The Unopened Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes by John Taylor
BBC, 3 CDs, £15.99 Buy the audiobook here

Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham
Hachette, 3 CDs, £13.99 Buy the audiobook here

Not Dead Enough by Peter James
Macmillan, 4 CDs, £14.99 Buy the audiobook here

No detective can equal Sherlock Holmes for sheer quantity of mysteries solved, but if you like the idea of a subtly conceived pastiche, then try The Unopened Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes, written by John Taylor and presented as six dramatised episodes. They have been kept secret up to now, Watson explains at the start, out of respect for the privacy of those concerned. Simon Callow (above) a familiar reader of the genuine Conan Doyle stories, makes an excellently superior and aloof Holmes, and Nicky Henson is one of best Dr Watsons I have heard - gallant, manly and constantly bamboozled.

Experience changes Margery Allingham's irresistible Albert Campion from the fey, debonair 1920s pimpernel of The Crime at Black Dudley to a thoughtful family man in the 1950s Traitor's Purse. It's good to see that Hachette is steadily publishing the series, albeit abridged. But Mystery Mile is still great fun. It's the second in the series, so Campion hasn't yet met his dashing aeronaut wife, and is wistfully fond of Biddy Paget, to whose manor house Campion takes an American judge to shelter from the murderous vendetta launched against him. Allingham has a whale of time describing her own home territory, the marshlands on the Essex/Suffolk border.

Peter James creates a world we can smell, touch and feel for his Brighton detective Inspector Roy Grace and his sidekick DS Glen Branson. Introduced in Dead Simple and Looking Good Dead, Grace is becoming a well-rounded character with a taste for goldfish and Glenfiddich and a rich hinterland: a wife who vanished nine years ago, and an attractive forensic pathologist girlfriend. Both will prove dangerous distractions in Not Dead Enough. Neil Pearson's intimate, husky narration makes it impossible to stop listening.

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