Mysteries
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
Samhain: A Hallowe’en
by Carolina Mac
Rating: 4.7 #ad
A Hallowe’en Adventure with Mystere LeJeune and her Family.
Follow Misty and her magickal family as they cavort through carnivals and pumpkin patches preparing for Hallowe’en and for Forest’s third birthday. Murder and Mayhem seem to follow Misty wherever she goes. Many of Misty’s family members – past and present – gather at Samhain to celebrate together when the veil between the worlds is thinnest.
Check out:
(Beltane: The Wedding)
The Wolf and the Watchman: 1793
by Niklas Natt och Dag
Rating: 4.2 #ad
One morning in the autumn of 1793, watchman Mikel Cardell is awakened from his drunken slumber with reports of a body seen floating in the Larder, once a pristine lake on Stockholm’s Southern Isle, now a rancid bog. Efforts to identify the bizarrely mutilated corpse are entrusted to incorruptible lawyer Cecil Winge, who enlists Cardell’s help to solve the case. But time is short: Winge’s health is failing, the monarchy is in shambles, and whispered conspiracies and paranoia abound.
Winge and Cardell become immersed in a brutal world of guttersnipes and thieves, mercenaries and madams.
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(The City Between the Bridges: 1794)
Connections in Death
by J. D. Robb
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Homicide cop Eve Dallas and her billionaire husband, Roarke, are building a brand-new school and youth shelter. They know that the hard life can lead kids toward dangerous crossroads—and with this new project, they hope to nudge a few more of them onto the right path. For expert help, they hire child psychologist Dr. Rochelle Pickering—whose own brother pulled himself out of a spiral of addiction and crime with Rochelle’s support.
Lyle is living with Rochelle while he gets his life together, and he’s thrilled to hear about his sister’s new job offer. But within hours, triumph is followed by tragedy.
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(In Death Mysteries)
Croft Murders
by Stephanie Parker McKean
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Someone is attempting to kill newlywed Nora Scott and make her death appear accidental. It’s up to the Fog Busters, the “Old Bones Detectives”, to keep her alive.
Unfortunately, their success seems improbable. From the resurgence of a Scottish folktale about a washerwoman who foretells people’s deaths to food that was apparently poisoned using an everyday ingredient, the Fog Busters’ attempts to protect Nora are thwarted. And the deeper the Fog Busters delve into the mystery, the closer danger spreads to them.
Running the gamut from Nora’s dysfunctional family to a pouting rooster, the Fog Busters’ first mystery that promises actual payment turns into a deadly contest between the over-60 crowd and a cunning killer.
Broken
by t.g. brown
Rating: 4.4 #ad
At first glance, the figure could have been construed as a large cocoon hanging from the church rafters. But as one moved closer, the outline of a man came into focus, his body strung upside down . . . his thick torso squirming against his restraints as though he was about to be reborn.
While bullfrog hunting on a cloud-covered night in the Louisiana Bayou JOSH INGRAM had no way of knowing the cogs of a grisly nightmare had already begun to turn. A nightmare that takes root with the murder of a priest in Northern Ireland only to find its way to a schoolyard in Louisiana.
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(Josh Ingram Mysteries)
Parallel Roads
by Dennis Higgins
Rating: 4.3 #ad
When the spring of 1946 comes, Katherine Callahan decides to leave her loving husband and newborn baby so that she may embark upon an unknowingly tragic journey across the famous American highway from Chicago to her sister’s home in Burbank. She never does arrive.
Fast forward into the present, Kevin Callahan, Katherine’s grandson, along with his best friend Cheryl Bachman, traces his grandmother’s steps along the now decommissioned road to uncover the mystery surrounding her disappearance. They are armed with only a handful of postcards from Katherine and a Victorian secret code involving postage stamps surrounding a mysterious man from her past.
Darwin’s Cipher
by M.A. Rothman
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Juan Gutierrez, a cancer researcher, has spent years studying the genome of animals that exhibit immunity to some types of cancer. Over the course of his study, Juan discovers a pattern that allows him to predict the course of a species’ evolution across thousands of generations.
Using the algorithm he’s developed from the pattern, Juan uncovers what he believes to be the key to conquering humanity’s susceptibility to cancer…
Drop Shot
by Harlan Coben
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Once, Valerie Simpson’s tennis career skyrocketed; now, the headlines belong to a player from the wrong side of the tracks. But when Valerie is shot dead in cold blood and dropped outside the stadium at the U.S. Open, sports agent Myron Bolitar investigates the killing and uncovers a connection between the two players and a six-year-old murder at an exclusive mainline club. As Myron is drawn into the case – along with a dirty U.S. senator, a jealous mother, and the mob – he finds himself caught between a killer and the truth.
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(Myron Bolitar Mysteries)
Aura of Night
by Heather Graham
Rating: 4.7 #ad
True evil never dies. It only waits in the dark.
