All The Devils Are Here Audiobook Novels & Stories

Just looked it up on Audible earlier because I wanted to see if I could squeeze it into a road trip. The listed runtime for Louise Penny's 'All the Devils Are Here' is 13 hours and 36 minutes. That's pretty standard for one of her Three Pines novels, actually; they all tend to settle into that 13-to-14-hour sweet spot. It makes sense given how dense the plots are with all the character interactions and the intricate mystery unfolding in Paris this time. I remember listening to it over a couple of weeks during my commute, and the narrator, Robert Bathurst, really takes his time with the atmosphere, which adds to the length but in a good way. Definitely not a quick listen, but it feels substantial.

If you're comparing formats, the audiobook is a commitment, but I found it flew by because the Paris setting and the Gamache family dynamics are so engaging. The length lets all those subtle tensions and clues breathe. My paperback copy is around 400 pages, so the audio runtime tracks pretty accurately with a steady, deliberate reading pace. It's the kind of book where you don't want it to be rushed anyway.

Honestly, I was a bit taken aback when I first hit play. I've listened to all of Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache audiobooks, and Robert Bathurst has been the narrator for a good long while, becoming the definitive voice of Gamache for me. But for 'All the Devils Are Here', it's a different narrator altogether.

Robert Bathurst wasn't available for this installment. The narration duties for this one specifically fall to George Blagden, who is actually an actor I know more from screen roles. His performance is quite distinct—a bit younger, with a different cadence. It took me a good few chapters to adjust, I won't lie. His take on Ruth's gravelly cynicism, in particular, threw me at first.

Once I settled in, I appreciated the freshness he brought to the Paris setting. His French pronunciations sounded confident and smooth, which felt right for a story set there. It's not the Gamache voice I'm used to, but it works for this standalone feeling adventure.

I listened to the audiobook first and honestly, the narration is the deciding factor. The reader for the 'Gamache' series has this incredibly warm, deliberate pace that just fits the atmosphere of these books perfectly. I could never quite get the rhythm right in my own head when reading the eBook—especially with all the French names and locations. The audio version layers in this subtle tension during the Paris setting that the plain text couldn't convey for me. It felt more like a performance than just someone reading words aloud.

That said, if you're the type who needs to flip back pages to remember a clue or a character's full name, the eBook is obviously superior for that. I found myself getting a little lost in the complex family web sometimes while listening, and had to rewind. But for pure immersion and letting Louise Penny's prose wash over you, the audiobook is the superior experience. It turned my commute into a trip to Paris.