Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Message for Murder
by Jerri Kay Lincoln
Rating: 4.1 #ad
After one final insult, Lorry Lockharte leaves her abusive husband stranded at the Grand Canyon. Returning home, she finds their house repossessed and her elderly employer deceased. Her cousin gets her a job at the Rutledge Historical Society after the previous employee had a fatal accident with a steep set of stairs. On her first day of work, Lorry finds a dead body at the foot of those same stairs! When she learns the dead woman is the sister of the previous victim, Lorry suspects the two deaths are related.
Will she discover the killer in time or will she be the next victim?
Check out:
(A Rutledge Historical Society Cozy Mysteries)
Bogeyman
by Steve Jackson
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Bogeyman describes in dramatic detail and with heartrending poignancy the efforts of tenacious Texas lawmen to solve the cold case murders of three little girls and hold serial child killer David Elliot Penton accountable for his horrific crimes.
From the book: “For years he’d stalked elementary schools and playground looking for young girls from low-income neighborhoods to abduct, rape and murder. He thought of them as ‘throwaway kids’—hardly missed, and soon forgotten, except by those who loved them. He was every parent’s worst nightmare. The bogeyman they warned their children about . . . the fiend who lurked outside bedroom windows.”
Missing Peace
by N. K. Holt
Rating: 4.8 #ad
2021 WINNER National Indie Excellence Award-Religious Fiction
2021 Catholic Media Awards Book Awards Honorable Mention
2021 Selah Award Finalist
2020 American Book Fest-Best Book Award Finalist
War. Heartbreak. How much can one family lose? The McKay family’s idyllic life in Iowa is about to implode. A mysterious rosary found by soldier John McKay in war-torn Iraq foreshadows an obscure prophecy. As the rosary’s mystique grows globally, his sister, Janey McKay, is threatened when a radical extremist group escalates the stakes by expanding their fight to the U.S. heartland. But can terror destroy a faith that launches miracles?
Everyone fights a battle… A soldier. A sister. A priest. A best friend.
No one is safe… A fierce war. A family shattered. A love unrequited. A terrorist bent on revenge.
How much can one woman lose? Her home. Her faith. Her family. The man she loves.
The Museum of Desire
by Jonathan Kellerman
Rating: 4.5 #ad
LAPD Lieutenant Milo Sturgis has solved a lot of murder cases. On many of them—the ones he calls “different”—he taps the brain of brilliant psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware. But neither Alex nor Milo are prepared for what they find on an early morning call to a deserted mansion in Bel Air. This one’s beyond different. This is predation, premeditation, and cruelty on a whole new level.
Four people have been slaughtered and left displayed bizarrely and horrifically in a stretch limousine. Confounding the investigation, none of the victims seems to have any connection to any other, and a variety of methods have been used to dispatch them.
The Shadow Order
by J.S. Malcom
Rating: 4.9 #ad
Either I defeat the monster, or I become the monster.
As if being locked up in the crazy house wasn’t bad enough, I wake up to discover that my nightmares are coming true. As in, the person I trust most in the world just morphed into a bloodthirsty monster. My only chance for escape comes in the form of two women who start calling out from within a shimmering tunnel. So, it’s either stick around and get murdered or jump through some kind of portal. And there I was thinking my new meds were working…
Disposable Heroes
by Gregory Mattix
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Boomer is a pretty simple guy for an alien hybrid. He runs on booze, caffeine, and junk food. He works as a bullet-resistant tank for a crew of street-running mercenaries. If someone needs hurting or something needs blowing up, he’s the guy to do it. It might not be the most glam life in Arutairu Megacity, but it’s his, and he’s rather attached to it.
When Boomer’s team takes on a shady job with the promise of a stellar payday, the proverbial excrement quickly meets the fan, and hit squads come after him and his crew. Normally, a few amateur goons with guns would just make for good target practice, but he suddenly finds himself unable to protect his friends. His rapidly expanding list of problems soon includes double-crosses, femme fatales, a hybrid assassin wielding alien weaponry, and an army of mercs gunning for him and his rapidly dwindling crew.
