Here are four audiobooks guaranteed to brings chills and thrills to our early spring evenings.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism
Grady Hendrix; read by Emily Woo Zeller
Brilliance Audio; eight CDs; 10 hours; $34.95/audible.com download, $24.47
Set in Charleston in 1988, this clever creepfest explores teen angst and those embarrassing situations when your best friend is taken over by a demon. Managing to be both frightening and very funny, this is a Y/A crossover that parents should sneak into their cars when the teens aren’t looking. Expect such outrageous lines as: “Wasting food is no joke! …That’s how Karen Carpenter died!” before things get icky and scary. Zeller delivers both vibrancy and quivering fear, but better direction would have evened out the production as she is sometimes too soft to hear and, other times, screams in our ears.Grade: A-minus
I Let You Go
Clare Mackintosh; read by Nicola Barber and Steven Crossley
Penguin Audio; 10 CDs; 12 hours; $40/audible.com download, $28
Set mostly in a remote Welsh seaside village, this thriller has a twist that jumped out of nowhere and thoroughly surprised this listener. When a young boy is killed in a hit-and-run accident, all parties involved turn out to be hiding something. Crossley, who narrates the third-person account of a police detective, comes across as staid and professional, while Barber narrates a first-person account of a young woman suffering the loss of a child and dealing with crippling guilt. Though very different, the narrations play off each other, creating an emotional climate that works well within this fast-paced and creepy thriller.Grade: A-minus
Ink and Bone
Lisa Unger; read by Molly Pope
Simon & Schuster Audio; 10 CDs; 11 hours and 30 minutes; $39.99/audible.com download, $27.99
Psychics and disappearing children are nothing new, but Unger writes a few twists into this thriller that will keep you engaged and guessing. In many ways Finley is an average student who does not get along with her mother and wears her rebellious streak on her tattooed shoulder. She also has psychic abilities she doesn’t want but, when she tunes into a missing little girl, she finds herself caught up in the chase. Reader Pope creates a few various voices, but her gift is a fast pace and clear diction that keeps the story quickly moving along. This is nothing memorable, but fun while it lasts. Grade: B-plus
Locke & Key
Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez; read by Haley Joel Osment, Tatiana Maslany, Kate Mulgrew and a full cast
Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio; 11 CDs 13 hours and 32 minutes; $19.99/audible.com download, $24.95
Based on the best-selling graphic novel, this multicast, fully dramatized audio plays out much like a radio play. There are recaps at the beginning of chapters, music, sound effects and the voices of over 50 actors. Several of the graphic novels have been combined for this production. It stays true to the source material while somewhat expanding it. There are plenty of creepy moments once you give yourself over to the idea of a town called Lovecraft, Massachusetts, and a seriously haunted house. It is quite graphic and sometimes vulgar and a bit too over the top, but is scary fun for (older) young adults. Grade: B
