison hunts for the missing piece of evidence that will identify a vicious killer, she knows that this case will either make her career - or break it.
7. The Sleeping and the Dead - Ann Cleeves
Detective Peter Porteous is called to Cranwell Lake where the body of a teenager has been discovered.
After trawling through the missing persons files, he comes to the conclusion that the corpse is Michael Grey, an enigmatic and secretive young man who was reported missing by his foster parents in 1972.
The news report that a body has been found leaves prison officer Hannah Morton in shock. Michael had been her boyfriend, and she had been with him the night he disappeared. And now the discovery is bringing back dreaded and long buried memories from her past...
6. The Secret - Andrew Child, Lee Child
Two strangers bring a hospital patient a list of names. They ask him for one more, but it's a question the patient can't answer. Minutes later, he is dispatched through the 12th floor window.
His death generates some unexpected attention. That attention comes from the Secretary of Defence, who brings in an inter-agency task force to investigate. Jack Reacher, recently demoted from Major to Captain, is assigned as the Army's representative.
Reacher may be an exceptional soldier, but sweeping other people's secrets under the carpet isn't part of his skill set. As he races to find the killer, he must navigate around the ulterior motives of his new 'partners'. And all while moving into the sight line of some of the most dangerous people he has ever encountered.
His mission is to uncover the truth. Fast. The question is, will Reacher bring the bad guys to justice the official way... or his way?
5. The Night She Lied - Lucy Dawson
Every family has secrets. Would you kill to keep yours?
It’s midnight in the hospital when Jude’s phone rings, interrupting her precious 15-minute break. When she sees it’s her 70-year-old mother, Margaret, she braces herself for the usual complaints. But her blood runs cold at four words that will change everything ... ‘something terrible has happened.’
Margaret has been accused of an unspeakable crime committed 20 years ago. She insists she’s not guilty, and begs Jude to help her prove it. But as Jude is drawn into the dark secrets of her family’s past, she starts to question whether her mother is really as innocent as she claims to be.
Soon, Jude realises what happened 20 years ago is more entangled with her own life than she could ever have imagined. And as she stands face-to-face with her mother’s accuser, she knows the cost of protecting her family will be someone else’s life...
4. The Mother - T.M. Logan
Framed for murder. Now she's free...
A woman attends a funeral, standing in the shadows and watching in agony as her sons grieve. But she is unable to comfort them - or reveal her secret.
A decade earlier, Heather gets her children ready for bed and awaits the return of her husband Liam, little realising that this is the last night they will spend together as a family. Because tomorrow she will be accused of Liam's murder.
Ten years ago Heather lost everything. Now she will stop at nothing to clear her name - and to get her children back.
3. No One Saw It Coming - Susan Lewis
Hanna’s world is crumbling.
An unimaginable crime has been committed, and everyone’s looking for someone to blame. Her loved ones are under suspicion.
Now Hanna must work out who is threatening her family – before it’s too late.
No one could have seen this coming...
2. Homecoming - Kate Morton
Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, beside a creek in the grounds of a grand and mysterious house, a local deliveryman makes a terrible discovery. A police investigation is called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia.
Many years later and thousands of miles away, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. Until a phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother, Nora, has suffered a fall and been raced to the hospital.
At Nora’s house, Jess discovers a true crime book that chronicles the police investigation into a long-buried event: the Turner Family Tragedy of Christmas Eve, 1959. It is only when Jess skims through the pages that she finds a shocking connection between her own family and this once-infamous scandal – a murder mystery that has never been resolved satisfactorily.
1. Thursday Murder Club series - Richard Osman
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, The Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case.
The four friends, Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron, might be pushing 80 but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?
If crime thrillers aren't your thing, there's lots more to choose from on the BorrowBox app. Download the app and log in using your Library card number and PIN to browse thousands of ebooks and audiobooks. Find out more here.
