Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
Wicked Charms
by Janet Evanovich, Phoef Sutton
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Before he was murdered and mummified nearly a century ago, notorious bootlegger Collier “Peg Leg” Dazzle discovered and re-hid a famous pirate’s treasure somewhere along the coast of New England. A vast collection of gold and silver coins and precious gems, the bounty also contains the Stone of Avarice—the very item reluctant treasure seeker Lizzy Tucker and her partner, Diesel, have been enlisted to find. While Lizzy would just like to live a quiet, semi-normal life, Diesel is all about the hunt. And this hunt is going to require a genuine treasure map and a ship worthy of sailing the seven seas . . . or at least getting them from Salem Harbor to Maine.
Zombie Fungus
by Bryan Dean
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Abe thought he was ready for this. He’d watched the movies, read the books, and prepared accordingly. But when the monsters arrived, he realized Hollywood didn’t get all the facts right. Some of these zombies are not your father’s zombies — not even close.
Maybe it’s because the source isn’t a virus, but a fungus? Or that it was synthesized in a laboratory? But who would attempt something so dastardly? How many lives will be lost when humans manipulate what they should have left alone?
The Lake House
by James Patterson
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Six kids on the run must face a villain who threatens the future of human existence . . . but winning comes at a high price.
Six children have escaped horrifying government experiments, a childhood in captivity, and a frightening brush with death. Living out in the world for the first time, they yearn to be reunited with Kit and Frannie, the couple who saved their lives. And Max, the leader of the flock, is seized by an overpowering fear that the kids are about to face a danger greater than any they’ve ever known.
All that the children want is to return to the one place they have ever felt truly protected: the waterfront cabin known as the Lake House.
Newspaper Spring
by Jesse Storm
Rating: 4.6 #ad
John Biles wakes in the back of a strange family’s wagon, and his whole life is in ruin.
John’s family is riding their way to El Paso to establish a newspaper. His father is a newspaper man, and the rest of the family works in the print shop. Descended upon by a group of Indians who talk like white men, John’s family wagon is besieged, leaving his parents and sister dead.
Wounded, John is found by the Jensen family whose wagon is on its way to a massive piece of land they’ve inherited on the outskirts of Whistle Springs.
A Thin Dark Line
by Tami Hoag
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Terror stalks the streets of Bayou Breaux, Louisiana. A suspected murderer is free on a technicality, and the cop accused of planting evidence against him is ordered off the case. But Detective Nick Fourcade refuses to walk away. He’s stepped over the line before. This case threatens to push him over the edge.
He’s not the only one. Deputy Annie Broussard found the woman’s mutilated body. She still hears the phantom echoes of dying screams. She wants justice. But pursuing the investigation will mean forming an alliance with a man she doesn’t trust and making enemies of the men she works with. It will mean being drawn into the confidence of a killer.
The Light of Days
by Judy Batalion
Rating: 4.5 #ad
One of the most important stories of World War II, already optioned by Steven Spielberg for a major motion picture: a spectacular, searing history that brings to light the extraordinary accomplishments of brave Jewish women who became resistance fighters—a group of unknown heroes whose exploits have never been chronicled in full, until now.
Witnesses to the brutal murder of their families and neighbors and the violent destruction of their communities, a cadre of Jewish women in Poland—some still in their teens—helped transform the Jewish youth groups into resistance cells to fight the Nazis. With courage, guile, and nerves of steel, these “ghetto girls” paid off Gestapo guards, hid revolvers in loaves of bread and jars of marmalade, and helped build systems of underground bunkers.
King’s Ransom
by Ed McBain
Rating: 4.2 #ad
For a wealthy businessman, a kidnapping puts him in a predicament as troubling as any he has ever experienced. For Detective Steve Carella and the men at the 87th Precinct, their troubles are even worse. Their only hope is that he will play ball—at least long enough for them to catch the perps before the kidnapping turns into a homicide.
Ed McBain delivers another rapid-fire nail-biter in his 87th Precinct series with King’s Ransom, a morally complex weaving of friendship, personal responsibility, and the nature of man hailed by the Daily Mirror: “McBain spins the tightest tale in town…there’s nobody who does it better.