Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
Message for Murder
by Jerri Kay Lincoln
Rating: 4.4 #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? One recipe included! And now available as an audiobook!
Check out:
(A Rutledge Historical Society Cozy Mysteries)
M: Son of the Century
by Antonio Scurati
Rating: 4.4 #ad
The massive international bestseller—an epic historical novel that chronicles the birth and rise of fascism in Italy, witnessed through the eyes of its founder, the terrifyingly charismatic figure who would become one of the most notorious dictators of the twentieth century, Benito Mussolini.
It is 1919, and the Great War that has ravaged Europe is over. In Italy, the people are exhausted. Tired of the political class. Tired of vague promises, inept moderates, and the agonizing machinations of a democracy that has failed ordinary citizens.
While elite leaders have sat idly by, achieving nothing, one outsider—the director of a small opposition newspaper and a tireless political agitator—is electrifying the masses, promising hope for a demoralized nation hungry for change…
The Attic on Queen Street
by Karen White
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Return to the house on Tradd Street one last time in this hauntingly spectacular finale to the bestselling series featuring psychic medium Melanie Trenholm.
After the devastating events of the past few months, the last thing Melanie Trenholm wants is to think about the future. Why, when her husband, Jack, has asked for a separation—a separation that might have been her fault? Nevertheless, with twin toddlers, a stepdaughter leaving for college soon, a real estate career to resume and a historic home that is still being restored, Melanie doesn’t have much time to wonder where it all went wrong—but that doesn’t stop her from trying to win her husband back.
Their relationship issues are pushed aside, however, when longtime nemesis, Marc Longo, comes to them with a proposition: allow their Tradd Street house to be used as the filming location for the movie adaptation of Marc’s bestselling book, and he will help Jack re-establish his stalled writing career.
Check out:
(Tradd Street Mysteries)
Winter’s Fury
by A.E. Rayne
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Jael Furyck isn’t happy. Her father is dead, her uncle has stolen the throne, and now he wants to marry her off to the son of her arch-enemy. But Jael is a battle-hardened warrior, trained to kill since she was ten-years-old.
She doesn’t plan on being anyone’s wife.
Eadmund Skalleson is trapped. His father is threatening him with a wife again, and this time he’s given him an ultimatum: marry Jael Furyck, or he’ll find another heir. But if Eadmund was ever to choose a wife, it wouldn’t be her.
Sleeping Murde
by Agatha Christie
Rating: 4.6 #ad
In Agatha Christie’s classic, Sleeping Murder, the indomitable Miss Marple turns ghost hunter and uncovers shocking evidence of a perfect crime.
Soon after Gwenda moved into her new home, odd things started to happen. Despite her best efforts to modernize the house, she only succeeded in dredging up its past. Worse, she felt an irrational sense of terror every time she climbed the stairs.
In fear, Gwenda turned to Miss Marple to exorcise her ghosts. Between them, they were to solve a “perfect” crime committed many years before.
Check out:
(Miss Marple Mysteries)
The Coldness of Objects
by Panayotis Cacoyannis
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Named to KIRKUS REVIEWS’ BEST BOOKS OF 2021
London 2030. When a postman knocks on his door, the news he delivers will cause 70-year-old Anthony Pablo Rubens to reflect on all the sorrows and joys of the past, while he begins to prepare for the surprises of the future.
The past still revolves around the moment in the summer of 1984 when young Anthony, while navigating London’s gay scene, first realized he had fallen in love.
The present is a Kafkaesque nightmare worse than Orwell’s 1984, “a hideous world where people don’t need to be watched by Big Brother.” It’s a world that Anthony has mostly shut his eyes to, but which suddenly he is forced to confront…
Justified
by Carolyn Arnold
Rating: 4.2 #ad
She could feel her life draining from her body, but there was nothing she could do except wait until it was all over…and for the darkness to descend upon her.
