by Barbara Nevins Taylor
A series of British police procedural thriller audiobooks turned me into a compulsive listener of of J.M. Dalgliesh. An offer from Audible popped up on my phone. At first I thought the author’s name might be a riff on the Adam Dalgliesh character created by the great P.D. James.
Turns out I was late to the party. British author Jason Dalgliesh had success with the Dark Yorkshire Crime Series in 2018. He wrote six books about Yorkshire Detective Inspector Nathaniel Caslin. The first of the thriller audiobooks showed up in early 2019.
I got hooked on Greg Patmore’s compelling narration that wrapped me deep in the life of D.I. Caslin and listened my way through the series.
The D.I. Caslin Box Set by J.M. Dalgliesh features books that take you further into Caslin’s life and the extreme and maybe unlikely danger and violence that finds him with every case. I was willing to suspend belief. On his website, Dalgliesh describes his work as crime thrillers with a “touch of Scandinavian Noir.”
In the books, the dedicated cop often seems dedicated to going his own way and that takes him away from his family. So you have a complicated cop and crimes that involve newsy victims like refugees, grown children trying to connect with the past of absent parents, and villains including mobsters from the Balkans and twisted deep state intelligence officers.
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If thrillers with violence hook you, I also like the Orphan X series created by Gregg Hurwitz and narrated by Scott Brick.
Into the Fire may not be everyone’s audiobook of choice. But I have enjoyed every macho, action-packed book in this violent series. Scott Brick narrates the breathless story of the last adventure of Evan Smoak. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that Smoak is a renegade government assassin. He’s a good guy, recruited from an orphanage when he was a child and trained to kill. But his handler also taught him to have a soul and that’s what make the series compelling.
Into the Fire is supposed to be Smoak’s last mission as a do-gooder defending someone who desperately needs help. Every time Smoak thinks he’s smote the dragon for his client, some other bad guy pops up. Horowitz builds the tension and excitement and while some of the situations are absolutely implausible, this audiobook was great entertainment. But full disclosure: I earned a black belt in full contact Japanese karate way back in the ’90s.
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For more thrillers try the Cormoran Strike novels written by J.K.Rowling as Robert Galbraith. You can read about them here.
updates September 2024
