Carol Cole Audiobooks

Murder in the New Forest: a Glasgow detective meets a very English crime

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.5/5 average

5,588 listener ratings

Who is Carol Cole?

Hampshire is not obvious murder country, and that is precisely the tension in Carol Cole’s crime writing. Murder in the New Forest drops DI Callum MacLean, newly arrived from Glasgow, into a landscape of ponies, tea rooms and very old grudges, then asks him to work out why an apparent accident is nothing of the sort.

The book opens the DI Callum MacLean mysteries, and the setup gives the series its engine: a city detective’s instincts rubbing against a close-knit rural community that closes ranks by habit rather than by conspiracy. The pacing is procedural in the traditional British sense, built on interviews, small inconsistencies and local knowledge.

There is evident affection for the setting. Fordingbridge and the forest around it are drawn with the detail of somewhere genuinely known, and that is what lifts the book clear of generic village crime.

Carol Cole in audiobooks

In audio the series gains something. James Macnaughton reads it, and the Scottish register he brings to MacLean does a great deal of quiet characterisation against the Hampshire voices around him. Nearly ten hours gives the investigation the room a fair-play mystery needs.

Thousands of listeners have rated it warmly, a healthy sign for a detective series still early in its run. Begin with Murder in the New Forest, since it is the first case and establishes the team, then follow MacLean onward. The audiobook is below if a walk through the New Forest with a body in it appeals.