The brutal murder of Claire Reeves, a successful entrepreneur, darkens Christmas Eve for Detective Madison Knight, who is assigned the case. Claire was found stabbed in her home, and her intimate attire would suggest her killer was someone close to her, but Madison knows things aren’t always as they appear…
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(Detective Madison Knight Mysteries)
A Pinch of Poison
by Alyssa Maxwell
Rating: 4.5 #ad
The Mezzogiorno (Southern Italy). Up to 85 per cent of Italian Americans have their roots in this region. The story of the Coriello family begins in the fictional fishing village of Punto Roccioso along the Amalfi Coast. Alta Italia (Northern Italy) looks down on their southern countrymen as uneducated peasants. With limited opportunities available, many southern Italians dream of escaping poverty by leaving the land they love for a better life in America. But like all dreams, hardships, sacrifices, and realities intrude.
Having lived through World War I, the Spanish Flu, the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, and racial laws, Raffaela must raise and feed her ten children without any help from her estranged abusive husband Giuseppe, who refuses to give her money. With the support of her two oldest children, Geno, and Luisa, she struggles to survive. World War II devastates Italy and Italian Americans alike when “Il Duce” joins Hitler’s side, leaving Italians vulnerable at home and the object of hatred abroad. Young Italians are sent around the world to fight in a war they don’t believe in. At home Jewish families are under increasing threat. Yet, Italian men and women rebound to fight the Germans and Italian Fascists with a large and fervent partisan guerilla army…
The Groomer
by Jon Athan
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Andrew McCarthy grows concerned for his family after he catches a young man, Zachary Denton, photographing his daughter, Grace McCarthy, and other children at a park. To his dismay, Zachary talks his way out of trouble when he’s confronted by the police. He hopes that’s the end of it. Then he finds Zachary at a diner and then at a grocery store. He knows their encounters aren’t coincidences. And just as Andrew prepares to defend his family, Grace vanishes.
As the police search stalls and the leads dry up, Andrew decides to take matters into his own hands. He starts by searching for sex offenders in the area and researching enhanced interrogation techniques… He convinces himself he’ll do anything to rescue his daughter, unaware of the pure evil he’ll face in his journey. He’s willing to hurt—to torture—anyone to save his family.
THE SUM OF OUR SORROWS
by Lisette Brodey
Rating: 4.6 #ad
In an idyllic suburb in Northern California, tragedy strikes the Sheppard family when Abby, the mother of three daughters and wife to Dalton, is killed in a car accident. Charlotte, the middle daughter, is in the car with her mother and survives without physical injury but remains deeply scarred on the inside.
Dalton tells Lily, his eldest daughter, that she must sacrifice long-awaited college plans and put her life on hold to take care of her sisters. Lily is torn between her devotion to family and an increasing need to find her place in the world — but how can she leave, knowing her family may crumble? Will her presence eventually cause more problems than it resolves?
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
A Murder for the Books
by Victoria Gilbert
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Librarian Amy Webber must archive overdue crimes and deadly rumors before a killer strikes again in small-town Virginia . . .
Fleeing a disastrous love affair, university librarian Amy Webber moves in with her aunt in a quiet, historic mountain town in Virginia. She quickly busies herself with managing a charming public library that requires all her attention with its severe lack of funds and overabundance of eccentric patrons. The last thing she needs is a new, available neighbor whose charm lures her into trouble.
Check out:
(A Blue Ridge Library Mysteries)
Ceremony in Death
by J. D. Robb
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Conducting a top secret investigation into the death of a fellow police officer has Lieutenant Eve Dallas treading on dangerous ground. She must put professional ethics before personal loyalties. But when a dead body is placed outside her home, Eve takes the warnning personally. With her husband, Roarke, watching her every move, Eve is drawn into the most dangerous case of her career. Every step she takes makes her question her own beliefs of right and wrong—and brings her closer to a confrontation with humanity’s most seductive form of evil…
Check out:
(In Death Mysteries)
Infinite
by Brian Freeman
Rating: 4.3 #ad
One rainy night, the unthinkable happens: Dylan Moran’s car plunges off the road into a raging river, his beautiful wife drowning as he struggles to shore.
In the aftermath, through his grief, Dylan experiences sudden, strange visions: wherever he goes, he’s haunted by glimpses of himself. Dylan initially chalks it up to trauma, but that changes when he runs into a psychiatrist who claims he’s her patient. She says he has been undergoing a unique hypnotherapy treatment built on the idea that with every choice, he creates an infinite number of parallel universes.
Twisted Metal
by Savannah Rylan
Rating: 4.4 #ad
I should be terrified of them – but I’ve never felt safer…
When I begged the Twisted Metal MC to take me in exchange for my father’s freedom, I never thought I’d be anything more than a trade to them. A transaction.
