This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
My preferred reading format has overwhelmingly become audiobooks. I volunteer to do the dishes when I have one I’m deeply invested in, I get more steps in for the day, and I do more destressing because audiobooks pair beautifully with working on a jigsaw puzzle or Lego set.
While I equally enjoy a single narrator as much as I do a full cast performance, I know multi-voiced audiobooks have a big fan base, so I’m highlighting a few 2026 releases to definitely add to your TBR list.
[A Killer in the Family](https://prf.hn/click/camref:…
This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
My preferred reading format has overwhelmingly become audiobooks. I volunteer to do the dishes when I have one I’m deeply invested in, I get more steps in for the day, and I do more destressing because audiobooks pair beautifully with working on a jigsaw puzzle or Lego set.
While I equally enjoy a single narrator as much as I do a full cast performance, I know multi-voiced audiobooks have a big fan base, so I’m highlighting a few 2026 releases to definitely add to your TBR list.
A Killer in the Family by Amin Ahmad
This blends a family drama with a crime novel, and starts with an arranged marriage between Ali and Maryam. Life appears great for Ali, now part of his wife’s family’s lavish life in New York, but soon there are cracks. His father-in-law has a slew of accusations against him, and rather than believing his wife and FIL’s assurances of innocence, Ali decides to look into the matters himself…
The audiobook, with an April release date, is narrated by Isuri Wijesundara, Lipica Shah, and Vikas Adam.
Vikas Adam has a slew of narrations under his belt, including Lavender House, The Charm Offensive, 10 Things I Hate about Pinky, Madhouse at the End of the Earth, Nobody’s Fool.
You can find Lipica Shah on the full cast narrations for the InvestiGators series, the YA biography Loudmouth, and The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America.
Isuri Wijesundara is the narrator for the series Fern’s School for Wayward Fae, Warhol’s Muses, and Island Witch.
Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston
Ashley Elston had a hit crime novel in 2024, First Lie Wins, which was selected by Reese’s Book Club and is getting the adaptation treatment by Octavia Spencer.
In January, she’s back with a new twisty crime novel. This time around, we follow Camille as she’s trying to get out of her marriage to Ben, but she needs proof of wrongdoing on his part. This leads to her switching places with a woman who looks like her, Aubrey, for half a day. But things take a turn for the worse when Ben ends up dead, and only one of the women has an alibi…
The audiobook has four narrators: MacLeod Andrews, Saskia Maarleveld, Amanda Stribling, and Dan Bittner.
You can also find MacLeod Andrews narrating The Feather Thief, Wandering Stars, Good Girl Bad Girl, Nash Falls, and on the Meryl Streep-led full cast reading of Charlotte’s Web.
Saskia Maarleveld narrated First Lie Wins, plus she has some recent hit novels under her belt, including The God of the Woods and Wild Dark Shore. And she narrates Kate Quinn’s The Alice Network, The Briar Club, and The Rose Code.
You can find Amanda Stribling on a bunch of romance novels including Road Trip with a Vampire, and the urban fantasy series Good Bad Witch.
Dan Bittner is one of the narrators on Sadie and Acts of Violet (if you need a push to finally get to those!), along with a couple of recent horror novels, Don’t Fear The Reaper and Horror Movie.
The Midnight Taxi by Yosha Gunasekera
Siriwathi Perera is almost 30, living with her parents and driving a taxicab in NY. When a passenger ends up murdered in the back of her cab, Siriwathi finds herself having to turn to sleuthing to clear her name! I’m also excited for the release of this mystery in February because it’s written by an attorney who works on wrongful conviction cases.
The audiobook has dual narration that includes narration by the author! You can look at Isuri’s other narrations above, under A Killer in the Family. This is Yosha’s first narration.
Unusual Suspects
Sign up to Unusual Suspects to receive news and recommendations for mystery/thriller readers.
It’s Not Her by Mary Kubica
Mary Kubica has a new twisty crime novel in February with a secluded lake resort setting. Rather than having a lovely family vacation as planned, Courtney Gray ends up finding her brother and sister-in-law dead, her niece missing, and her nephew asleep. What secrets is this family hiding?
The audiobook has three narrators: Jennifer Jill Araya, Brittany Pressley, and Gary Tiedemann.
Jennifer Jill Araya has a bunch of audiobooks under her belt, including the romance The American Roommate Experiment, Kubica’s previous great mystery Local Woman Missing, and the thriller Everybody Is a Liar.
Brittany Pressley also narrated on Kubica’s Local Missing Woman, and has worked on a bunch of popular titles, including The Cartographers, One of Us Is Dead, The Seven Year Slip, The Spy Coast, and The Sun Down Motel.
Keeping it all in the family, you can also find Gary Tiedemann on Local Missing Woman and one of my favorite novellas, Night of the Mannequins.
Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf, and see 2025 and 2026 releases! Until next time, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Goodreads, Litsy, and Multitudes Contained.
If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you or you read it on bookriot.com and you’d like to get it right in your inbox, you can sign up here.