Mysteries
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Bacon, Bodyguards, and Ballistics
by Karen McSpade
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Reeling with excitement over the opening of a private investigation agency and her budding romance with the sheriff, Piper Sandstone can’t wait to launch her dream career and return to a somewhat normal life. But danger lurks on the horizon—the dirty cops back in Chicago still want her dead. Even if it means putting the people she loves in jeopardy to find her. They are ruthless and on the hunt; no price is too steep for her head.
But Piper’s already in a predicament of prodigious proportions when an art heist at the Bancroft Estates leaves a bodyguard dead… and she and her crime-fighting gal pals are at the center of the crime scene.
Old Scores
by A.J. Harrison
Rating: 4.4 #ad
It takes only a brief mischance and a few drops of blood to awaken an unspeakable evil and unleash it upon an unsuspecting world.
The vampire Simon has always prided himself on his detachment from humankind, but curiosity draws him to them nonetheless. A chance encounter with mortal Anita Rothard entices them both too much to ignore, but as the two grow closer and Simon finds his secret harder to keep, they are caught in the middle of a centuries-old blood feud between Shafax, the power-mad King of Vampires, and Simon’s estranged mentor, the enigmatic vampire Salem.
Checkmate to Murder
by E.C.R. Lorac
Rating: 4.3 #ad
On a dismally foggy night in Hampstead, London, a curious party has gathered in an artist’s studio to weather the wartime blackout.
As World War II takes its toll around them, a civil servant and a government scientist are matching wits in a game of chess, while an artist paints the portrait of his characterful sitter, bedecked in Cardinal’s robes at the other end of the room. In the kitchen, the artist’s sister is hosting the charlady of the miser next door.
The Wolves Come at Night
by J.T. Ellison
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A detective on the brink. An assassin out for revenge. A desperate mother racing against the clock.
While the high-profile murder of a young country singer turns Nashville inside out, danger lurks in the woods beyond the city’s border. There was a witness to the terrible crime, a college student who stumbled onto the scene. When the girl goes missing, the police don’t know if she’s run for cover or been taken…or if something more sinister is happening.
The truth will shatter Taylor’s career and bring her face to face with a deadly assassin who wants nothing more than to finish what they started.
Pilgrim
by Mitchell Lüthi
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Set in 12th-century Jerusalem, Pilgrim follows the treacherous journey of a German knight and his companions as they return home after seven arduous years battling for God in the Holy Land. Within this sprawling tale lies a tapestry of medieval horror, intertwining history and folklore, encompassing both a metaphysical and literal odyssey.
Inspired by a rich blend of Arabic, Christian, and pre-Islamic traditions, Pilgrim delivers a pulse-pounding story of action, adventure, and bone-chilling horror.
Bet On Jack
by Diane Capri
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Brand New Release from Diane Capri USA Today and New York Times Bestselling, Award Winning Series! The next gripping Hunt for Jack Reacher Thriller from Diane Capri!
“Make some coffee. You’ll read all night.” Lee Child
Four military veterans are dead. One was under Jack Reacher’s protection. Were they murdered?
One Gold Star wife implores the Army to help find her husband’s killer. A request Jake Reacher’s CO can’t refuse. The unraveling begins and every answer Jake and FBI Special Agent Kim Otto find spawns more shocking questions. With few allies and too many enemies, they slam into a terrifying conspiracy.
Ruthless men with everything to gain. And one woman with nothing to lose.
Waking Kylie
by Alafair Burke
Rating: 3.8 #ad
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Ex comes a new e-short featuring an excerpt from her forthcoming novel, The Wife.
After losing a criminal case, a prosecutor asks herself how far she’s willing to go to protect the young girl whose future hangs in the balance . . .
The Case of the Careless Kitten
by Erle Stanley Gardner
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Helen Kendal’s woes begin when she receives a phone call from her vanished uncle Franklin, long presumed dead, who urges her to contact criminal defense attorney Perry Mason; soon after, she finds herself the main suspect in the murder of an unfamiliar man. Her kitten has just survived a poisoning attempt, as has her aunt Matilda, the woman who always maintained that Franklin was alive.
Lucky that Helen took her uncle’s advice―Mason immediately takes her as a client. But while it’s clear that the occurrences are connected, and that their connection will prove her innocence, the links are too obscure to be recognized even by the attorney’s brilliantly deductive mind…
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
Gavels, Tinsel and Murder
by Victoria Tait
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A charity ball. A dead guest. Can an amateur sleuth solve the case or will it ruin Christmas for ever?
