Mysteries
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
The Vatican Secret
by David Leadbeater
Rating: 4.2 #ad
You’ve cracked the Da Vinci code, now uncover the Vatican secret…
The deepest secrets are kept in the darkest places. When ex-MI5 operative Joe Mason is sent to Rome to guard an elderly professor and his daughter, he thinks he’s in for an easy ride.
But on their first day in the Vatican secret archives, a masked assassin gains entry, shoots Joe’s client in cold blood and steals an ancient manuscript. Giving chase, Joe can’t imagine what could lie within those pages that would make someone willing to kill.
The Knowledge
by Martha Grimes
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Robbie Parsons is one of London’s finest, a black cab driver who knows every street, every theater, every landmark in the city by heart. In his backseat is a man with a gun in his hand—a man who brazenly committed a crime in front of the Artemis Club, a rarefied art gallery-cum-casino, then jumped in and ordered Parsons to drive. As the criminal eventually escapes to Nairobi, Detective Superintendent Richard Jury comes across the case in the Saturday paper.
Two days previously, Jury had met and instantly connected with one of the victims of the crime, a professor of astrophysics at Columbia and an expert gambler. Feeling personally affronted, Jury soon enlists Melrose Plant, Marshall Trueblood, and his whole gang of merry characters to contend with a case that takes unexpected turns into Tanzanian gem mines…
The Resentment
by T. O. Paine
Rating: 3.8 #ad
Would you forgive your son’s kidnapper? Lauren Kaine has everything she ever wanted — a fabulous home, a shiny Lexus, a bright sixteen-year-old son, and a loving husband with a lucrative internet career. Tonight, she walks hand-in-hand with William beneath the lustrous Seattle sky, celebrating twenty-two years of marriage.
But they’re not alone. A mysterious black Audi comes out of nowhere and chases William onto a bridge. He shouts, “They’re here for the card,” and falls to his death. Enraged, Lauren attacks the car, but the tinted windows hide the driver’s face, and it speeds away.
Boy in the Box
by Marc E. Fitch
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Ten years ago a mysterious and tragic hunting accident deep in the Adirondack Mountains left a boy buried in a storied piece of land known as Coombs’ Gulch and four friends with a terrible secret.
Now, Jonathan Hollis and brothers Michael and Conner Braddick must return to the place that changed their lives forever in order to keep their secret buried. What they don’t realize is that they are walking into a trap – one set decades earlier by a supernatural being who is not confined by time or place: a demon that demands a sacrifice.
A Painted Goddess
by Victor Gischler
Rating: 4.4 #ad
When the gods go to war, who will stand against their divine fury?
In the thrilling conclusion to the A Fire Beneath the Skin trilogy, the enchanted kingdom of Helva faces a nightmarish future of endless bloodshed, and Rina Veraiin—a young warrior-duchess armed with mysterious, magical tattoos—must use her fantastic powers to save her home from eternal war.
As her far-flung friends scour Helva for additional tattoos to increase her formidable abilities, Rina reckons with an enigmatic death priest…the one whose contract grants her extraordinary magic but demands an awful price. When her debt comes due, can Rina make the ultimate sacrifice?
Defy The Stars
by Cathrina Constantine
Rating: 3.8 #ad
Circus grunt. Charmer. Fire wrangler
Growing up within the grind of the enchanted Circus Faire, Crew’s unique talents have blossomed. Though, he’s been warned that the King of Hawkswing is determined to eradicate a certain species, and for his own sake Crew must keep his formidable gifts under wraps.
Relations between interspecies caused an imbalance of power and now are strictly forbidden. Dolorans, like Sage and her sister, are being hunted and persecuted because of their intense powers, leaving them no choice but to run, escaping the genocide of their kind…
November Road
by Lou Berney
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Set against the assassination of JFK, a poignant and evocative crime novel that centers on a desperate cat-and-mouse chase across 1960s America—a story of unexpected connections, daring possibilities, and the hope of second chances from the Edgar Award-winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone.
Frank Guidry’s luck has finally run out.
A loyal street lieutenant to New Orleans’ mob boss Carlos Marcello, Guidry has learned that everybody is expendable. But now it’s his turn—he knows too much about the crime of the century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
Secret Sleuth Box Set
by Patricia McLinn
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Book 1: Death on the Diversion: Sheila Mackey has a secret. To the world, she’s author of a blockbuster book. Her wily great-aunt, the actual author, orchestrated this mutually beneficial masquerade. Now the aunt’s retiring and Sheila must draft Act Two of her own life. This cruise is supposed to be the perfect time to do that…
Book 2: Death on Torrid Avenue: Sheila turns her back on a Manhattan lifestyle and the publishing world that once defined her to put down roots near the Ohio River in North Bend County, Kentucky. Here, she finds a new life, a new home and a new love: Gracie, the rescue collie. Then Gracie discovers a body at the dog park, a ticklish situation for an amateur sleuth with a big secret of her own…
Unleashing Magic
by D. J. Dalton
Rating: 5.0 #ad
She changed the fate of the land. Can she survive the terrifying consequences?