The Conjurer
by Luanne G. Smith
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Sidra didn’t murder her husband. Yet even a jinni can’t wish away a wrongful imprisonment. Determined to prove her innocence, she returns to her adopted home—a French village renowned for its perfume witches—with her friends Elena and Yvette by her side. Here is where Sidra’s true destiny awaits, but danger also lurks in the village’s narrow lanes.
On her trail is Jamra, another jinni, who’s after more than revenge for the murder of his brother. He also seeks vengeance for the indignities inflicted on jinn by mortals over the centuries. When he learns of an ancient relic capable of unleashing chaos on the world, and that the weapon is in the hands of his murderous sister-in-law, he vows to destroy Sidra to get it.
Check out:
(The Vine Witch Mysteries)
What She Left Behind
by Ellen Marie Wiseman
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Ten years ago, Izzy Stone’s mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother’s apparent insanity, Izzy, now seventeen, refuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parents, employees at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy’s help in cataloging items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past.
Young flapper and suffragette Clara Cartwright is caught between her overbearing parents and her desire to be a modern woman. Furious when she rejects an arranged marriage, instead finding love with an Italian Immigrant, Clara’s father sends her to a genteel home for nervous invalids.
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
Dead in Dublin
by Catie Murphy
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Ferrying tourists around Dublin for the Leprechaun Limo Service makes quite a change after years in the military. Still, Megan Malone is enjoying her life in Ireland. She likes the scenery, the easy pace, the quirky, quick-witted locals. Everything – except having one of her clients drop dead at the statue of fabled fishmonger, Molly Malone.
Most restaurant critics notch up their share of enemies. Elizabeth Darr, however, was a well-loved international star. She and her husband, Simon, had just had dinner when Elizabeth collapsed, and spoiled seafood is the first suspect.
Check out:
(The Dublin Driver Mysteries)
The Killer’s Girl
by Helen Phifer
Rating: 4.5 #ad
When the body of a young woman is found, tied to her bed and the victim of a brutal attack in her own home, Detective Morgan Brookes is sickened by what she finds as she searches the house. And unprepared for the nightmares it inspires about her childhood.
When the DNA collected gives a positive ID, Morgan can’t wait to put the attacker behind bars. But the person it matches to is already in prison. How could the DNA of someone who has been locked up for over twenty years have shown up in Morgan’s crime scene? And then they make another close match. To Morgan herself.
Check out:
(Detective Morgan Brookes Mysteries)
Thief in the Castle
by Beatrice B. Morgan
Rating: 4.6 #ad
The notorious Juniper Thimble is destined for execution. Caught stealing the king’s crown—in addition to her long list of crimes—she has only one way out. Juniper must survive the biggest, most deadly con of her life, commissioned by the king himself. Disguised as the crown prince’s lover, she is forced to protect him with her life…literally. Guarded by a surly squire, relentlessly attacked by demons, and surrounded by mysteriously disappearing servants, Juniper must dispatch the threat to the prince’s life before they find out who she really is.
Check out:
(Stars and Bones Mysteries)
Garland
by Jacquelyn Evers
Rating: 3.9 #ad
If you have money, you can get in. But nothing will let you out if you discover their secret….
Tack is an asteroid-mining syndicate man, currently in prison, serving a long sentence for piracy and smuggling. Sayal is a colonial – seductive, beguiling and mysterious.
He has no idea who is about to buy-out his prison contract. She has no idea what he’s capable of…or how he’s managed to stay alive for so long, swimming with the syndicate sharks…together, they have to do something no one’s ever done before on Garland…that is no one who lived to spread the blockbuster news to all free galactic dominions.
Bridged
by Kendra Elliot
Rating: 4.5 #ad
After a congressman’s tortured body is found dangling from a Portland bridge, the FBI joins the Oregon State Police to investigate the case – and FBI Special Agent Ava McLane, still recovering from a bullet wound, hunts the twisted killer alongside the man who captured her heart, police detective Mason Callahan.
