Mysteries
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Code Red
by Ian Loome
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Bob is just another homeless guy. So why is he being hunted by a crack team of assassins? Bob Singleton used to be a top CIA assassin. Now, scarred by his terrible past, he lives in a refrigerator box behind a dumpster in downtown Chicago.
He just wants to be left alone. But his past is coming back to haunt him, in the shape of a nurse and a teenage boy who desperately need his help. They are being pursued by trained killers because they stumbled on a long-buried conspiracy, a secret that is tied to a failed mission in Bob’s military past.
Buried Ranch Secrets
by Lisa Childs
Rating: 4.5 #ad
The closer they get to the truth The deadlier it becomes…
When a body is found on his family ranch, single dad Cody Shepard will do anything to help find the murderer, even work with FBI agent Bethany Snow, the woman who broke his heart. But the shocking identity of the victim reveals painful secrets about Cody’s past and sets off a deadly chain of discoveries…and a new threat.
Never Turn Back
by Christopher Swann
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Linwood Barclay meets Michael Farris Smith in this Southern-set domestic thriller about family, vengeance, and atonement from critically acclaimed Southern mystery novelist Christopher Swann.
The bonds of family never truly let go. In fact, its grip only tightens the further you try to run: crushing and crippling.
Ethan Faulkner is a precocious child with a brilliant but troublesome sister, a war vet for a father, and a weary mother trying to manage their family. One night a young woman rings their doorbell, desperate to hide from two men who are pursuing her, when one of the two barges in after her. The struggle leaves both of Ethan’s parents dead.
The Harry Bosch Novels: Volume 2
by Michael Connelly
Rating: 4.6 #ad
The Last Coyote: LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch is suspended from the force for attacking his commanding officer. Unable to remain idle, he investigates the long-unsolved murder of a Hollywood prostitute. Trunk Music: Harry returns to the force to investigate the murder of a movie producer with Mafia ties. Up against both the LAPD’s organized crime unit and the mob, Harry follows the money trail to Las Vegas, where the case becomes personal. Angels Flight: The murder of a prominent African-American attorney who made his career suing the police for racism and brutality means that Harry’s friends and associates have become suspects; and he must work closely with longtime enemies suspicious of his maverick ways to investigate them.
The Root Witch
by Debra Castaneda
Rating: 4.2 #ad
A beautiful forest. A terrifying legend.
It’s 1986. Two strangers, hundreds of miles apart, grapple with disturbing incidents in a one-of-a-kind quaking aspen forest.
Knox is a new Forest Service ranger assigned to a vast, remote territory in Utah. Sandy is a producer fighting for her place in a tough TV newsroom. Both have heard about the shadowy figure believed to menace visitors to the forest. When a man disappears and reports of the Root Witch begin coming in, Knox and Sandy are plunged into a living nightmare.
The Pale Horse
by Agatha Christie
Rating: 4.4 #ad
In the classic mystery by Queen of Mystery Agatha Christie, an elderly priest is murdered, quite possibly doomed by a woman’s deathbed confession and by the secrets kept safely locked behind closed doors of a mysterious local pub.
When an elderly priest is murdered, the killer searches the victim so roughly that his already ragged cassock is torn in the process. What was the killer looking for? And what had a dying woman confided to the priest on her deathbed only hours earlier?
The Secret Place
by Tana French
Rating: 4.0 #ad
A year ago a boy was found murdered at a girlsʼ boarding school, and the case was never solved. Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to join Dublin’s Murder Squad when sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey arrives in his office with a photo of the boy with the caption: “I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.” Stephen joins with Detective Antoinette Conway to reopen the case—beneath the watchful eye of Holly’s father, fellow detective Frank Mackey.
The Jack Eldridge Story
by Dennis Higgins
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Retrofuturism is the past’s vision of the future. It’s what the people of yesterday thought today would look like.
The Chicago Cultural Center building was once the main branch of the Chicago Public Library. During major renovations, eight mysterious books were found behind a wall on the lower level. Nobody took much interest in the old books until they ended up on the desk of Dorothy Burnett, the Center’s main historian. She discovered that the books were written in the 1930s by an unfamiliar author named Jack Eldridge who penned detailed, retrofuturistic visions of what life would be like in the future. Most interesting were his last two volumes which predicted life in the year 2000 and beyond. Dorothy was so entranced with the books, she wished Jack Eldridge would step out of time and walk through her door. As fate would have it, Jack ended up in the 21st century to witness the world as it had really become.
