Saturday’s Mystery eBooks
Manuscript for Murder
by David Osterhout, Barbara Villemez
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.6 #ad
John Hernandez, the youngest detective on the force, catches a murder case and finds a familiar and beautiful woman at the crime scene. The victim, lying in a pool of blood on the patio in his manicured garden, is the playboy president of the local writers’ group. Not twenty minutes prior, the house is filled with a dozen people, all quirky, aspiring authors, and now, each a suspect. Becky, the woman who discovered the body, feels compelled to help find the killer and uses her considerable computer skills to aid the detective in his investigation. When clues and hard facts don’t add up, Becky must rely on her intuition.
One Perfect Lie
by Lisa Scottoline
Kindle $2.99 Rating: 4.2 #ad
On paper, Chris Brennan looks perfect. He’s applying for a job as a high school government teacher, he’s ready to step in as an assistant baseball coach, and his references are impeccable. But everything about Chris Brennan is a lie.
Susan Sematov is proud of her son Raz, a high school pitcher so athletically talented that he’s being recruited for a full-ride scholarship to a Division I college, with a future in major-league baseball. But Raz’s father died only a few months ago, leaving her son in a vulnerable place where any new father figure might influence him for good, or evil.
Beastly Things
by Donna Leon
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.5 #ad
When the body of man is found in a canal, damaged by the tides, carrying no wallet, and wearing only one shoe, Guido Brunetti has little to work with. No local has filed a missing-person report, and no hotel guests have disappeared.
The autopsy shows he had suffered from a rare, disfiguring disease. A shopkeeper tells Brunetti that the man had a kindly way with animals. Finally, the victim is identified as a much-loved veterinarian—and Brunetti’s quest to find the killer will take him on a harrowing journey . . .
The Dirty Duck
by Martha Grimes
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.3 #ad
A killer targets Shakespeare-loving tourists in the New York Times–bestselling mystery series full of “vivacity, charm, and wit” (Kirkus Reviews).
The Dirty Duck is a pub in Shakespeare’s beloved Stratford-on-Avon, and it’s here that Miss Gwendolyn Bracegirdle of Sarasota, Florida—fresh from a performance of As You Like It—takes her last drink. Mere minutes later she is slashed ear to ear. The only clue to this baffling and brutal murder is a pair of lines from an unknown poem printed across a theater program.
Lapidius
by Matthew Runals
Kindle $2.99 Rating: 4.5 #ad
Thirteen-year-old Joey is in trouble. His mother can hardly feed him, which-because of his small size-is saying a lot. As war moves closer to their little town, his mother’s options for more work are a big fat zero. Desperate, she sends him to a place where he won’t starve, Lapidius. Soon after arriving, however, Joey learns that he and the hundreds of other children aren’t just charity cases. Lapidius is a prestigious military institute that develops specialized skills for combat.
But Lapidius is also a mysterious place where Joey learns that the battle for which they are being trained for is full of magic, malevolence, and monsters. The new students discover a nation found worthy to fight for.
DIGITAL ASSASSINS II
by Danielle Spencer
Kindle $2.99 Rating: 5.0 #ad
Danielle Spencer’s attempts to use the judicial system to uphold the rule of law by shining a light on those individuals using federal government resources to digitally assassinate her. Using fictional characters and conversations, this story exposes the alliances made by federal judges, government executives and well-funded special interest groups to protect wrong doers. These alliances were made to ensure that corrupt and unethical people remain in positions of power in America’s premier tax collection agency, ensuring that the tax code is not implemented fairly. Using concepts such sovereign immunity and national security, the government can use tactics such as privacy violations, illegal monitoring and surveillance, misuse of government records, and violation of trusted agreements with third-party institutions without fear of reprisal.
Stinger
by Robert McCammon
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.3 #ad
The West Texas desert towns of Inferno and Bordertown have been slowly dying. The Snake River isn’t the only thing that divides them. Racism and gang wars have turned the sun-scorched flatlands into a powder keg. If anything can unite them now, it’s the UFO that comes crashing through the clouds.
It brings with it a young alien named Daufin, a fugitive who has taken human form. She knows the terror that awaits this planet—because it’s looking for her. Stinger is an alien bounty hunter with an infinite capacity for death and a devious plan to find Daufin.
Dying for Mercy
by Mary Jane Clark
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.4 #ad
The recently renovated Pentimento, located in New York’s moneyed enclave of Tuxedo Park, is no ordinary estate. Strange secrets have been ingeniously built into its fountains, frescoes, statues, and architecture—clues to a bizarre mystery that is first brought to light when the owner commits suicide during a lavish gala.
Eliza Blake, co-anchor of the popular morning television show KEY to America, is present when the party is cut short by the host’s sudden, macabre death—and she’s the first to discover that Pentimento is a giant “puzzle house.”