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The Impossible Fortune audiobook vs book: which should you choose?

A best man goes missing and leaves behind half of a two-part code. One narrator reads the whole club, in the shortest Thursday Murder Club recording yet. Against that, one blogger says the code is hidden in printed text messages.

Read vs Listen·Verdict last reviewed 23 October 2026·6 min read

Short answer: for The Impossible Fortune audiobook vs book choice, we say either works (53% confidence, close call). Fiona Shaw reads Penguin Audio’s 2025 recording in 10 hours 29 minutes, unabridged, on Audible UK and Audible US. The UK paperback runs 448 pages. AudioFile gave the recording an Earphones Award, but at least four viewpoints are read by one narrator, so the two sides are close.

Confidence 53%, which puts it in the close call band. Bands run from close call at 50 to 64, through leaning at 65 to 79 and clear at 80 to 94, up to clear cut at 95 and above.

What this book actually is

The Impossible Fortune is the fifth Thursday Murder Club novel, published by Penguin in the UK on 25 September 2025 and by Pamela Dorman Books in the US on 30 September 2025, with the UK paperback following on 7 May 2026. It was a number one bestseller in the Sunday Times and the New York Times, and Waterstones lists it as shortlisted for the Crime & Thriller prize at the British Book Awards 2026. Book 6 is listed by Penguin UK for 9 September 2027.

Set about two years after The Last Devil to Die, it opens with a wedding and a best man who goes missing, leaving behind half of a two-part code to a bitcoin fortune, “150 million pounds” in Kirkus’s telling, and a murder. Elizabeth is grieving, as the publisher’s copy says. Third-person chapters alternate with Joyce’s diary entries, the structure the series has used since book 1. It was requested through this site’s search, which is why it is here ahead of books 2 to 4.

The case for reading it

The case for print is a puzzle. A reader’s guide to the book says that half of the code is hidden in the digits of the text messages the missing best man sent, and its author, who read it in print, told a listener: “If you were listening, there is NO way you could have figured it out.” If the texts are printed as set-off messages with their numbers visible, the Kindle edition lets you play along; the audiobook does not. That rests on one blog and nobody has confirmed how the texts are laid out, so it is not counted as a check.

Beyond that, print offers what it does for every book in the series: the chance to flip back through 27 named characters, many of them old friends from the earlier books, and to tell Joyce’s diary entries from the third-person chapters by sight. After four books, most readers can tell which is which from the way each is written.

The case for listening to it

It is built the same way as The Thursday Murder Club: one mystery told in order, a comic tone and one narrator for the whole club. Fiona Shaw, who took over from Lesley Manville on book 3, reads every listing. BookTrib says she “balances comedy and compassion”; one Audible listener calls her “sublime”, another finds Joyce’s diary “laugh-out-loud funny” in her reading.

Listeners are the most enthusiastic in this batch: 4.7 from 3,253 ratings on Audible UK and 4.8 from 2,394 on Audible US, as of October 2026. At 10 hours 29 minutes it is the shortest recording in the series, about five and a quarter hours at 2x.

The audiobook in detail

Penguin Audio released Fiona Shaw’s recording on 25 September 2025 in the UK and 30 September 2025 in the US, 10 hours 29 minutes, unabridged, with a second copy listed in each store. Whether UK and US are one recording or two is not confirmed; the narrator and length match. At 1.5x it takes about 6 hours 59 minutes, at 2x about 5 hours 15 minutes. No bonus content is credited on this book.

Shaw has read the series since The Bullet That Missed; Manville read the first two books in both the UK and the US. AudioFile gave Shaw's recording an Earphones Award and called her narration inviting. The Audible US product pages did not load while this page was researched, so US facts come from the search listing.

Who should ignore this verdict

Lean towards print if you want to try to crack the bitcoin code yourself. A reader’s guide says half of it is hidden in the digits of the missing best man’s text messages, and its author, who read it in print, said you could not work it out by listening. How the texts are laid out is not confirmed.

Lean towards print too if you like to flip back through the 27 named characters, or to tell Joyce’s diary entries from the third-person chapters by sight. Readers who started the series with Lesley Manville and never took to Shaw have had three books to decide.

Lean towards audio if you want the shortest recording in the series, 10 hours 29 minutes, in a reading AudioFile gave an Earphones Award and listeners rate 4.7 on Audible UK and 4.8 on Audible US.

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