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
A Pocket Full of Pie
by Leena Clover
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Meet Meera Patel – college dropout and soon to be amateur sleuth
Fall term is almost over and Thanksgiving is around the corner. Meera has been ordered to stop her tomfoolery and think about her future.
All good intentions are foiled when Meera runs into a dead man in the park. The local diner owners are implicated in the young rancher’s death. Meera and her grandma face off against the Patel men and insist on sticking by their friends.
Shame on You
by Amy Heydenrych
Rating: 3.9 #ad
SURELY WE ALL LIE A LITTLE BIT ONLINE . . . DON’T WE?
The gripping psychological thriller that explores the darker side of social media, perfect for fans of THE GIRL BEFORE and FRIEND REQUEST.
Have you ever wanted to reinvent yourself? Have you ever lied about who you are to get more likes? Have you ever followed someone online who you think is perfect?
Atlanta Extreme
by Randy Wayne White
Rating: 4.0 #ad
From the jungles of Belize to the streets of Atlanta, Hawker’s war rages on.
The CIA wants James Hawker dead. For years, his one-man campaign against organized crime has struck fear into America’s most corrupt politicians, and now they’re striking back. Hawker escaped the United States by the skin of his teeth, and has spent the last months living the life of a glamorous expatriate in Latin America: fast cars, lovely women, and all the champagne his Swiss bank account can buy him. For some men, it would be paradise. For Hawker, a life without action is a living hell.
Strange Weather: Four Short Novels
by Joe Hill
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A collection of four chilling novels, ingeniously wrought gems of terror from the brilliantly imaginative, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman, Joe Hill.
Snapshot
Loaded
Aloft
Rain
Steeped to Death
by Gretchen Rue
Rating: 4.7 #ad
For fans of Laura Childs and Amanda Flowers, it’s teatime in Raven Creek – but a murder at the The Earl’s Study sets the stage for an intoxicating brew of small-town chicanery with a hint of the supernatural.
Phoebe Winchester’s beloved aunt Eudora has a taste for adventure – and a knack for making magical tea. It’s even rumored that she just might be a witch. So when Eudora passes away and leaves everything to her niece – her Victorian mansion, her bookshop/tea store, The Earl’s Study, and one very chubby orange cat named Bob – Phoebe gets more than she bargained for. And she knows she’s in deep when a dead man is found on the shop’s back step, apparently killed while trying to break in.
Smoke Bellew
by Jack London
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A sweeping adventure saga in the tradition of White Fang and The Call of the Wild, bringing to vivid life the cold, bleak, unforgiving Alaskan wilderness and the colorful, desperately uncertain lives of both natives and intruders. On a lark, the novel’s hero, Christopher Bellew, a San Francisco newspaperman and dandy, sets off on what he believes will be a brief trek into the Klondike to cover the latest gold rush. The lark turns into a rough, raw adventure that transforms the young chekako (tenderfoot) into a tough, hardened survivor.
Spells for Forgetting
by Adrienne Young
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Emery Blackwood’s life changed forever the night her best friend was found dead and the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her. Years later, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence on the misty, remote shores of Saoirse Island and running the family’s business, Blackwood’s Tea Shoppe Herbal Tonics & Tea Leaf Readings. But when the island, rooted in folklore and magic, begins to show signs of strange happenings, Emery knows that something is coming. The morning she wakes to find that every single tree on Saoirse has turned color in a single night, August returns for the first time in fourteen years and unearths the past that the town has tried desperately to forget.
EMBRACE THE WIND
by Susan Denning
Rating: 4.4 #ad
What is the cost of living life on your own terms? For a young woman on the American Frontier, the price can be high. Aislynn Maher trusted the wrong man. To conceal her disgrace, she abandons her job, her home, her family and friends. She turns to the raw, contentious US marshal of the Wyoming Territory, Orrin Sage, who is hiding a guilty secret of his own. Setting out alone, Aislynn brings her optimism and determination to Cheyenne. But in this rough town, with its prejudice, violence and lawlessness, it’s not just difficult to do what you believe is right─ it’s potentially deadly.
THE WAITING HOUSE
by Lisette Brodey
Rating: 4.9 #ad
Once an opulent hotel for lovers of the Hollywood lifestyle, today the imposing building survives, somewhere, as an apartment house for those who wait. Not all know what they’re waiting for, but the residents live in flawed concert with those of undetermined existence, among relics of the past, as they wait for answers, for lost loved ones, and for purpose.
While the stories feature different characters, many of whom are recurring, each tale couples with its own unique reality … and is narrated by Conrad, the “grand master.”