Aspiring antiques expert, Dotty Sayers, is excited about organising a ball in a Cotswold country house. When a lecture on modern art leads to a kiss under the mistletoe she thinks all her Christmases have come at once. But her festive cheer turns sour when a partygoer is found dead on the dance floor.
The police ask Dotty to help wrap up the case of a stolen painting, but as the search continues she becomes entangled in the murder investigation. When this amateur detective realises the culprit could be a close friend, will she face the Yuletide music?
Check out:
(A Dotty Sayers Antique Mysteries)
Bright Eternity
by Daniel Zeigler
Rating: 4.7 #ad
What if you could cheat death? How much would you pay for fifty more years of life? How much would you pay for eternity?
NewEden Life Sciences promises that its revolutionary scientific breakthroughs can add decades of prime years to its clients’ lifespans. What’s more, their research team is relentlessly pursuing an even bigger goal—redesigning the human species to conquer death forever. Clients who have graduated from the NewEden program are ecstatic, but their families are worried about changes they see in their loved ones.
Enter Carmen Norrell, a gutsy journalist and nature photographer who decides to infiltrate the program and uncover its secrets. Carmen has never backed down from a challenge, but she fears that NewEden’s charismatic leaders may present a different kind of danger than she’s ever faced before.
Check out:
(The Brightness Trilogy)
Vendetta
by Iris Johansen
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Blockbuster bestselling author Iris Johansen brings back fan favorite Catherine Ling—and introduces readers to a whole new world of danger, intrigue, and red-hot passion with Vendetta.
With his dying breath, Carl Venable, head of the CIA task force on terrorism and Jude Brandon’s final link to terrorist ringleader Max Huber, gives Brandon a mandate: keep his daughter, Rachel, safe at any cost. But Rachel Venable has a shocking, twisted past of her own, one that comes rushing back after her medical clinic in Guyana is attacked by Huber—the same man who murdered her father and kept her imprisoned for months.
Brandon and Catherine Ling, Rachel’s longtime ally and fierce protector, are determined to keep Rachel out of danger, but she knows that it’s impossible to stay hidden when Max Huber wants you dead.
Cape Grace
by Nathan Lowell
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Son of the shaman is a shaman. But what of the daughters?
When Otto Krugg’s daughter follows in his footsteps,, he’s faced with the task of changing a century long rule that will force her to make decisions no one should have to make.
When Jimmy Pirano gets tasked with enforcing that rule – no matter what – he goes down the rabbit hole to try to find out who established the rule. And why they can’t let it go.
Live to Tell
by Lisa Gardner
Rating: 4.5 #ad
He knows everything about you—including the first place you’ll hide.
On a warm summer night in one of Boston’s working-class neighborhoods, an unthinkable crime has been committed: Four members of a family have been brutally murdered. The father—and possible suspect—now lies clinging to life in the ICU. Murder-suicide? Or something worse? Veteran police detective D. D. Warren is certain of only one thing: There’s more to this case than meets the eye.
The Secret Family
by SL Harker
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Peter’s world shatters when his beloved wife, Stella, is ripped away from him in a sudden hiking accident. But while he navigates the treacherous landscape of grief, a stranger, Andrew, appears on his doorstep claiming to be Stella’s husband.
Which isn’t possible because he, Stella, and their teenage daughter Katy are the perfect family. Unless it was all a lie. Peter’s worst fears come true as he discovers that Stella had a secret life… a secret family. Including a son, Theo. How is this possible?
A Death in California
by Joan Barthel
Rating: 3.9 #ad
A troubled Los Angeles socialite is both terrorized and tempted by a killer in this “brilliantly written” true story by the author of A Death in Canaan (Ann Rule).
Hope Masters lived in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Beverly Hills—but was entitled to food stamps. Pretty, petite, and privileged, she was recovering from two failed marriages and a string of poor decisions. But when Hope met and fell in love with a handsome advertising executive, she believed her life was finally back on track—until the morning she woke up to find the barrel of a gun in her mouth.
