What do you love most in your mystery listens? Is it dark, moody settings and gritty storylines? Is it morally ambiguous main characters with complex inner lives? If so, noir is your kind of fiction.
As a literary genre, noir can be difficult to nail down because so much of it is based on a general feeling of darkness and danger. Noir fiction was inspired by film noir, and film noir traces its roots to hard-boiled detective novels. The characters are never completely good or utterly bad, and there’s usually an internal struggle. Noir is also distinguished by its gloomy and gritty settings. Whereas in other mysteries, the protagonist often comes out on top, there's no clear win in a noir story. Even if the lead character ultimately reaches their goal, they are forever changed by the events they've witnessed and experienced.
If you’d like to check out the world of noir fiction but aren’t sure where to start, here are just a few of the best noir audiobooks that you can listen to right now.
Devil in a Blue Dress is the debut novel in a series of mysteries from Walter Mosley that features Easy Rawlins, a Black war veteran turned private investigator. Set in Los Angeles in 1948, it follows Rawlins on his first case. Recently fired from his job at a defense plant, Easy is drinking at a bar, wondering how he's going to pay the bills, when a white man walks in looking for a blond woman who's known for frequenting Black jazz clubs. And he needs Easy's help. This exquisite audiobook, narrated by accomplished actor Michael Boatman and available exclusively from Audible, is a 2010 Audie Award Winner.
Here's another noir crime thriller set in LA, and another one listeners won't want to miss. Steph Cha's Your House Will Pay takes place in the 1990s. A recent police shooting of a Black teenager is sending shockwaves across the city, but Grace Park and Shawn Matthews have their own problems. They'd both rather be left alone to live their quiet lives and stay out of the protests. Yet when another shocking crime rocks the city, both the Park and Matthews families are forced to pay attention. Narrators Glenn Davis and Greta Jung bring the characters of Grace and Shawn to life and help create the novel’s cinematic and dark world.
In Three Graves, what starts off as a simple case of mistaken identity becomes personal. A wisecracking former LAPD detective, Colin Graves has had everything taken from him. His wife was murdered by a ruthless gangster, and he narrowly escaped with his own life. But he's not going down without a fight. With the help of his brother, Colin is on a quest for vengeance. Three Graves is inspired by noir classics and infused with a healthy dose of more comedic elements. Narrator Maxwell Hamilton delivers that sharp humor skillfully in the audiobook.
S.A. Cosby's latest novel, Razorblade Tears unflinchingly confronts difficult issues of racism, homophobia, and fatherhood head-on. Two ex-cons, Ike and Buddy Lee have very little in common besides their criminal pasts. Their sons were in a romantic relationship—a fact that Buddy Lee was never able to fully accept. Now, they're both dead, and Ike and Buddy Lee will not rest until they find out who killed their sons. As they embark on their mission for revenge, Ike and Buddy Lee are forced to face their own prejudices about their sons and each other. Adam Lazarre-White, who narrated Cosby's critically acclaimed Blacktop Wasteland, is back to offer his talents to this audiobook.
Gillian Flynn is an author known for her dark and morally ambiguous characters. In Sharp Objects, Flynn brings us reporter Camille Preaker, a woman who is haunted by her past and forced to face it when two preteen girls are murdered in her tiny hometown. Camille has barely spoken to her mother or her half-sister since leaving home, but now, staying in the family's deeply unsettling Victorian mansion as she reports on the case, she'll have to come to terms with her family's secrets. The closer she gets to the murderer, the more she discovers about her own troubling past. Narrator Ann Marie Lee has a knack for building suspense through her reading, and she nails the complicated character of Camille.
In I Know What You've Done, best-selling author Dorothy Koomson raises an unsettling question: How well can you ever know your neighbors? A cross between noir and domestic thriller, this novel focuses on what happens when one woman receives a diary holding all of the secrets of her neighbors. And, oh yeah, the woman who gave it to her has been murdered by one of those very neighbors. The audiobook is performed by an excellent cast of narrators, including Anna Acton, Ginny Holder, Madeline Appiah, and Mira Dovreni.
The Killer Inside Me is a classic noir crime thriller that gives listeners a horrifying look inside the mind of a serial killer. Everyone in Central City, Texas, adores deputy sheriff Lou Ford. He's the nicest guy in town. The kind of guy you can trust... right? Behind closed doors, Lou is something else entirely, with a murderous urge that no one in Central City would ever suspect. Lou Ford is a complex character, and audiobook narrator Jim Thompson captures all sides of his personality, making Lou feel unnervingly real.
The Guilty Husband is a new debut noir domestic thriller from author and lawyer Stephanie DeCarolis. Vince Taylor seems to have the perfect life. He's the CEO of a major tech company, he has a beautiful home, and he's married to his dream woman, Nicole. But then Layla, a young intern at Vince's company, is found murdered, and a shocking secret is revealed: Vince was having an affair with her. What else has Vince been lying about? And could he be the killer?
Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train was the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1951 film of the same name. This novel is another must-read noir story that's all about moral ambiguity. Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno are two passengers on the same train who are, you guessed it, complete strangers. When Bruno suggests he and Guy murder for one another, Bruno thinks the other man must be joking. But then Guy actually carries out the murder, and he wants Bruno to complete his end of the deal. Bronson Pinchot's narrative style remains perfectly understated as the story's level of dread begins to amp up.
The Big Sleep is one of those novels that has become a defining text of the noir genre. In this Raymond Chandler classic, Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is tasked with making the Sternwood family's blackmailer disappear. But with Sternwood's two wild, femme fatale-like daughters roaming the city, Marlowe has his work cut out for him. And then he discovers a dead body. This audiobook is available exclusively from Audible, and it features a narration from fan favorite Ray Porter who delivers a reading that lives up to this unforgettable story's hype.
By this point, you've probably realized Los Angeles is the classic setting for a noir thriller, and James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential relies heavily on the gritty backdrop of Los Angeles. This audiobook is the story of six prisoners who are beaten in their cells by LAPD cops. From there, the corruption behind the Los Angeles police department comes to the forefront, and no one can escape their violent pasts.
There are few plot hooks more compelling than the “wrong man” narrative. Caught Stealing stars Hank Thompson, a down-on-his-luck retired baseball player tending bar in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Things get juicy when Hank agrees to take care of his criminal neighbor’s cat while is out of town. What follows is a frenetic game of cat and mouse, complete with street punks, tracksuit-wearing Russian gangsters, and a guy who just wants to live a quiet life.
With so many thrillers taking place in the big city, there is a certain charm to seeing a crime drama unfold in a rural setting. The Devil All The Time is one such novel, as author Donald Ray Pollock drops the reader in the heart of America’s rust belt in the 1960s to tell his story. Pollock cooks up a powder keg of characters with conflicting motives, starring a tormented World War 2 veteran and his son, a married couple with a less-than-subtle murder streak, and a criminal preacher with a thing for spiders.
Have you ever wished for a story that combines the small-town intrigue of Fargo with the bombastic drug-fueled crime drama of Breaking Bad? If so, Daniel Woodrell’s master stroke Winter’s Bone is the perfect story for you. Taking place in the desolate winter scape of the Missouri Ozarks, this story stars Ree Dolly, a young woman whose father is in deep legal trouble for running a meth lab. With their house on the line and two younger brothers to take care of, it is up to Ree to make sure her father makes his next court date, dead or alive.