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
The Falcon Always Wings Twice
by Donna Andrews
Rating: 4.7 #ad
When Meg’s grandmother Cordelia hosts a Renaissance Faire at her craft center, the whole family is put to work: Meg handles the blacksmithing, Michael and the boys will be performing, and no one misses the opportunity to dress up in full regalia.
More exciting to Grandfather is the pair of rare falcons he discovers breeding at the fairgrounds. Concerned for their well-being amid all the activity, he appoints himself their protector.
Dark Silence
by Mary Stone
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Silence is the most terrifying scream…
When the beloved minister of a small inner-city church is killed in a drive-by shooting while delivering sandwiches to the homeless, Savannah Homicide Detective Charli Cross is on the case. Who would want to kill a man who does so much good? And why?
More importantly…was the pastor targeted or chosen at random?
While Charli and her partner, Detective Matthew Church, attempt to answer those questions, another shooting occurs…and then another. Soon, the town is terrified, and rightfully so. With each death, nothing will calm its citizens except catching the so-called “Savannah sniper” before he strikes again.
The Devil’s Ransom
by Brad Taylor
Rating: 4.6 #ad
In the latest explosive thriller from New York Times bestselling author and former special forces officer Brad Taylor, Pike Logan races to stop an insidious attack orchestrated by a man who knows America’s most treasured secrets.
Conducting a routine cover development trip to Tajikistan, Pike and Jennifer learn that Afghanistan has fallen, and there’s a man on the run. One that has done more for the United States in Afghanistan than anyone else. Pulled in to extract him, Pike collides headlong into a broader mystery: His covert company, along with every other entity in the Taskforce, has been hit with a ransomware attack, and there’s some connection between the Taliban and the hack.
Vengefully Yours
by J Rose Black
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Destined to protect her. Forbidden to love her.
Immerse yourself in this collection of short stories filled with dark secrets, tormented pasts and forbidden desires. Where love still conquers all.
Join six heroes (and the heroines they pine for) on these fast-paced adventures of mystery and romance, longing and loyalty, vengeance and redemption. And get just a taste of how far a man will go to protect the one woman he can’t have…
Distant Thunder
by Stuart Woods
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Stone Barrington finds himself in hot water in this exhilarating adventure from the #1 New York Times bestselling author.
During an intense storm in Dark Harbor, Maine, a perplexing murder lands a dead man on Stone Barrington’s doorstep. As secrets swirl around this mystery man’s identity, Stone quickly sets out to unravel a web of cunning misdirections and lies.
Soon enough, he is embroiled in an elaborate game of cat and mouse between the CIA and nefarious foreign forces, including a bewitching new companion who comes under his protection.
Her Last Goodbye
by Rick Mofina
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Family ties run deep. Family secrets run deeper.
Perfect wife. Doting mom. Jennifer Griffin was loved by everyone, including the women in her suburban-neighborhood book club. Their meetings sometimes went late, but Jenn always came home.
Until that night. When Greg Griffin wakes to find his wife is not in bed, his blood runs cold. Her book club friends say Jenn left for home hours ago.
Silent Angel
by Helen Phifer
Rating: 4.5 #ad
The girl’s head is bent as if in prayer, her hands bound tightly together at the wrist. Her bare feet are still against the cold sand, the last thing she ever felt before she breathed her last…
When the body of a teenage girl is found in Rydal Falls’ churchyard, Detective Morgan Brookes abandons her own birthday to attend the scene. In the dim evening light, Morgan can just make out the girl wrapped in a pristine white sheet and is certain she’s been left here for them to find.
Transient Desires
by Donna Leon
Rating: 4.5 #ad
In his many years as a commissario, Guido Brunetti has seen all manner of crime and known intuitively how to navigate the various pathways in his native city, Venice, to discover the person responsible. In this novel in Silver Dagger Award-winning series, he faces a heinous crime committed outside his jurisdiction. He is drawn in innocently enough: two young American women have been badly injured in a boating accident, joyriding in the Laguna with two young Italians. But Brunetti’s curiosity is aroused by the men’s behavior. Why did they run off after bringing the victims to the hospital if the injuries were accidental?
Orbs of Wisdom
by Lindsay Buroker
Rating: 4.8 #ad
With his mother’s life at stake and the entire world threatened by powerful dragons, the sand in the hour glass is running out for Jak Freedar. He and his allies must find the ancient Orbs of Wisdom and hope they hold the solutions to the problems plaguing humanity and the dragons before it’s too late.
This is the final installment in the Dragon Gate saga!