Hope’s fiancé lay dead in the next room. His killer was a new acquaintance who’d been visiting the couple in a remote ranch in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. He claimed to be a journalist, but his real identity was as mysterious as his motivations…
The Wintringham Mystery
by Anthony Berkeley
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Originally serialized in 1926, this classic English countryside mystery contains a puzzle that even acclaimed crime author Agatha Christie couldn’t solve.
A secluded country manor in the dead of winter seems like the perfect place to hold a house party. Even better, one of the guests declares that an after-dinner séance would be so much more entertaining than bridge. And it’s all fun and games until a young woman goes missing. Assuming the disappearance is someone’s idea of a joke, the well-heeled host Lady Susan doesn’t want to ruin a good party by calling the police. So it’s up to her footman, a down-on-his-luck young army veteran, along with the lovely lady he once hoped to marry, to solve a mystery that soon turns to murder, with the only suspects being the eccentric party guests . . .
Resurrection Walk
by Michael Connelly
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Brand New Release
Defense attorney Mickey Haller is back, taking the long shot cases, where the chances of winning are one in a million. After getting a wrongfully convicted man out of prison, he is inundated with pleas from incarcerated people claiming innocence. He enlists his half brother, retired LAPD Detective Harry Bosch, to weed through the letters, knowing most claims will be false.
Bosch pulls a needle from the haystack: a woman in prison for killing her husband, a sheriff’s deputy, but who still maintains her innocence. Bosch reviews the case and sees elements that don’t add up, and a sheriff’s department intent on bringing quick justice in the killing of one of its own.
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
Murder at an Irish Castle
by Ellie Brannigan
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Fans of Hannah Dennison and Carlene O’Connor’s mysteries are in for a treat with Ellie Brannigan’s captivating debut cozy mystery, complete with a sharp and endearing protagonist.
Rodeo Drive bridalwear designer Rayne McGrath expected her thirtieth birthday to start with a power lunch and end with champagne, lobster, and a diamond engagement ring from her fiancé. Instead, flat-broke and busted, she’s on a plane to Ireland where she discovers that she’s inherited a run-down family castle. Uncle Nevin’s will contains a few caveats—for example, if Rayne doesn’t turn McGrath Castle around within a year, the entire village will be financially destroyed.
Backrush
by Jana DeLeon
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A new women’s fiction/romantic suspense series by NYT bestselling author Jana DeLeon.
The sea heals all things.
Tempest Island has weathered the worst of storms and still stands proud, providing its residents with the healing power of the sea and sun. When Alayna Scott’s life falls spectacularly apart, both professionally and personally, the executive chef’s only thought is getting back home to the island and her aunt Bea. Between the two, she hopes to put the past behind her and figure out how to move forward.
Check out:
(A Tempest Island Mysteries)
Fatal Complications
by John Benedict
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Anyone Can Put You to Sleep—It’s the One Who Wakes You Up That’s Important
When a colleague’s patient suffers a bizarre reaction in the operating room, Luke Daulton, a newly minted anesthesiologist, volunteers to help. Despite the surgical team’s best efforts, the patient succumbs to a rare anesthetic complication. Luke becomes perplexed, even suspicious, over their inability to save the woman. Is it possible that the diagnosis was wrong? Or, worse yet, was the diagnosis faked? Luke even wonders if his boss Dr. Katz is involved.
Olympic Mountain Pursuit
by Jodie Bailey
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Can this K-9 get a child to safety?
Four years ago, former US Marshal Jackson Dean left his job after falling for a witness—who’s suddenly the target of an assassin. Now it’s up to Jackson and his K-9 partner to protect single mom Everly Lopez and her young daughter when Everly’s identity is blown. But with hired killers looking for a payday, Jackson must use all his resources to stop them from silencing Everly permanently.
A Three Book Problem
by Vicki Delany
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Sherlockian bookshop manager and frequent amateur sleuth Gemma Doyle is back on the case when a poisoned dart ends in demise . . .
It’s a crisp, early October weekend, and business is slowing down as fall descends at the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium and adjacent Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room. Wealthy philanthropist and prominent Sherlockian David Masterson has rented Suffolk Gardens House, where he plans to entertain his friends in a traditional English country house weekend.
The Mimosa Tree Mystery
by Ovidia Yu
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Mirza, a secretive neighbour of the Chens in Japanese Occupied Singapore, is a known collaborator and blackmailer. So when he is murdered in his garden, clutching a branch of mimosa, the suspects include local acquaintances, Japanese officials — and his own daughters.