All book editor Megan Law wants is to bury the memory of her brutal kidnapping and move on with her life. So when her publisher asks her to spin her hellish experience into the next bestseller, Megan agrees only because it might help keep other women safe. Then a mysterious, gruesome package arrives in the mail—a reminder that the nightmare isn’t over just yet.
FBI investigator Ragnar Johnson is running out of time. He knows in his gut there’s more to the recent Embracer killings, and he needs Megan’s help.
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(Krewe of Hunters Mysteries)
Saturday’s Mystery eBooks
Butchered After Bark
by Addison Moore, Bellamy Bloom
Rating: 4.6 #ad
My name is Bizzy Baker, and I can read minds—not every mind, not every time but most of the time and believe me when I say it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
It’s October and Jasper and I just returned from our honeymoon to find the inn playing host to the Haunted Harvest Festival, complete with a pumpkin patch, scare nights, a midway with games, and enough candy to rot your teeth. But a secretive group of women, called the Midnight Maidens, decide to host a little private party of their own on the grounds and the night ends in murder. Throw in the haunted doll collection Georgie had shipped to the inn, and you have the recipe for the spookiest Halloween season that Cider Cove has ever seen. Hold onto your pointed hat—things are about to get terrifying.
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(Happy Howl-o-ween Horror)
Broken Promises
by Lorhainne Eckhart
Rating: 4.7 #ad
NY Times & USA Today bestselling author Lorhainne Eckhart brings you a new O’Connell family novel about secrets and lies, and a woman who has no reason to trust anyone.
What do you do when a woman shows up on your doorstep, suddenly wanting her daughter back? Never in a million years did Marcus and Charlotte O’Connell expect to be faced with this kind of dilemma, but when Reine Colbert is released from prison, she shows up at their house, demanding they return her daughter, Eva.
Worse is the fact that Sheriff Marcus never received a courtesy call from the prison or parole board to warn him that Reine was about to be released…
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(The O’Connells Mysteries)
FantasticLand
by Mike Bockoven
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Presented as a fact-finding investigation and a series of first-person interviews, FantasticLand pieces together the grisly series of events. Park policy was that the mostly college-aged employees surrender their electronic devices to preserve the authenticity of the FantasticLand experience. Cut off from the world and left on their own, the teenagers soon form rival tribes who viciously compete for food, medicine, social dominance, and even human flesh. This new social network divides the ravaged dreamland into territories ruled by the Pirates, the ShopGirls, the Freaks, and the Mole People. If meticulously curated online personas can replace private identities, what takes over when those constructs are lost?
Chosen To Die
by Lisa Jackson
Rating: 4.6 #ad
The cold of winter isn’t just a nuisance in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana. It’s merciless and brutal—a weapon that a twisted serial killer uses to torture vulnerable women. Detectives Regan Pescoli and Selena Alvarez have spent months tracking down the Star-Crossed Killer, as he’s dubbed by the press. They know how devious and patient he can be. What they couldn’t have guessed is that Pescoli would be abducted by the very monster she’s been hunting . . .
Pescoli knows too much about her captor and his methods to doubt her fate. She’s a trophy he’s content to taunt for now, but eventually, he’ll tire of her too. Until then, his killing spree continues, stretching the police department—and Alvarez—to the breaking point.
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(An Alvarez & Pescoli Mysteries)
Day by Day Armageddon: Grey Fox
by J.L. Bourne
Rating: 4.5 #ad
This chilling horror novel recounts a man’s daily struggle to survive the Zombie Apocalypse: ”hands down the best zombie book I have ever read” (Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Patriot).
As vague news reports of trouble abroad trickle in, a young Navy officer stationed in San Antonio keeps his New Year’s resolution to maintain a daily journal. There’s word of some sort of virus in China. There’s word of violence spreading through cities across the U.S. Suddenly, the terrifying truth makes itself known. The dead are rising to claim the Earth as the new dominant species in the food chain.
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(Day By Day Armageddon Mysteries)
A House of Bells
by J. T. Croft
Rating: 4.1 #ad
A woman haunted by fate, a child silenced by fear, and a house full of secrets and bells.
- Stripped of her reputation and haunted by a spirit she failed to protect, the young governess Grace Meadows finds herself out of time and growing more and more desperate. But when she’s offered a strange job from an eccentric medium, she never could have imagined what she was signing up for.
Tasked with caring for a troubled young girl who has lost the ability to speak, Grace must unravel the dangerous secrets at the heart of a run-down country mansion and find the source of the horrors which now threaten both of their lives.
Love & Marriage Box Set
by Bookarama Publishing
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Fake relationships never turn real, right?
