Monday’s Mystery eBooks
A Highland Christmas
by M. C. Beaton
Rating: 4.4 #ad
In the dark, wintry highlands of Lochdubh, Scotland, where the local Calvinist element resists the secular trimmings of Christmas, the spirit of Old St. Nick is about as welcome as a flat tire on a deserted road. Nor is crime taking a holiday, as Constable Hamish Macbeth soon finds himself protecting an unhappy girl, unlocking the secrets of a frightened old woman, and retrieving some stolen holiday goods. Now the lanky lawman must use all his Highland charm and detective skills to make things right.
The Knife Slipped
by Erle Stanley Gardner
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Lost for more than 75 years, The Knife Slipped was meant to be the second book in the series, but shelved when Gardner’s publisher objected to (among other things) Bertha Cool’s tendency to “talk tough, swear, smoke cigarettes, and try to gyp people.” But this tale of adultery and corruption, of double-crosses and triple identities—however shocking for 1939—shines today as a glorious present from the past, a return to the heyday of private eyes and shady dames, of powerful criminals, crooked cops, blazing dialogue, and delicious plot twists.
OFFENBUNKER
by A.G. Russo
Rating: 4.2 #ad
A top secret bunker deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A silo housing a ballistic missile.
Cold War super powers the United States and the Soviet Union are engaged in an intense “arms race” build up of nuclear weapons and face off for control as the fate of the free world hangs in the balance.
The CIA, U.S. military intelligence, spies, double agents, the KGB, Stasi secret police, and assassins engage in a dangerous contest of espionage as Russia wants to spread communism and take control of Europe, and the United States wants to stop them.
What is the personal cost to those who devote their lives to preventing nuclear war?
There Came Both Mist and Snow
by Michael Innes
Rating: 3.8 #ad
A Scotland Yard detective investigates when gunfire disrupts an aristocratic family’s Christmas celebrations in this classic British mystery.
The relatives of Sir Basil Roper are gathering to celebrate Christmas at the family’s ancestral home in Yorkshire. While the ancient estate has remained unchanged for centuries, the surrounding area now features neon signs, a textile mill, and a brewery…
Picasso’s Motorcycle
by Marc Sercomb
Rating: 4.4 #ad
France, 1940.
An unexpected gift of an old motorcycle with a tragically romantic past hurls a young orphan into the thick of things as war breaks out and his life changes forever. Half-French/half-German Daniel must find a way to survive in a world that mercy seems to have abandoned. This book transports the reader to Nazi-occupied France, where Daniel unwittingly and unexpectedly finds himself working for the Resistance, and ultimately to the Russian Front in a twist of fate so startling that no one can see it coming. In turn quirky, heartwarming, beguiling and uncompromising, author Marc Sercomb weaves together many moods and colors to tell young Daniel’s story. Beyond engaging, Picasso’s Motorcycle has been hailed as a genuine “page-turner” by those who have so far encountered it.
The Pantomime Murders
by Fiona Veitch Smith
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Someone is killing fairy godmothers in Cinderella… Can Miss Clara Vale crack the case before the clock strikes twelve?
1929, December: Snow is falling, and Miss Clara Vale is wrapped up against the cold as she braves the icy streets of Newcastle in her latest investigation.
When a young actress from the touring pantomime of Cinderella arrives at her door, Clara isn’t sure what to make of her request. Sybil Langford, the legendary fairy godmother in their production, has mysteriously vanished. Could Clara help track her down?
The Hollow Place
by Rick Mofina
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Book #2 THE HOLLOW PLACE: While driving to Canada with her boyfriend to start a new life, Samantha Moore, a college student from New York City, vanishes from a lonely, low-rent motel in Vermont.
Ray Wyatt, a veteran reporter grappling with the tragic loss of his wife and son, is assigned to delve into the mystery enveloping the young woman’s disappearance.
The Street
by Susi Holliday
Rating: 3.6 #ad
Their neighbours welcomed them with open arms. Now they’ve vanished without a trace.
Anna and Peter desperately need to escape London for a fresh start. And they’ve found just the place: a perfect house on a perfect street in a perfect new development on the Scottish coast. But before they’ve even unpacked, they discover that the community they’ve moved into might be keeping secrets of its own…
Eager to fit in, Anna and Peter spend their first evening with their new neighbours, a couple who turn up on their doorstep to welcome them with open arms.
The Eight Reindeer of the Apocalypse
by Tom Holt
Rating: 4.3 #ad
The team of commercial sorcerers at Dawson, Ahriman & Dawson can help with any metaphysical engineering project, large or small (though by definition they all tend to be pretty large).
They can also create massive great puddles of chaos that might one day swallow up the entire universe.
Take, for example, the decision to recruit a certain bearded fellow whose previous work experience mainly involves reindeer and jingle bells. It might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but is he really the best person to save the world from Tiamat the Destroyer, who has literally gone ballistic?