The Couple Next Door Audiobook by Shari Lapena— narrated by Kirsten Potter

Why the audiobook wins

The Couple Next Door runs on present-tense chapters that pass between a husband, a wife, and the detective who likes both of them for it, and Kirsten Potter reads all three at the same steady temperature. The flatness is deliberate, and it is the right call. Nobody gets a guilty voice, so there is no shortcut through the mystery by listening for the tell.

Potter's Anne is exhausted rather than hysterical, which matters in a novel that keeps asking whether a woman who cannot account for a night can be trusted about it. Her Detective Rasbach stays courteous while asking questions built to end a marriage. About eight and a half hours, so a week of commutes or one long drive, and Lapena's short chapters give you a hundred places to stop that you will not take.

This is where Lapena's run of domestic thrillers begins. If you have only met her through the later books, the first one is the colder read, and the recording is the quickest way in. One Audible credit covers all of it.