A Word In Your Ear: Coraline; Ian Rankin

Neil Gaiman's imagination has a solid pedigree – the Sandman comics, Neverwhere and American Gods. In Coraline (Bloomsbury, unabridged 3 hrs 30 mins, £9.99), he shifts to crossover literature, fairy tales aimed at adults through children, and at the adults the children will be. Coraline, like every child, feels her parents neglect and fail to appreciate her – but when she enters a looking-glass replica of her world and finds two "other parents" fawningly eager to give her everything she could possibly want, they have big black buttons for eyes, and they think she should have them too... Escaping, and rescuing her real parents and three children stolen centuries before, takes courage, cleverness, determination, a talisman stone and a cryptic and critical black cat. The choice of Dawn French as reader is a stroke of genius.

James MacPherson's readings of 's novels deserve a special place in the audio-thrillers' hall of fame. He takes us straight into the back of DC Rebus's head, and makes us loth to leave it. Strip Jack (Orion, 6hrs 30 mins, £12.99) is a juicily long abridgement, which allows plenty of time for us to get to know a gallery of possible suspects for the murder of an MP's wife who has an inconvenient liking for perverted sexual horseplay. There's even space for more of the will-he won't-he saga of Rebus and his current girlfriend, the ever-patient Patience.