But once a third body appears and all evidence points to a serial killer, the public furiously clamors for answers – and the couple’s relationship grows fractured under the pressure. Ava and Mason search in the past for clues that predict the future.
Check out:
(Callahan & McLane Mysteries)
Montana Shootists
by Sandra Cox
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Present Day: Abby loved David all her life. Growing up they were inseparable. When he joined the Marines she did too.
1882: Jake Barrow is a part-time gambler, full-time hired gun. His decisions are based on hunches and the turn of a card. He’s in the foothills when a young woman comes tumbling down the mountain. Unsure whether Lady Luck has dealt him a good hand or a bad, he takes one look at the beauty at his feet and doesn’t need to shuffle the deck to know she’s his destiny. Then disaster struck.
Crimson Phoenix
by John Gilstrap
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Victoria Emerson is a congressional member of the U. S. House of Representatives for the state of West Virginia. Her aspirations have always been to help her community and to avoid the ambitious power plays of her peers in Washington D. C. Then Major Joseph McCrea appears on her doorstep and uses the code phrase Crimson Phoenix, meaning this is not a drill. The United States is on the verge of nuclear war. Victoria must accompany McCrea to a secure bunker. She cannot bring her family.
The Baron’s Bounty
by Elizabeth Rose
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Victoria Emerson is a congrShe was only a proxy. They were never meant to fall in love!
Isobel MacEwen is sent as her cousin’s proxy to marry Conlin de Braose, Baron of the Cinque Ports. But several months before she leaves Scotland, and on the same night that the baron’s ship is docked in port, she witnesses the murder of her Scottish king. From her hiding place on that stormy night, she only sees the murderer’s shoes as he walks by. Isobel’s weakness is shoes. She loves shoes and notices not only everyone’s feet, but the way they walk as well. Now a pair of shoes is the only clue to what really happened that night.
Lord Conlin de Braose of Sandwich has made an alliance. But he’s never met his betrothed, who he’s learned is called the Shrew of the Scots. Either way, he has a daughter to think of since the death of his wife. She needs a mother, and he needs the alliance with Scotland.
Check out:
(The Barons of the Cinque Ports Series)
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
Personal
by Lee Child
Rating: 4.1 #ad
You can leave the army, but the army doesn’t leave you. Not always. Not completely, notes Jack Reacher—and sure enough, the retired military cop is soon pulled back into service. This time, for the State Department and the CIA.
Someone has taken a shot at the president of France in the City of Light. The bullet was American. The distance between the gunman and the target was exceptional. How many snipers can shoot from three-quarters of a mile with total confidence? Very few, but John Kott—an American marksman gone bad—is one of them. And after fifteen years in prison, he’s out, unaccounted for, and likely drawing a bead on a G8 summit packed with enough world leaders to tempt any assassin.
Check out:
(A Jack Reacher Mysteries)
Paradise Park Boxed Set
by Carolina Mac
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Mystery writer, Grace Whitmarsh, moves to a quiet trailer park in the country thinking it will be an ideal setting to pursue her writing career. However, her new neighbors have other ideas. Grace is thrown into a whirlpool of murder and violence. The most unexpected thing she encounters is a torrid romance that catches her completely off guard.
Follow Grace as her surprising life unfolds.
Promises in the Dark
by D.K. Hood
Rating: 4.7 #ad
The young girl pushes against the backseat of the family sedan, fighting to free herself from the crude ties restricting her hands and feet. As the car speeds towards the edge of town, she looks back at her family home, and watches in horror as it is suddenly engulfed in a mass of flames. Trembling with fear, she turns towards the driver and hears only laughter. She knows that the worst is yet to come…
Sheriff Jenna Alton surveys the charred remains of the large suburban home, stopping to pause at the three lifeless bodies of the Woods family. Jenna knows she’s looking for a serial killer, but her priority is finding the missing teenage daughter last seen on the night of the inferno.