Keren Stewart’s fight has just begun. With the elf that kidnapped her best friends still on the run, she devises a daring rescue. But they aren’t the only ones in need of saving. When a mysterious illness befalls her fire-breathing friends, she rebels against the elder sorcerer to fight for the dragon races’ very existence.
Embarking on a doomed adventure, she refuses to give up on family, friends, and the ailing hatchlings fighting for their lives. But with traitors on her team and deadly clifftop battles, Keren’s rescue quest feels destined for disaster.
Check out:
(Twisted Curse Series)
House of Skin
by Jonathan Janz
Rating: 4.2 #ad
“Fans of ghost stories like The Haunting of Hill House and Hell House will love this book.” – Horror Maiden
Myles Carver is dead. But his estate, Watermere, lives on, waiting for a new Carver to move in. Myles’s wife, Annabel, is dead too, but she is also waiting, lying in her grave in the woods. For nearly half a century she was responsible for a nightmarish reign of terror, and she’s not prepared to stop now. She is hungry to live again…and her unsuspecting nephew, Paul, will be the key…
The Prime Minister’s Secret Agent
by Susan Elia Macneal
Rating: 4.4 #ad
World War II rages on across Europe, but Maggie Hope has finally found a moment of rest on the pastoral coast of western Scotland. Home from an undercover mission in Berlin, she settles down to teach at her old spy training camp, and to heal from scars on both her body and heart. Yet instead of enjoying the quieter pace of life, Maggie is quickly drawn into another web of danger and intrigue. When three ballerinas fall strangely ill in Glasgow – including one of Maggie’s dearest friends – Maggie partners with MI-5 to uncover the truth behind their unusual symptoms. What she finds points to a series of poisonings that may expose shocking government secrets and put countless British lives at stake.
The Luck of Han’anga
by Thomas Watson
Rating: 4.3 #ad
An age of peaceful exploration has ended.
The centuries old dream of meeting an intelligent, nonhuman species has finally come true, in the form of the people known as the Leyra’an. But the dream soon becomes something darker when the Leyra’an prove to be more than just humanoid. They are like us to a degree that cannot be explained by chance alone. The search for the answer to this mystery will reveal a universe stranger and more dangerous than the crew of the probeship William Bartram could have imagined, and expose both Humanity and the Leyra’an to the threat of extinction.
Check out:
(War of the Second Iteration Mysteries)
Death on Gokumon Island
by Seishi Yokomizo
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Loosely inspired by Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, the brilliant Gokumon Island is perhaps the most highly regarded of all the great Seishi Yokomizo’s classic Japanese mysteries.
Detective Kosuke Kindaichi arrives on the remote Gokumon Island bearing tragic news–the son of one of the island’s most important families has died, on a troop transport ship bringing him back home after the Second World War. But Kindaichi has not come merely as a messenger–with his last words, the dying man warned that his three step-sisters’ lives would now be in danger. The scruffy detective is determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious prophecy, and to protect the three women if he can.
Ripple
by Jim Cosgrove
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A chilling investigation into the unsolved “boy in the woods” murder; journalist Jim Cosgrove chronicles his decades-long struggle to uncover the truth of a family friend’s disappearance and death — perfect for fans of I’ll be Gone in the Dark and Memorial Drive.
For nine years, South Carolina officials struggled to identify “the boy in the woods,” a young man whose body had been discovered just south of Myrtle Beach in a fishing village called Murrells Inlet.
Meanwhile, 1,200 miles away in Kansas City, Missouri, Frank McGonigle’s family searched for him at Grateful Dead concerts and in the face of every long-haired hitchhiker they passed.
Highland Secrets
by Elizabeth Rose
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Will her secret start or stop a war?
The Lady Captive Being a daughter of one of the Legendary Bastards of the Crown proves to be a blessing as well as a curse for Fia Douglas. Having both English and Scottish blood, she is being fostered in England along with her sister and cousins, having been chosen by the late queen to be in her secret society of strong women.