I was wrong. On the surface, my three captors are nothing alike. Trooper, who disarms me with a smile and helps me laugh away my fears. Dutch, whose cocky mask can’t hide his sweet soul. And Ranger, who frustrates me so much I can’t decide whether to kiss or kill him.
The Rules of Magic
by Alice Hoffman
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Find your magic. For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man.
Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the sixties, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. Difficult Franny, with skin as pale as milk and blood red hair, shy and beautiful Jet, who can read other people’s thoughts, and charismatic Vincent, who began looking for trouble on the day he could walk.
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(Practical Magic Mysteries)
Garden of Sins
by Laura Joh Rowland
Rating: 4.5 #ad
London, November 1890. Crime scene photographer Sarah Bain Barrett faces a perfect storm of events. She and her husband Detective Sergeant Barrett are riding on a train that crashes. While rescuing other passengers, they find a woman who’s been strangled to death. Their search for her identity and her killer lead them to Cremorne Gardens, a seedy riverside pleasure park that’s a combination carnival, theater, freak show, and museum of oddities. It’s among the most challenging cases that Sarah, Barrett, and her friends Lord Hugh Staunton and Mick O’Reilly have ever undertaken.
Check out:
(Practical Magic Mysteries)
Cold Paradise
by Stuart Woods
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Luxuriating in Palm Beach’s winter warmth, Stone is stunned to recognize someone he thought was dead. Former client Allison Manning is alive and well—and suddenly very rich. Now she needs Stone’s help in squaring a charge of insurance fraud that’s been hanging over her head for years—and in getting rid of a recently acquired stalker. Suspects abound, including an elusive writer, an enigmatic businessman, and Allison’s devious former husband. Only Stone can thwart the sly and greedy plan to steal the millions of dollars at stake—and the crafty killer behind it…
Check out:
(A Stone Barrington Mysteries)
ONCE UPON A MURDEROUS DELUSION
by A.G. Russo
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Luxuriating in Palm Beach’s winter warmth, Stone is stunned to recognize someone he thought was dead. Former client Allison Manning is alive and well – and suddenly very rich. Now she needs Stone’s help in squaring a charge of insurance fraud that’s been hanging over her head for years – and in getting rid of a recently acquired stalker. Suspects abound, including an elusive writer, an enigmatic businessman, and Allison’s devious former husband. Only Stone can thwart the sly and greedy plan to steal the millions of dollars at stake – and the crafty killer behind it…
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
A Christmas Mystery
by Charlot King
Rating: 3.9 #ad
Professor Elizabeth Green, a professor of poisons, has travelled to Oxford to deliver a keynote speech at Catte College when Father Christmas bursts into a formal supper, leaving a woman dead. It is not long before Elizabeth herself is in the firing line with the local Oxford Inspector, as more bodies start to fall. Meanwhile as the snow comes down and suspects mount, Inspector Abley and Sergeant Lemon are finding it hard to communicate. Will Professor Elizabeth Green help solve the puzzle before Christmas Day? Join her at Christmas as she navigates festivities among the dead bodies.
Check out:
(The Cambridge Murder Mysteries)
Ice Cold Murder
by Michele PW
Rating: 4.5 #ad
When Charlie agrees to accompany her friend Claire to her late grandmother’s reading of the will, she assumes she is simply there for moral support. She doesn’t expect things to get so … strange.
It’s odd enough that it takes place over a weekend, but that’s just the beginning …
They also need to stay in Claire’s grandma’s supposedly haunted house with Claire’s estranged family. Things get even worse when a huge storm snows them in. No electricity, no phone, and no way out. Throw a dead body into the mix, and there’s no question it’s now the world’s worst family gathering. Ever…
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(Charlie Kingsley Mysteries)
Off the Grid
by C. J. Box
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Nate is off the grid, recuperating from wounds and trying to deal with past crimes, when he is suddenly surrounded by a small team of elite professional special operators. They’re not there to threaten him, but to make a deal. They need help destroying a domestic terror cell in Wyoming’s Red Desert, and in return they’ll make Nate’s criminal record disappear.
