Best Raymond Chandler Audiobooks

The best Raymond Chandler audiobooks — 7 titles ranked by listening experience across Mystery, averaging 4.11 ABR stars.

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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.

Raymond Chandler's highest-rated audiobook in our collection is The Big Sleep, narrated by Scott Brick (4.1 ABR stars). Performed by Scott Brick. Rankings here weight the listening experience — narrator performance and Audible ratings factor alongside reader scores.

Where to Start with Raymond Chandler

  1. 1
    The Big Sleep cover

    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)
    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.

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  2. 2
    Farewell, My Lovely cover

    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)
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  3. 3
    The Long Goodbye cover

    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)
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  4. 4
    The High Window cover

    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)
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  5. 5
    The Lady in the Lake cover

    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)
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  6. 6
    The Little Sister: Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe cover

    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)
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  7. 7
    Playback: Raymond Chandler cover

    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)
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How We Rank Audiobooks

Rankings are driven by listener ratings and review counts from Audible and Goodreads. Books with high ratings across a large number of listeners rank higher — a 4.5 with 50,000 ratings says more than a 4.8 with 200.

Unlike most book lists, we weight audiobook-specific factors: narrator performance, production quality, and how well a story translates to audio. A great book with a poor narration isn't a great audiobook.

We don't accept paid placements or prioritize new releases. These rankings reflect what listeners actually enjoy, not what's being promoted.

Rankings update periodically as new ratings come in and new titles are added to the collection.

Read our full ranking methodology →