Su Lin’s Uncle Chen is among those rounded up by the Japanese as reprisal. Hideki Tagawa, a former spy expelled by police officer Le Froy and a power in the new regime, offers Su Lin her uncle’s life in exchange for using her fluency in languages and knowledge of locals to find the real killer.
The Grave Tender
by Eliza Maxwell
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A chilling psychological suspense novel, The Grave Tender explores the dark boundaries people cross to save loved ones, and the limits of family bonds tested by the deepest of betrayals.
Endless questions from a shadow-filled East Texas childhood haunt Hadley Dixon. People said her mother, Winnie, was never quite right, but with one single, irreparable act, life as Hadley knew it was shattered. The aftershocks of that moonlit night left her reeling, but the secrets and lies had started long before.
The Nurses
by Dennis Higgins
Rating: 5.0 #ad
A third-year nursing student, Emma Wilson was excellent in her field. Working rotations in the Chicago Southside hospital, she became fascinated with eight student nurses of the past whose black and white photos were on display in the hospital’s cafeteria. She cared too much for her patients, however, and passion overtook her when she lost one of them. As tears and distress overwhelmed her emotions, she gazed at the photos on the wall and lost consciousness. When she came to, she was looking up at the faces of two of the nurses from the wall. She had somehow entered the body of a beautiful nursing student named Joanne Walsh back in 1966.
Reactions and Solutions
by Dr. Ilana Fried
Rating: 4.6 #ad
An exciting journey from acids and bases to aspirin and bananas.
How much do you actually know about the scientific processes behind everyday things like cooking, cleaning, and taking medication?
For example, do you know why water expands when it freezes instead of decreasing in volume like all other materials? Or that monosodium glutamate (MSG) is no more harmful to your health than any other seasoning?
So many of the choices we make daily are influenced by popular opinion or unfounded trends. It’s time to take knowledge into your own hands and acquire the information that will allow you to lead a safe and healthy life.
Shaman
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Rating: 4.2 #ad
There is Thorn, a shaman himself. He lives to pass down his wisdom and his stories — to teach those who would follow in his footsteps.
There is Heather, the healer who, in many ways, holds the clan together. There is Elga, an outsider and the bringer of change. And then there is Loon, the next shaman, who is determined to find his own path. But in a world so treacherous, that journey is never simple — and where it may lead is never certain.
Shaman is a powerful, thrilling and heartbreaking story of one young man’s journey into adulthood — and an awe-inspiring vision of how we lived thirty thousand years ago.
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
Murder at the Pumpkin Patch
by London Lovett
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Sunni Taylor’s sisters, through their power of sisterly persuasion, have convinced her to host a Halloween costume party at Cider Ridge Inn. She’s a little reluctant about the whole event and rightly worried about the actual ghost, who will, no doubt, be in attendance, but she decides to just relax and enjoy it. Of course, you can’t have a spooky Halloween party without toothy-grinned jack-o’-lanterns.
Sunni talks Jackson into spending their day off at a local pumpkin patch. The Riggle Family Farm is famous for its sprawling pumpkin patch and mind-boggling corn maize…
Kingdom of Darkness Box Set
by Mark Goodwin
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Accused of domestic terrorism, Emilio Vega was on his way to death row when the mega-quake hit. The streets beneath his transport vehicle buckled, tossing the van in the air like a toy. He survived the crash, but the world is now in ruins. However, for a condemned man, this disaster may be just the lucky break he needed. Emilio has been left behind!
Can Emilio and Mackenzie survive the gauntlet of destruction known as the Great Tribulation?
THE MARLOW MURDERS
by BIBA PEARCE
Rating: 4.6 #ad
FULL OF TWISTS AND TURNS, A HEARTSTOPPING MYSTERY FROM YOUR NEW CRIME FICTION OBSESSION: BIBA PEARCE.
Debby Morris, mother of two, goes to a Christmas party at historic Hollyhock Manor in Marlow, and never comes home.
A MISSING MOTHER. Her phone, handbag and Santa’s elf hat are found in a park near the River Thames. The police issue a nationwide search, but Debby is nowhere to be found.
Three weeks later, Debby’s body, still in her elf costume, is discovered five miles downstream from where she disappeared.
A DETECTIVE ON THE BRINK.
Check out:
(Detective Rob Miller Mysteries)
Abandon
by Blake Crouch
Rating: 4.0 #ad
A century-old mystery – and a desperate battle to survive – unfold in this standalone thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter and Recursion.
