The Sounds of Crime cover art

The Sounds of Crime

Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Sounds of Crime

By: Lawrence Block, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Peter James, Christopher Fowler, Maxim Jakubowski - editor
Narrated by: Buffy Davis, Eve Karpf, Mike Grady, Eric Meyers, John Hasler, Various
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £5.99

Buy Now for £5.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

A unique collection of brand new crime stories from some of the masters of crimewriting, and only available in this audio collection.

Welcome to the Sounds of Crime, an exclusive collection of five brand new short stories by some of the best crimewriters around. Using the theme of 'audio', this unique collection features brand new stories by Lawrence Block, Peter James, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham and Christopher Fowler. By turns gripping, puzzling and sinister, the Sounds of Crime will chill your blood from the first spoken word to the last...

©2010 WF Howes Ltd (P)2010 WF Howes Ltd
Anthologies Anthologies & Short Stories Crime Fiction Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense

Critic reviews

“These stories evoke those black-and-white days when Alfred Hitchcock shuffled onto our walnut-encased televisions to present half an hour of spine-tingling tension... how refreshing it is to find the perfect length of story that should satisfy all enthusiasts of this genre.” ( The Spectator
All stars
Most relevant
some of the narration doesn't help to hold you listening mediocre I'm afraid this time

some better than others

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

4 of the authors wrote brilliant short stories; Val Mcdermid however wrote an episode of one of her established fictional characters' exploits. Not being a fan of Murder She Wrote type recipes, it didn't work for me.
The other 4 stories more than compensate though.

4 of the 5 brilliant!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Quality of writing, narration and pace is exemplary - hats off to the producer. true quality.

Intriguing short crime stories.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Pretty boring if I am totally honest about it. Only liked the first story, so not great

First one is the best

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I was looking forward to these short stories bearing in mind the quality of the authors, but I ended them somewhat disappointed.
For a start i can't find any link between them, and what they have to do with the "sounds of crime" is beyond me
The first story was okay, but so blatantly obvious as to not be all that gripping.
The second story was the one I enjoyed the most, although again it was a litt too obvious, and really didn't involve sounds at all
The third story revolved around characters I knew nothing about and therefore felt at a bit of a loss, and completely lost track of, the ending was just all too pat
The fourth story was just plain odd and not very pleasant or interesting
The last story was the only one that involved sounds and actually was rather good, but the narration irritated me
On the whole, it passed an afternoon in the sun, but i certainly won't be listening to it again

Not as good as I expected it to be

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.