Getting engaged let alone married to a giant jerk wasn’t the plan. But destiny has other plans, throwing me into his strong arms. I do my best not to fall for his charm. Yet the more time I spend with him, the harder it is to continue hating him. My body is electrified by him. His kisses make me dizzy with need. I do my best to resist this shark. Forgetting there’s nothing a shark likes better than a challenge. I can’t get this suave Alpha out of my head. Our fake relationship is turning very real. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up falling for the playboy. Can an enemies-to-lovers romance ever end well, or will he break my heart?
Friday’s Mystery eBooks
Thrill of the Hunt
by Rita Mae Brown
Rating: 4.6 #ad
“Cunning foxes, sensible hounds, and sweet-tempered horses are among the sparkling conversationalists in this charming series.” – The New York Times Book Review
It’s the start of fox-hunting season and Sister is training a new generation of hounds in eager anticipation of Opening Hunt. But before they make it to that exciting day, several members of the hunt club receive ominous videos in which they appear to be doing scandalous, career-ending deeds. The videos are doctored, but does it matter? The unknown blackmailer promises to publish the clips if they don’t get paid, and even the most upstanding citizen can be brought down by the court of public opinion.
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(“Sister” Jane Cozy Mysteries)
12 PILLS
by Kirk Burris
Rating: 4.7 #ad
A “race against the clock” thriller that keeps you guessing in this murder mystery with multiple twists!
A maniacal serial killer is on the loose in Kansas City. And the calling card is an orange pill bottle shoved down the throats of the victims. Their caps are numbered in sharpie, announcing more to come. FBI Agent Whelan, traumatized from the loss of his former partner, is asked by The Bureau to join the manhunt. The murderer is targeting his childhood friends.
The fourth victim, discovered in Miami, whips the investigation across the country. Unsure who to trust, Whelan battles corruption inside the K.C. field office, and an interfering media, whose leaked video of one of the victims goes viral…
Locked On
by Tom Clancy, Mark Greaney
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Privately training with special forces, he’s honing his combat skills to continue his work within the Campus, hunting down and eliminating terrorists wherever he can—even as Jack Ryan Sr. campaigns to become President of the United States again.
But what neither father nor son knows is that the political and personal have just become equally dangerous. A devout enemy of Jack Sr. launches a privately-funded vendetta to discredit him and connect him to a mysterious killing in his longtime ally John Clark’s past. All they have to do is catch him.
One Perfect Lie
by Lisa Scottoline
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Privately training with special forces, he’s honing his combat skills to continue his work within the Campus, hunting down and eliminating terrorists wherever he can – even as Jack Ryan Sr. campaigns to become President of the United States again.
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.
Banana Slit
by Angela K. Ryan
Rating: 4.4 #ad
The grand opening of Anna McBride’s seaside ice cream shop is anything but sweet.
After the tragic death of her Irish twin sister, Bella, Anna needed a radical change. So, she closed her counseling practice in Boston to embark on a new adventure as an ice cream shop owner.
Now all she wants is to settle into her new town, attempt to turn her black thumb green, and build her ice cream shop into a community hub that hosts quality entertainment and group gatherings – just like Bella had often fantasized about doing before her fateful boating accident.
Check out:
(A Seaside Ice Cream Shop Mysteries)
Missing … and Presumed Dead
by Michael Fleeman
Rating: 4.0 #ad
The grand opening of Anna McBride’s seaside ice cream shop is anything but sweet.
The disappearance of the beautiful, vivacious hostess at a popular Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, restaurant made international headlines and triggered a sweeping high-stakes investigation that exposed a twisted web of deception, betrayal, sexual obsession, police corruption, and revenge. But Heather’s body was never located. A series of sensational trials involving a handsome restaurant coworker and his Disneyland-obsessed wife resulted in shocking verdicts – but no body – as her family desperately sought closure and fought for justice, and a resort town struggled to regain calm.
The Manor
by Marie Wilkens
Rating: 4.4 #ad
For Harriet Green, music is as vital to life as breathing. Waitress by day to help pay the bills, she sings every night in the New Orleans French Quarter. Approached by a stranger, Harriet learns of her estranged father’s death and the fortune she is set to inherit with enough money to pursue her music career full time. But not long after her first night in Bluebelle Manor, Harriet finds herself wandering the halls past midnight, playing mysterious melodies on the grand piano. Something is calling to her, and the secrets they whisper in her ear are frightening and dangerous.
The Munich Girl
by Phyllis Edgerly Ring
Rating: 4.4 #ad
The secret surfaces with a mysterious monogrammed handkerchief, and a man, Hannes Ritter, whose Third Reich family history is entwined with Anna’s.
Plunged into the world of the “ordinary” Munich girl who was her mother’s confidante—and a tyrant’s lover—Anna finds her every belief about right and wrong challenged. With Hannes’s help, she retraces the path of two women who met as teenagers, shared a friendship that spanned the years that Eva Braun was Hitler’s mistress, yet never knew that the men they loved had opposing ambitions.
Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
The Itch of Murder
by Christa Nardi
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A well-dressed man killed at a demolition site, at night in a snow storm.
Izzie Di Sante loves a challenge and Chance Corcoran’s murder sparks her curiosity. While managing the day-to-day business of the family restaurant, she searches for some connection between the victim and the site of the future Elite Townhomes. A co-worker of the victim disappears, the foreperson of the construction site is injured, and someone’s after Izzie. As her sister, Chloe, prepares for an Easter buffet like none other, Izzie needs to put the pieces together before it’s too late.
Check out:
(Izzie Di Sante Mysteries)
The Secret of Chimneys
by Agatha Christie
Rating: 4.3 #ad
International intrigue leads to murder at an English manor house in this classic mystery introducing the detection skills of Superintendent Battle.
Never do favors—that’s the lesson it would’ve behooved Anthony Cade to learn before getting himself wrapped up in a case of conspiracy and murder. Politician George Lomax has persuaded Lord Caterham to host a weekend party at Chimneys, his country estate. Lomax hopes to cement plans to reinstate the monarchy in Herzegovina. But when the prince of Herzegovina turns up dead, Cade has a lot of explaining to do. After all, his footprints were found on the grounds . . . though not inside the house.
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(Superintendent Battle Mysteries)
Intent: Return of Evil
by Krista Wagner
Rating: 3.8 #ad
Someone won’t let them forget that dreadful night. . .
It’s been eleven years since the nightmare ended, when Raylee and Crystal were nearly killed by someone they trusted. The small peaceful town of Silver Canyon is back to normal. Happily married to Paul, Raylee now runs a successful business, with Crystal as her manager. Life is good. Until Raylee receives a note: “Fate has opened another door, this time for us.”
Fate. The same word the killer used in that long-ago nightmare. Raylee and Crystal become shaken, their faith rattled, as they both are bombarded with clues from that terrible past.
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(Small Town Secrets Mysteries)
Ominous
by Lisa Jackson, Nancy Bush, Rosalind Noonan
Rating: 4.6 #ad
NO WARNING In the photograph, three teenaged girls splash in the lake on a sweltering summer evening. Shiloh, Kat, and Ruth are unaware of the man who spies on them from the woods. They have no idea how their lives will be changed by the brutal violence that follows—and the vow of secrecy they take.
CAN PREPARE YOU Fifteen years later, Ruth and Shiloh have both returned to Prairie Creek, Wyoming, where Kat is deputy sheriff. Though they’ve tried to leave their shared past behind, each has the feeling that someone is lurking in the shadows. When a local girl vanishes, Kat is convinced there’s a connection to that long-ago night. But as the friends unite to find the missing teenager, a killer sends a chilling message. FOR A KILLER’S VENGEANCE
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(The Wyoming Mysteries)
Elric of Melniboné
by Michael Moorcock
Rating: 4.7 #ad
In one of the most well-known and well-loved fantasy epics of the 20th century, Elric is the brooding, albino emperor of the dying Kingdom of Melnibone. With Melnibone’s years of grandeur and decadence long since passed, Elric’s amoral cousin Yrkoon sets his eyes on the throne. Elric, realizing he is his country’s best hope, must face his nefarious cousin in an epic battle for the right to rule.
Elric of Melnibone is the first in Michael Moorcock’s incredible series, which created fantasy archetypes that have echoed through the genre for generations.
Check out:
(The Elric Saga)
The Ursulina
by Brian Freeman
Rating: 4.6 #ad
In this gripping prequel to his Edgar Award finalist and New York Times bestseller The Deep, Deep Snow, Brian Freeman takes us on Rebecca’s dark journey to reveal the truth about the Ursulina … a journey that ultimately leads to an excruciating choice that will change her life forever.
The mythical beast goes by many names. Bigfoot. Sasquatch. Yeti.
In Black Wolf County, he’s called … the Ursulina.
The Fate of Mercy Alban
by Wendy Webb
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Grace Alban has spent more than twenty years avoiding her childhood home, the stately Alban House on the shores of Lake Superior, for reasons she would rather forget. But when her mother’s unexpected death brings Grace and her teenage daughter back, she finds more is haunting the halls and passageways of Alban House than her own personal demons.
Long-buried family secrets, a packet of old love letters, and a lost manuscript plunge Grace into a decades-old mystery about a scandalous party at Alban House, when a world-famous author took his own life and Grace’s aunt disappeared without a trace…
Bound By Blood
by Frank Wheeler
Rating: 5.0 #ad
At ten years old, Austin was in over his head. He only joined the Confederate Army because his brothers told him to, but then they went and got themselves killed. If not for Dwight Crawford, a Union soldier, Austin would have died alongside them.
From that day on, Dwight became Austin’s hero, friend, and father. Years later, they’re still fighting together, but the enemy has changed.