Best Raymond Chandler Audiobooks

Raymond Chandler invented the hard-boiled detective novel as literature. Philip Marlowe — the wisecracking, morally exhausted private eye at the center of The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye — isn't just a character; he's an archetype that shaped every cynical investigator who came after him. Chandler's prose is the main event: laconic, image-saturated sentences that make Los Angeles feel like a city permanently on the wrong side of something. His similes alone are worth the price of admission. The plots are famously labyrinthine — Chandler himself once couldn't explain who killed one of the characters in The Big Sleep — but that almost doesn't matter, because the pleasure is in the atmosphere and the voice. Farewell, My Lovely is the place to start if you want Chandler at his most intoxicating. For readers who want crime fiction that reads like poetry, he's essential.

Where to Start with Raymond Chandler

Best entry point → The Big Sleep
What fans keep coming back to → The Long Goodbye
Highest rated by listeners → The Lady in the Lake (Philip Marlowe #4)

7 audiobooks in collection

★ 4.11 avg ABR rating

Mystery

Best Audiobooks | All Audiobooks | Top 25 Ranked List

Best Raymond Chandler Audiobooks

1

The Lady in the Lake

Philip Marlowe • Book 4

by Raymond Chandler

Narrated by Scott Brick

★ 4.21 ABR Score (28.7K ratings)

★ 4.06 Goodreads (28.5K) ★ 4.69 Audible (258)

7h 32m listening time • Released 2021

Start Listening → Get the Book →

Start Listening → Get the Book →
2

The Long Goodbye

Philip Marlowe • Book 6

by Raymond Chandler

Narrated by Scott Brick

★ 4.21 ABR Score (47.7K ratings)

★ 4.19 Goodreads (47.3K) ★ 4.5 Audible (405)

13h 25m listening time • Released 2021

Start Listening → Get the Book →

Start Listening → Get the Book →
3

Farewell, My Lovely

Philip Marlowe • Book 2

by Raymond Chandler

Narrated by Scott Brick

★ 4.19 ABR Score (43.7K ratings)

★ 4.09 Goodreads (43.3K) ★ 4.54 Audible (421)

8h 42m listening time • Released 2021

Start Listening → Get the Book →

Start Listening → Get the Book →
4

The High Window

Philip Marlowe • Book 3

by Raymond Chandler

Narrated by Scott Brick

★ 4.13 ABR Score (26.2K ratings)

★ 4.04 Goodreads (25.8K) ★ 4.51 Audible (397)

7h 26m listening time • Released 2021

Start Listening → Get the Book →

Start Listening → Get the Book →
5

The Big Sleep

Philip Marlowe • Book 1

by Raymond Chandler

Narrated by Scott Brick

★ 4.10 ABR Score (170.4K ratings)

★ 3.94 Goodreads (169.7K) ★ 4.43 Audible (660)

6h 33m listening time • Released 2020

Chandler's debut Marlowe novel is the template for every hard-boiled detective story that followed — rain-soaked, morally ambiguous, and endlessly quotable.

More about this pick

Chandler's debut Marlowe novel is the template for every hard-boiled detective story that followed — rain-soaked, morally ambiguous, and endlessly quotable.

Start Listening → Get the Book →

Start Listening → Get the Book →
6

The Little Sister: Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe

Philip Marlowe • Book 5

by Raymond Chandler

Narrated by Scott Brick

★ 4.06 ABR Score (19.3K ratings)

★ 3.98 Goodreads (19.1K) ★ 4.54 Audible (210)

8h 24m listening time • Released 2021

Start Listening → Get the Book →

Start Listening → Get the Book →
7

Playback: Raymond Chandler

Philip Marlowe • Book 7

by Raymond Chandler

Narrated by Scott Brick

★ 3.87 ABR Score (11.3K ratings)

★ 3.79 Goodreads (11.2K) ★ 4.4 Audible (127)

5h 26m listening time • Released 2021

Start Listening → Get the Book →

Start Listening → Get the Book →