But they are not what they seem, as Nate’s friend Joe Pickett discovers. They have a much different plan in mind, and it just might be something that takes them all down—including Nate and Joe.
Check out:
(A Joe Pickett Mysteries)
The Cat Who Could Read Backwards
by Lilian Jackson Braun
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A stabbing in an art gallery, vandalized paintings, a fatal fall from a scaffolding—this is not at all what Qwilleran expects when he turns his reporter talents to art. But Qwilleran and his newly found partner, Koko the brilliant Siamese cat, are in their element—sniffing out clues and confounding criminals intent on mayhem and murder.
This riveting beginning to the Cat Who series is the perfect cozy mystery for cat lovers to start sleuthing!
Check out:
(Cat Who… Mysteries)
The Lincoln Conspiracy
by Brad Meltzer, Josh Mensch
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Everyone knows the story of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, but few are aware of the original conspiracy to kill him four years earlier in 1861, literally on his way to Washington, D.C., for his first inauguration.
The conspirators were part of a white supremacist secret society that didn’t want an abolitionist in the White House. They planned an elaborate scheme to assassinate the President-elect in Baltimore as Lincoln’s inauguration train passed through, en route to the nation’s capital. The plot was investigated by famed detective Allan Pinkerton, who infiltrated the group with undercover agents, including Kate Warne, one of the first female private detectives in America.
The Wolf and the Watchman: 1793
by Niklas Natt och Dag
Rating: 4.8 #ad
One morning in the autumn of 1793, watchman Mikel Cardell is awakened from his drunken slumber with reports of a body seen floating in the Larder, once a pristine lake on Stockholm’s Southern Isle, now a rancid bog. Efforts to identify the bizarrely mutilated corpse are entrusted to incorruptible lawyer Cecil Winge, who enlists Cardell’s help to solve the case. But time is short: Winge’s health is failing, the monarchy is in shambles, and whispered conspiracies and paranoia abound.
Winge and Cardell become immersed in a brutal world of guttersnipes and thieves, mercenaries and madams. From a farmer’s son who is lead down a treacherous path when he seeks his fortune in the capital to an orphan girl consigned to the workhouse by a pitiless parish priest, their investigation peels back layer upon layer of the city’s labyrinthine society…
The Graves of Crowford Rise
by Amy Cross
Rating: 4.2 #ad
The year is 1979, and Polly Gaskell thinks her life is complete. She and her husband Graham, along with their newborn son, have moved into a prestigious new estate on the outskirts of Crowford. Graham has a great job and Polly’s happy looking after the baby. They’re all set to join the town’s social elite.
Soon, however, Polly starts to realize that something is very wrong with their new home. For one thing, strange noises in the middle of the night hint at a mysterious presence. For another, she begins to hear stories about the land beneath the house. When strange forces attack both Polly and her son, she realizes she has to escape, but she finds instead that Crowford Rise isn’t quite so willing to let anyone go. What really happened when the new houses were built?
Check out:
(The Ghosts of Crowford Mysteries)
Riding Out the Race
by Hilary Walker
Rating: 5.0 #ad
A crazy horse. A disabled jockey. And a priest who won’t give up on either of them.
Laura is looking forward to a quiet Christmas with her family and Father Michael.
But a crazy new horse on the farm has other ideas. Once again, the equines at Harpers’ Reunion threaten to take husband Jack’s attention away from his human family. Laura is incensed. Their daughter is about to be born any day now and he should be playing it safe instead of messing with the gelding he’s dubbed Loco!
However, Jack doesn’t get off lightly with Father Michael around. Before he knows it, the priest has thrust a disabled ex-jockey onto the tall trainer and seems to expect miracles. How can Jack use the horses on his farm to help a young man who loathes them?
DIEGO THE SMELLY DOG
by A.G. Russo
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Ava is a feisty little girl who loves dogs and likes bandaids. One day a large old dog follows Ava and Gramps home. Ava’s mom won’t let her have a pet so she can’t keep him. But she does name him Diego. He is smelly. They take him to the rescue shelter the next day but Ava and Gramps visit him there every week. Who will give Diego a home? A heartwarming adoption story of unconditional love.
