Audible: The 13 best debuts of 2022

Equal parts horror story and searing social commentary about race, Erin E. Adams’s Jackal follows Liz Rocher’s search for her missing goddaughter in her largely white Rust Belt hometown, where young Black girls have been disappearing for years. Tender and measured, the narrators poignantly capture the complex emotions in this story, effectively creating a sense of foreboding as Liz works to reconcile memories of the night her high school classmate also went missing. This listen thrills us with the dark, unforgettable truth that, even in a world where supernatural threats exist, monsters still wear human faces. —M.H.