Podcasts of the week: from true crime to a true-crime drama
Featuring Killer Book Club, RedHanded, Criminal, Radioman and Lady Killers With Lucy Worsley

A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
With true-crime podcasts coming out all the time, it’s hard to sort the wheat from the chaff, said The Daily Telegraph. Here are three series that stand out. Killer Book Club is a “riveting” eight-parter about the brutal murder of an apparently mild-mannered book-club member by one of his former students. The podcast’s creator and narrator, Gillian Pachter, “spins it into a cracking, intrigue-laden yarn, as well as a fascinating disquisition on all kinds of Britishness”.
The long-running and award-winning RedHanded is a “breath of fresh air”. Hosted with wit and energy by Suruthi Bala and Hannah Maguire, it probes “little-known horrors in meticulous detail, and with a healthy dose of British banter”.
Criminal remains the benchmark for “true crime with class”. Narrator Phoebe Judge guides the listener through everything from mass murder to the history of bootlegging. “Part legal exploration, part human story, Criminal is the kind of true crime you can listen to without worrying about your moral degradation”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Lady Killers With Lucy Worsley “commits many of the sins I have previously railed against in BBC Sounds podcasts”, said James Marriott in The Times: it has unnecessary sound effects, cheesy dramatic reconstructions and too much happening at once. Still, getting the “posh-voiced telly historian” to investigate historical murders committed by women was a great idea, and – with the help of assorted historians, barristers and crime writers – she does it really well.
There are readings of “eyepoppingly passionate love letters” and intriguing discussions of extramarital sex in Victorian England, for example – and explorations of the likely power dynamics in the relationships Worsley uncovers. It’s “genuinely illuminating”.
Audible’s new audio drama Radioman is set in a fictional former mining town in northern England, where a local radio host has decided to launch a true-crime podcast called Crimesville. The listener follows the host, Chas Jones (played by Game of Thrones actor Nikolaj CosterWaldau) as he documents an investigation into a local murder that is being led by his drinking buddy, DCI Ian Whittaker (David Morrissey).
It sounds tricksy, said Fiona Sturges in the Financial Times, but the “tension builds up nicely”. A big draw for keen “audiophiles” is the involvement of Benbrick, the sound artist who produced the acclaimed Have You Heard George’s Podcast? and the “equally inventive” comedy series Futile Attempts (At Surviving Tomorrow). On Radioman, the “sound is superb”: multilayered and immersive without ever being intrusive (and best enjoyed via headphones). And the music, which “laps artfully around the dialogue, is original and gorgeous”.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
60 of the best podcasts of 2023
The Week Recommends Including podcasts about relationships, science and the yeti
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
The Week’s best podcasts of 2022
The Week Recommends Top picks include 28ish Days Later, Can I tell you a secret? and the highly ‘bingeable’ Case 63
By The Week Staff Published
-
The best history podcasts of all time
In Depth From the British Empire to pop culture and the entirety of the human existence in between
By The Week Staff Published
-
Four of the best podcasts about women and society
The Week Recommends Featuring Visible Women, Clipped Wings, Ki & Di: The Podcast and 28ish Days Later
By The Week Staff Published
-
Podcasts of the week: war reporters, hard news and big interviews
The Week Recommends Featuring The Line of Fire, The Ezra Klein Show and The Backstory with Andrew Neil
By The Week Staff Published
-
Podcasts of the week: from French and Saunders to Vladimir Putin
The Week Recommends Featuring Whatever Happened to Baby Jane Austen?, Comfort Blanket and Taking on Putin
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Podcasts of the week: cult scams, cronyism and bingeable true-crime
The Week Recommends Featuring Twin Flames, Our Friends in the North and Chameleon: Wild Boys
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Podcasts of the week: Philippa Perry, bite-size science and a spy caper
The Week Recommends Featuring Consumed by Desire, Who Is Aldrich Kemp?, Short Wave and One to One
By The Week Staff Last updated