Saturday’s Mystery eBooks
The Wedding Plot
by Paula Munier
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Love never dies a natural death…
When Mercy’s grandmother Patience marries her longtime beau Claude Renault at the five-star Lady’s Slipper Inn, it promises to be the destination wedding of the year. Just as the four-day extravaganza is due to begin, the inn’s spa director Bodhi St. George disappears—and Mercy’s mother Grace sends Mercy and Elvis to find him. But what they discover instead is a stranger skewered by a pitchfork in the barn on the goat farm where St. George lived.
Check out:
(A Mercy Carr Mysteries)
One Fine Mess
by Mark Petersen
Rating: 3.7 #ad
It’s time to show some ovaries. All Jules Nichols wants is to off her abusive hubby. But once he’s dead, mobsters and drug dealers are popping out of the woodwork, the staties are suspicious, and her wacko sister won’t go away. There’s also that darn head in a box.
Who could’ve known it’d be so hard to commit one little murder?
The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries
by Otto Penzler
Rating: 4.5 #ad
This collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.
Included are puzzles by Mary Higgins Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Ngaio Marsh; uncanny tales in the tradition of A Christmas Carol by Peter Lovesey and Max Allan Collins; O. Henry-like stories by Stanley Ellin and Joseph Shearing, stories by pulp icons John D. MacDonald and Damon Runyon; comic gems from Donald E. Westlake and John Mortimer; and many, many more. Almost any kind of mystery you’re in the mood for–suspense, pure detection, humor, cozy, private eye, or police procedural – can be found in these pages.
Dark Objects
by Simon Toyne
Rating: 4.3 #ad
How do you catch a killer if the victim doesn’t exist?
A glamorous woman is murdered in her ultra-luxurious London mansion and her husband goes missing. But according to public records, neither of them exists.
The only leads police have are several objects arranged around the woman’s body, including a set of keys and a book called How to Process a Murder by Laughton Rees—a book that appears to have helped the killer forensically cleanse the crime scene.
Unsigned Card Murder
by Stephanie Parker McKean
Rating: 4.3 #ad
It’s a hoot-and-a-half when Rik Patience – who has no patience – sets out to discover why a “hot” guy at her church refuses to sign the pastor’s birthday card and ends up as a suspect in a murder investigation.
Rik engages the over-sixties members of the Closure Club book reading and mystery-solving group – who refuse to let the grey streaks in their hair define them – in her quest to answer the question – why does her secret heartthrob refuse to sign anything? Is he in witness protection, or is he a criminal?
Before Rik solves that mystery, she finds a body behind his house; is tackled by a ‘black bear’; is accused of poisoning an obnoxious woman who attends her church; and is threatened with the confiscation of her wild animal rescues – a fox, raccoon, jaguarondi, squirrel, and raven.
The Council of Twelve
by Oliver Pötzsch
Rating: 4.3 #ad
The year is 1672. Hangman Jakob Kuisl and his family travel to Munich, the cosmopolitan heart of Bavaria, for a meeting of the prestigious Council of Twelve, the leaders of the empire’s hangmen’s guild – prestigious for dishonorable hangmen, at least. But something dark is happening behind the scenes: in the past weeks, young women have begun turning up dead. At first, the authorities assume they are a rash of suicides, but when Kuisl notices that each woman possesses a matching amulet, suspicions arise that someone is murdering them. With no suspects, the superstitious townsfolk of Munich blame the hangmen’s guild, certain that they have called the devil upon the city.
Check out:
(A Hangman’s Daughter Tale Mysteries)
The Brave New World Collection
by Aldous Huxley
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Aldous Huxley’s dystopian classic about a perfectly engineered society, and his book of essays reflecting on it almost three decades later, in one volume.
This book includes: Brave New World; Brave New World Revisited
“Huxley uses his erudite knowledge of human relations to compare our actual world with his prophetic fantasy of 1931. It is a frightening experience, indeed, to discover how much of his satirical prediction of a distant future became reality in so short a time.” – New York Times Book Review
The World That We Knew
by Alice Hoffman
Rating: 4.5 #ad
At the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. Her desperation leads her to Ettie, the daughter of a rabbi whose years spent eavesdropping on her father enables her to create a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Hanni’s daughter, Lea. Once Ava is brought to life, she and Lea and Ettie become eternally entwined, their paths fated to cross, their fortunes linked.
What does it mean to lose your mother? How much can one person sacrifice for love?