Listen to a clip from 7th Heaven

Listen to a clip from Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

Driving narrative is the first essential for an audiobook detective story: too many digressions make concentration falter. No one drives faster than James Patterson, whose San Francisco-set Women's Murder Club series is snatched off the shelves by millions of readers.

Seventh Heaven opens with the disappearance of a teenage golden boy: son of the state governor and cursed with heart disease. A prostitute confesses that he died in her arms and that she got her boyfriend to chop up his body and toss it into a dumpster. Once on trial, both deny it utterly. Interlacing this mystery are two teenage arsonists who specialise in the ritual killings of wealthy couples. What is the connection, if any? And who will achieve Seventh Heaven? Patterson's masterly plot unfolds unexpectedly. The narrator, Maxine Paetro, gives members of the murder club rich and individual voice characterisation.

Contrariwise, M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham (Audiobook collection, 6 CDs, unabridged, £20.99 from audiobookcollection.com) is the latest in a series that makes great listening because of the charm of its central character, a snobbish widowed PR expert-turned- village sleuth, who mixes crime-solving with her own trials and tribulations as a single woman on the make. Penelope Keith's brazen upper-crust persona makes her the perfect narrator.

Seventh Heaven by James Patterson
Random House, 5 CDs, £9.99

Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham by M.C. Beaton
Audiobook collection, 6 CDs, unabridged, £20.99 from audiobookcollection.com

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