When a war breaks out between the English and the Scots, Fia finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. While visiting the queen’s secret garden, she comes across a wounded Highland spy. Fia helps him, but he ends up kidnapping her in return. As a prisoner in her own homeland, she uses her skill of reading people to help her escape, as well as to find out how Alastair really feels about her.
Check out:
(Secrets of the Heart Series)
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
Top Secret Twenty-One
by Janet Evanovich
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Trenton, New Jersey’s favorite used-car dealer, Jimmy Poletti, was caught selling a lot more than used cars out of his dealerships. Now he’s out on bail and has missed his date in court, and bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is looking to bring him in. Leads are quickly turning into dead ends, and all too frequently into dead bodies. Even Joe Morelli, the city’s hottest cop, is struggling to find a clue to the suspected killer’s whereabouts. These are desperate times, and they call for desperate measures. So Stephanie is going to have to do something she really doesn’t want to do: protect former hospital security guard and general pain in her behind Randy Briggs. Briggs was picking up quick cash as Poletti’s bookkeeper and knows all his boss’s dirty secrets. Now Briggs is next on Poletti’s list of people to put six feet under.
Check out:
(Stephanie Plum Mysteries)
Four Steps Missed
by Luana Ehrlich
Rating: 4.7 #ad
CIA covert operative Titus Ray is used to keeping secrets. This time, it’s different.
This time, he’s keeping secrets from his boss, his handler, and his wife.
Operation False Flag is the secret Titus is keeping from his boss . . . While his boss, Deputy Director of Operations, Robert Ira, would ordinarily be aware of any operation being run out of the Agency, this mission concerns the DDO himself, a mission that could cost him his job.
The whistleblower behind the operation is the secret Titus is keeping from his handler . . . Even though his handler, Douglas Carlton, has been tasked with directing Operation False Flag, he has no idea Titus knows the identity of the whistleblower who gave the Inspector General the files that set the operation in motion.
Check out:
(A Titus Ray Mysteries)
The Relic Murders
by Paul Doherty
Rating: 4.4 #ad
In his sixth journal, The Relic Murders, Roger Shallot must race against time to find the Orb of Charlemagne… and to save his own neck. Paul Doherty’s Tudor mysteries are perfect for fans of Ellis Peters and C.J. Sansom.
In the autumn of 1523, Roger Shallot, self-proclaimed physician, rogue, charlatan and secret emissary of King Henry VIII, has nothing to do. His master, Benjamin Daunbey, has been sent to Italy on a diplomatic mission, leaving him in charge of their manor outside Ipswich. Shallot, forbidden both to practise the art of medicine and to approach the beautiful Miranda, takes to reading. Discovering the potential wealth which can be accrued by the finding and selling of true relics, he goes in search of his own. Almost immediately he is in trouble – and in prison.
Triple Cross
by James Patterson
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A precise killer, he always moves under the cover of darkness, flawlessly triggering no alarms, leaving no physical evidence.
Cross and Sampson aren’t the only ones investigating. Also in on this most intriguing case is the world’s bestselling true-crime author, who sees patterns everyone else misses. The writer, Thomas Tull, calls the Family Man murders the perfect crime story. He believes the killer may never be caught.
The Secret Room
by Sandra Block
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Her patients are dying. Some are apparent suicides and others possible accidents, but rumors are flying that Dr. Zoe Goldman is an angel of death- intentionally helping hopeless cases go to a “better place”- or, worse yet, a dangerously incompetent doctor.
As a new psychiatry fellow at the local correctional facility, Zoe is still learning the ropes while watching her back to avoid some dangerous prisoners. As the deaths mount up, Zoe is wracked with horror and guilt, feverishly trying to figure out what is going wrong and even questioning her own sanity.
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(A Zoe Goldman Mysteries)
IN A GLASS DARKLY COLLECTION
by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Rating: 4.4 #ad
From the predatory same-sex desire in “Carmilla” to the ghostly hallucinations in “Green Tea,” the five supernatural stories in In a Glass Darkly reflect a profound and deeply disturbing uncertainty about the nature of humanity. Originally published separately in magazines, the stories are framed and linked in this collection as cases in the papers of the fictional Dr. Hesselius. Sheridan Le Fanu’s approach to the supernatural re-works traditional Irish oral storytelling and combines it with nineteenth-century adaptations of the eighteenth-century Gothic novel.
Appendices include Le Fanu’s correspondence about the stories, posthumous assessments of his life and work, and twentieth-century critical commentaries by M.R. James and Elizabeth Bowen. Engravings from the original serial publications of several stories are also included.