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
The Cat Who Wasn’t a Dog
by Marian Babson
Rating: 4.3 #ad
A rescued cat is a clue to a killer’s identity in this cozy mystery by an “utterly entertaining” Agatha Award – winning author (Booklist).
Aging actress Dame Cecile Savoy is on the way to a Brighton taxidermist’s shop, accompanied by her friends Trixie and Evangeline – and her recently departed Pekingese. But when they arrive, they discover a dead body, a spreading fire, and a helpless Japanese bobtail cat in a cage.
After rescuing the endangered kitty, aka Cho-Cho-San, Trixie and Evangeline now have another heroic task to attempt: finding out who’s responsible, and what sort of person would bring a live cat to a place like that.
The Last Kingdom
by Steve Berry
Rating: 4.5 #ad
King Ludwig II of Bavaria was an enigmatic figure who was deposed in 1886, mysteriously drowning three days later. Eccentric to the point of madness, in the years before he died Ludwig engaged in a worldwide search for a new kingdom. One separate from Bavaria, a place he could retreat to and rule as he wished. But a question remains: Did he succeed?
Enter Cotton Malone. Luke Daniels, Malone’s Magellan Billet protégé, has managed to infiltrate a renegade group on the trail of a 19th century deed that proves Ludwig’s long-rumored search bore fruit.
Blood Feud
by Paul Heatley
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Tom Rollins never helps a bad guy. But this one is family.
Former black ops specialist Tom Rollins has saved his wayward brother Anthony more times than he can remember. So when his father calls to tell him Anthony is in deep trouble yet again, Tom decides that this time his brother can sort out his own mess.
But when his father decides to take on the rescue mission himself, Tom realises he has to step up. He travels to Chicago, where he finds Anthony is in way over his head.
The Uprising
by David K. MacDowell
Rating: 4.9 #ad
They said Stonecrusher casters lost their magic. They’re about to find out how wrong they are.
It’s been decades since bloodthirsty elves invaded the dwarven stronghold of Clan Stonecrusher and slaughtered all but twenty-eight females and two baby boys.
Waldorf, Mallick, and the other surviving Stonecrusher dwarves were rescued and offered refuge by their rivals, Clan Brackenbuell. But their salvation came at a heavy price.
After decades of indentured servitude, Waldorf and Mallick discover the truth.
Chief Oghark speaks of dwarven honor and tradition while demeaning the sacred teachings of Alghar the All-Father. A narcissist with a brutal temper, Oghark won’t abide anyone above him. Not even his god.
The Host
by Stephenie Meyer
Rating: 4.6 #ad
New Bonus Chapter and Reading Group Guide, including Stephenie Meyer’s Annotated Playlist for the book with linking to and back from text.
Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact. Wanderer, the invading “soul” who has been given Melanie’s body, didn’t expect to find its former tenant refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.
As Melanie fills Wanderer’s thoughts with visions of Jared, a human who still lives in hiding, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she’s never met.
The Cabinet of Dr. Leng
by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Rating: 4.5 #ad
AN INCREDIBLE JOURNEY Astoundingly, Constance has found a way back to the place of her origins: New York City in the late 1800s. She leaps at the chance to return…although it means leaving the present forever.
A DESPERATE OPPORTUNITY Constance sets off on a quest to prevent the events that lead to the deaths of her sister and brother. But along the road to redemption, Manhattan’s most infamous serial killer, Dr. Enoch Leng, lies in wait, ready to strike at the slightest provocation.
UNIMAGINABLE ODDS
The Forever Stone
by Gloria Repp
Rating: 4.6 #ad
The paperweight – a summons to courage . . . A new home, new love, new fears . . . and a mystery. How will she face the challenge? And what does God have in mind? ~ Madeleine, a young widow, is determined to break free from her paralyzing memories and controlling family. The paperweight, a gift from her father, spurs her to declare independence, and she joins her aunt’s house-restoration project in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Two men enter her life, bringing joy, conflict, and danger. She’ll need courage to fight the treachery she discovers, and faith to step into a new life of promise. Can she do it?
Wake Up and Say Yes!
by Julie Hoyle
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Are you tired of feeling disconnected from your higher self? Do you want to live true to your life purpose? Are you ready to live with greater awareness and intention?
If so, Wake Up and Say Yes, A Practical Guide to Lucid Living and Lucid Dreaming provides a step-by-step approach to developing mindfulness, honing your intuition, listening to the wisdom of your body when you are sick, honoring your emotions, and living a conscious, fulfilling life.