Check out:
(Detectives Kane and Alton Mysteries)
Earth’s Last Ships: The Phoenix
by Multiple Authors
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Do they get sleep? Or does sleep get them? After discovering a new garden world to call home for Earth’s last survivors, Commander Elsa Venla finds her work isn’t done. The colonists are exposed to an unknown contagion which steals their minds as they sleep. They grow paranoid, aggressive, animalistic. Bitey.
Venla isn’t immune. She starts to suspect her own crew is complicit in corrupting the colonization effort. This contagion isn’t at all what it seems. Now she must use whatever tools available to wrest control of her people back and prevent this sickness from spreading to the stars…
Check out:
(Earth’s Last Ships)
Our Wild and Precious Lives
by A.G. Russo
Rating: 4.7 #ad
“Our Wild and Precious Lives deals with the big questions of Life, Death, Love and Loss set against the backdrop of World War II and the Korean Conflict…it also deals with the social upheaval in families and societies caused by war, on both sides…” Amazon Review
In 1960 Cold War Germany, Tom and Melly McCarron, teenage Army brats, contend with adolescence on a small American base near Bavaria, where their father, a decorated war veteran, begins a three-year tour of duty. As tensions in Berlin rise between the Allies and the Soviets, and threaten to bring about World War III, the base teenagers forge bonds of loyalty and love stronger than any of the adults understand.
Leaving New York on a night flight to Germany, the quiet, thoughtful Tom, and feisty, emotional Melly, are apprehensive about life in a foreign land. While they will attend the American high school in Würzburg, brother and sister realize they are the only stability each has had in their young lives. They also leave behind the sole adult they came to trust, their Aunt Deeny, a librarian who introduced them long ago to a way to cope with life’s ups and downs—reading and books.
Distrust: Two Thrilling Novels
by Lisa Jackson
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Two riveting books in one from Queen of Suspense, #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jackson, perfect for fans of the chilling novels of Lisa Gardner, Allison Brennan, and Lisa Regan.
Renegade Son: Can she put aside her concerns about his potential deception to find out who is behind these awful acts?
Midnight Sun: Now, eight years after their relationship ended, Trevor discovers that not only is his bid for a senate seat in jeopardy, but his life may be too. And the future of both may lie with Ashley . . .
A Life Stolen
by Vanessa Luther
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A Life Stolen is the gripping account of a father and daughter’s devastating, but inspiring journey through Alzheimer’s. It’s an inside look into the day-to-day challenges facing not only the patient, but also the caregivers. For many years, her father exhibited signs of dementia, eventually becoming too significant to ignore. Everything culminated during an incident one night, after which her father was taken away, never to return to his home again. The disease changed him every day until he was a stranger. Then, it stole his life.
Through the initial days at home to hospital stays, living in a memory care unit, rehab stints and eventually hospice care, this book reveals many of the struggles encountered while facing Alzheimer’s in a world not quite ready for it. It is based on actual events depicted exactly as they happened while travelling the heartbreaking and harrowing road through this horrific illness.
End of Spies
by Alex Gerlis
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Europe, 1945: no longer at war but not yet at peace. The gripping finale to the bestselling Richard Prince espionage thrillers. British agent Richard Prince and the Danish spy Hanne Jakobsen come together for a vital mission: to find a Nazi war criminal responsible for the murder of fellow British agents.
The hunt takes them on a perilous journey through Europe, a continent living on its nerves in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. They unearth a secret Nazi escape line funded by British traitors – and it’s one which could lead them to Hitler’s trusted deputy, Martin Bormann.
But when the Americans become involved it is no longer certain who’s on which side. Help might come in unlikely places. Can justice be found against the odds… Or are they too late?