The Thief
by J.R. Ward
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Sola Morte, former cat burglar and safecracker, has given up her old life on the wrong side of the law. On the run from a drug lord’s family, she is lying low far from Caldwell, keeping her nose clean and her beloved grandmother safe. Her heart, though, is back up north, with the only man who has ever gotten through her defenses: Assail, son of Assail, who never meant to fall in love—and certainly not with a human woman. But they have no future, and not just because she doesn’t know he is a vampire, but because he is not about to stop dealing arms to the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Fate, however, has other plans for them. When Assail falls into a coma and lingers on the verge of death, his cousins seek out Sola and beg her to give him a reason to live. The last thing she wants is a return to her past, but how can she leave him to die?
Saturday’s Mystery eBooks
The Sacred Bridge
by Anne Hillerman
Rating: 4.5 #ad
An ancient mystery resurfaces with ramifications for the present day in this gripping chapter in the Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito series from New York Times bestselling author Anne Hillerman.
Sergeant Jim Chee’s vacation to beautiful Antelope Canyon and Lake Powell has a deeper purpose. He’s on a quest to unravel a sacred mystery his mentor, the Legendary Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, stumbled across decades earlier.
Chee’s journey takes a deadly turn when, after a prayerful visit to the sacred Rainbow Bridge, he spots a body floating in the lake.
Check out:
(A Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito Mysteries)
Missing Pieces
by Joy Fielding
Rating: 4.4 #ad
How far will a mother go to protect her family from a madman?
An unrivaled master of psychological suspense, Joy Fielding has written her most chilling and intricate novel yet–a compulsively readable look at the razor-thin line between daily domesticity and nerve-shattering terror.
It had to end in blood. Family therapist Kate Sinclair, healer of lost souls, perfect wife and mother, has suddenly become trapped in a nightmare of her own…
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?
Check out:
(The Dumont Chronicles)
Murder at the Bingo Hall
by Linda Pohl
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Sunday night bingo at St. Angela’s Church in the little village of Kenmore, New York, can be deadly. The stakes are high and the crowd is large. Priscilla Hatfield needs just one number to win! Bursting with excitement when I 17 is called, Priscilla suddenly grabs her chest and slumps over dead with her two lucky trolls, Jasper and Seymour, and her rosary beads by her side. But her two best friends and bingo buddies have good reason to believe she’s been murdered. Fearing the police investigation is going no-where, Ethel Dinwiddie and Nellie Pearce take matters into their own hands and vow to solve the case.
Blackout
by Erin Flanagan
Rating: 3.9 #ad
Seven hard-won months into her sobriety, sociology professor Maris Heilman has her first blackout. She chalks it up to exhaustion, though she fears that her husband and daughter will suspect she’s drinking again. Whatever their cause, the glitches start becoming more frequent. Sometimes minutes, sometimes longer, but always leaving Maris with the same disorienting question: Where have I been?
Then another blackout lands Maris in the ER, where she makes an alarming discovery. A network of women is battling the same inexplicable malady. Is it a bizarre coincidence or something more sinister? What do all the women have in common besides missing time? Or is it who they have in common?
My MacArthur
by Cindy Fazzi
Rating: 4.2 #ad
The year is 1930. The place: Manila. Douglas MacArthur is the most powerful man in the Philippines, a United States colony. He’s fifty years old, divorced, and he falls in love at first sight with a ravishing young Filipino woman. He writes her a love note on the spot. Her name is Isabel Rosario Cooper, an aspiring movie actress. One glance at his note and she thinks of him as my MacArthur.
MacArthur pursues his romantic obsession even though he’s breaking numerous taboos. She reciprocates his affection because he could open doors for her financially struggling family. That MacArthur happens to be handsome compensates for the fact that he’s as old as her father.
When MacArthur is appointed the U.S. Army chief of staff, he becomes the youngest four-star general and one of America’s most powerful men. Out of hubris, he takes Isabel with him to America without marrying her.
King
by Ben Kane
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Warleader Autumn 1192. With Jerusalem still in the Saracens’ hands, and a peace treaty agreed with their leader Saladin, Richard the Lionheart is free at last to travel back to his strife-ridden kingdom. By his side at every turn is the loyal knight Ferdia, also known as Rufus. Together they will face not just Richard’s archenemy Philippe Capet of France, but also the king’s treacherous younger brother, John.
Captive Shipwrecked on the Italian coast, the king and his small group of companions are forced into a perilous journey through lands controlled by their enemies. Shortly before Christmas 1192, Richard is taken prisoner near Vienna by Duke Leopold of Austria. Kept prisoner for several months, the king is then handed over to Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor. His captivity lasts for another year, fanning the flames of unrest in his territories in England and beyond.
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(Richard the Lionheart Mysteries)