On Christmas Day in 1893, every man, woman, and child in a remote mining town disappeared, belongings forsaken, meals left to freeze in vacant cabins, and not a single bone found.
Now, journalist Abigail Foster and her historian father have set out to explore the long-abandoned town and learn what happened. With them are two backcountry guides—along with a psychic and a paranormal photographer who are there to investigate rumors that the town is haunted.
The Magic Mountain
by Thomas Mann
Rating: 4.6 #ad
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • A monumental work of erudition and irony, sexual tension and intellectual ferment, The Magic Mountain is an enduring classic.
With this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Thomas Mann rose to the front ranks of the great modern novelists, winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. The Magic Mountain takes place in an exclusive tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps–a community devoted to sickness that serves as a fictional microcosm for Europe in the days before the First World War.
To this hermetic and otherworldly realm comes Hans Castorp, an “ordinary young man” who arrives for a short visit and ends up staying for seven years, during which he succumbs both to the lure of eros and to the intoxication of ideas.
Royally Whacked
by P.C. James, Kathryn Mykel
Rating: 4.5 #ad
From best-selling author P.C. James and Kathryn Mykel–author of award-winning Sewing Suspicion & Quilting Calamity.
A Duchess, her trusted butler, and a nose-it-all furry sidekick.
London, 1959. Lady Mary, Duchess of Snodsbury has received an invitation to an English countryside estate for a week of summer events—a gorgeous garden tea party and a couples tennis game, what could possibly go wrong?
Will the three debutants prove their new sleuthing skills are helpful in serving up a murderer, or will Lady Mary find out that they’ve met their match?
Santa Cruise
by Fern Michaels
Rating: 4.3 #ad
At Ridgewood High, Amy, Frankie, Rachael, and Nina formed a deep bond. Now, fifteen years after leaving school behind, they’re back for a reunion, laughing, reminiscing, and chatting about how much has changed—and how much hasn’t. All four are strong, successful, and somehow, still looking for the right partner. But Frankie has an idea to help solve that: a singles cruise for the holidays.
In late December, the four friends gather in Miami, ready to board their state-of-the-art cruise ship. The entertainment options are endless, the food is to die for, and the passenger list includes hundreds of eligible men.
Ranger Faith
by Lynn Shannon
Rating: 4.7 #ad
It’s a deadly holiday season…
Last Christmas, profiler Emilia Sanchez barely escaped the clutches of a serial killer. All she wants is to forget the incident and move on with her life, especially since the murderer is dead. But when she receives a poinsettia along with a threatening message, it triggers Emilia’s worst fears—that she’s not safe after all.
Texas Ranger Bennett Knox has steered clear of Emilia since the day he rescued her from a killer. The beautiful profiler is smart and brave, but Bennett knows his presence brings back painful memories. The case has always haunted him too. He had concerns with the way the investigation ended.
Imperfect Angel
by Christi Barth
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Three days ago, all Maisy Norgate had was a stack of bills, about a gazillion jobs, and her sunny-as-hell outlook. Now, thanks to an uncle she never knew about, she’s inherited an ornate skeleton key with absolutely no idea what it’s for—or why she has it. Which is exactly when a ridiculously handsome guy claiming to be an angel shows up at her door and all hell breaks loose…
Nephilim Rhys Boyce cannot believe that Maisy is the new Keeper of the Key. Why would anyone bequeath this warm, bubbly redhead the key to Hell? And to make matters worse, she’s given the key to the first person who asked for it. A demon. Yep, Maisy is determined to make his job—not to mention some seriously inconvenient temptation—as hard as possible.
Check out:
(Hell of an Angel)
That Time I Died
by Naomi Peled Schneider
Rating: 4.7 #ad
When healthy, athletic, 18-year-old Yair finds himself bedridden in a hospital room and is informed that he is paralyzed from the neck down and may never walk again, his whole life shatters around him. While his family and friends believe it to be the result of a terrible accident, could the truth reveal a premeditated act?
Alone, confined to his bed, Yair finds refuge in the most unexpected place. Soon, the only thing keeping him going is the one-on-one conversations he begins having with God.
When Yair fails to wake up from his last surgery, he is left suspended between two worlds – our world and the beyond. With time running short, he realizes his death is quickly approaching.