Check out:
(The Richard Prince Thrillers)
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
Death on the Page
by Essie Lang
Rating: 4.3 #ad
There are a thousand stories in New York’s scenic Thousand Islands, and Bayside Books co-owner Shelby Cox stocks them all. But lately, the Blye Island bookseller’s life is more about investigation than inventory. True-crime writer Savannah Page caps off two successful signings at Bayside Books with a night in Blye Castle. She’s there to research Joe Cabana, a colorful Prohibition-era mobster who owned the castle–until he was found dead in the island Grotto.
Check out:
(A Castle Bookshop Mysteries)
When The Jaguar Sleeps
by J.A. Kalis
Rating: 3.8 #ad
A plane crash in the Amazon jungle. A desperate struggle for survival. A hidden Inca treasure. Ruthless grave robbers.
Ecuador. A dream holiday turns into a nightmare when two men are stranded in the Amazon rain forest after a plane crash. With no hope of being rescued, they decide that their only chance of survival is to find their way back to civilization. And so they set off on a daring journey, struggling through the dense underbrush, totally unprepared for the dangers that lie ahead. When they stumble upon some ancient ruins where fabulous treasures might be hidden, it all goes wrong again …
Check out:
(The Curse Of Inca Gold Mysteries)
The Glass House
by Jody Cooksley
Rating: 3.8 #ad
What is a life without Art and Beauty? Not one that Julia chooses to live. And so she searches the world for both, discovering happiness through the lens of a camera. A fictional account of pioneer photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, and her extraordinary quest to find her own creative voice, The Glass House brings an exceptional photographer to life. From the depths of despair, with her relationships strained and having been humiliated by the artists she has given a home to, Julia rises to fame, photographing and befriending many of the days most famous literary, artistic, political and scientific celebrities.
Up Close and Dangerous Collection
by Kimberley Montpetit
Rating:5.0#ad
Escape into a tantalizing world of intrigue and swoony romance with these four romantic and suspenseful novels!
Fall in love with unique heroines and their gorgeous men, paired with up close and dangerous romantic banter, devastating family secrets, and spine-tingling shivers. You’ll be up all night!
THE UNDERCOVER BRIDESMAID
HER SECRET AGENT FAKE FIANCE
MOSTLY PERILOUS: The Women of Ambrose Estate
THE OWNER’S SECRET: A Secret Billionaire Romance
Robert B. Parker’s Grudge Match
by Mike Lupica
Rating: 4.5 #ad
When Sunny’s long-time gangster associate Tony Marcus comes to her for help, Sunny is surprised–after all, she double crossed him on a recent deal, and their relationship is on shakier ground than ever. But the way Tony figures it, Sunny owes him, and Sunny’s willing to consider his case if it will clear the slate.
Tony’s trusted girlfriend and business partner has vanished, appears to have left in a hurry, and he has no idea why. He just wants to talk to her, he says, but first he needs Sunny to track her down. While Sunny isn’t willing to trust his good intentions, the missing woman intrigues her–against all odds, she’s risen to a position of power in Tony’s criminal enterprise.
Check out:
(Sunny Randall Mysteries)
Little Girl Lost
by Mia Frances
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Sheriff Zac McHenry is fit to be tied. A new “working girl” just showed up at the local truck stop. He doesn’t want “her kind” in town! He arrests her, but things aren’t what they seem. She’s no hooker…she’s a librarian! Her name is Ali, and she’s trying to track down a 13-year-old runaway. The girl disappeared from the truck stop a week ago and hasn’t been heard from since. Zac tries to send Ali packing, even checks her out of her motel room, but she refuses to leave until she finds the girl. With the rodeo in town and all the hotel and motel rooms in the area booked up, Ali finds herself temporarily homeless. With no place else to go, she moves in with the sheriff until a room becomes available.
The Deep Blue Good-by
by John D. MacDonald, Lee Child
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Travis McGee is a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He’s also a knight-errant who’s wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out, and his rule is simple: He’ll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half.
“John D. MacDonald was the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller.”—Stephen King
Check out:
(Travis McGee Mysteries)