Mysteries
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
The Sip & Save Club Murders
by Mary Maxwell
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Deliveries are a frequent occurrence at Sky High Pies in Crescent Creek, Colorado. The continuous flow of items includes fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and poultry, dairy products and paper goods. But when a mysterious package appears one morning at the bakery-café, it leads to questions, confusion and—within a matter of hours—a pair of homicides that confound the local authorities.
Since Sky High is her family’s business and Kate Reed is a former private investigator, the police recruit her to help find the killer. As she searches for evidence and suspects, Kate discovers that the strange delivery is connected to a long-ago financial scandal as well as allegations of bribery and judicial corruption.
Check out:
(Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries)
Eight Miles High
by D. B. Borton
Rating: 4.6 #ad
World War II veteran pilot Toots Magruder survived sabotage, criminal negligence, slander, and friendly fire during the war before crash landing her plane in the middle of a suburban Fourth of July picnic. But two of her former WASP cohorts have recently died and now she appears to be next on the killer’s hit list.
Can detective Cat Caliban and her partner Moses Fogg catch the murderer before another plane goes down? Can Cat survive two plane rides, a parachute jump, and a round of golf?
Check out:
(The Cat Caliban Mysteries Mysteries)
Night Chills
by Dean Koontz
Rating: 4.3 #ad
“An early D. Koontz work. Listed as re-issued in the 80’s, the copyright is actually ©1976. Going back that far was very entertaining, since I had never read this one. The novel is clearly written in a different, more descriptive way, clearly showing his evolution in style. I miss the more basic style evident in this book.
The plot revolves around subliminal mind control, which has been done before. It hasn’t been done this well.
A bit of caution. There is graphic violence and language throughout. If you feel that a turnoff, you may want to pass on this; if you don’t mind it, the novel is an earlier written winner.” by Amazon Customer
Laser Trap
by Frank DiBianca
Rating: 4.7 #ad
If you can’t invent it, steal it!
Engineering grad student Dan Butler discovers an unorthodox way to produce lasers of unprecedented power. When the malevolent bosses at StarWay Labs, who sell weapons to the international underworld, discover this, they kidnap Dan and demand he replicate his work in their secret lab.
Dan’s fellow grad student, Lana Madison, who Dan had hired to help him find a girlfriend, is alarmed at his disappearance. She forms a high-tech team with four of their friends to help the authorities rescue Dan. They make remarkable breakthroughs in tracking down his whereabouts while the criminal cadre at StarWay pushes Dan close to his breaking point.
The Rogue Queen
by Emily R. King
Rating: 4.4 #ad
In the explosive third volume of The Hundredth Queen Series, the queen of fire faces off against a demon of ice.
Despite the odds, Kalinda has survived it all: Marriage to a tyrant. Tournaments to the death. The forbidden power to rule fire. The icy touch of a demon.
That same demon now disguises itself as Rajah Tarek, Kalinda’s late husband and a man who has never stopped haunting her. Upon taking control of the palace and the army, the demon brands Kalinda and her companions as traitors to the empire. They flee across the sea, seeking haven in the Southern Isles.
APOCALYPSE ONLINE
by Robyn Wideman
Rating: 4.5 #ad
At first everyone thought it was a game…
But aliens have arrived and they are turning people into fertilizer.
Brad and Sam are gamers and when they started playing the hot new game Apocalypse Online they had no idea that the game was a preview of reality! With the help of a benevolent alien AI and nanotechnology, our heroes will have a chance to survive the apocalypse. They just have to survive, level up and find other survivors.
Jake is no gamer. But when he finds out aliens have arrived, he’ll do anything to protect his little sister Sam.
Will they be able to grow strong enough for the second wave or will they become alien plant food?
Carrie
by David Culp
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Carrie Larsen spent the early ‘60s searching in the counterculture of the Great American West.
Until she got tired.
In the Spring of 1967 she came home to her parents’ now-empty nest in Ohio, maybe just for a visit. It was where she’d been raised by her loving family as a small-town girl.
She calls herself “a Buddhist, not a Romantic.”
Carrie loves her parents as long as they last, though she resists her mother’s hopes that she get married and have children, not necessarily in that order. When not busy at the Veterinary Clinic on Main Street, Carrie spends a lot of time balancing her enthusiasm for sex, drugs, and rock and roll with compassion, a sense of justice, and hours of playing J.S. Bach on her mother’s Concert Grand Piano.
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
Miss Julia Knows a Thing or Two
by Ann B. Ross
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Miss Julia has decided to turn over a new leaf. It’s time to stop meddling in other peoples’ lives, she thinks–but her hands are full before long! Her neighbor Mildred is sent into a tizzy when a grandchild she’s never met shows up on her doorstep. And Mildred’s husband keeps forgetting who she is, so she’s all on her own. Meanwhile, Etta Mae is worried about losing her job now that the Handy Home Helpers is up for sale. Luckily, Miss Julia has experience dealing
with children dropped on doorsteps, and sweeps in to lend a hand.
Check out:
(Miss Julia Mysteries)
Dark Greed
by Mary Stone
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Jealousy is evil. Greed is deadly.
When a young man is found hanging inside a barn, it seems like an open-and-shut suicide. But the boy in question is none other than Bryce Mowery, son and only heir of the richest family in Savannah, and Bryce’s father is claiming foul play. Much to her chagrin, Detective Charli Cross is sent to investigate and appease the farm and real estate magnate.
But soon, it’s no longer a question of if Bryce was killed, but by who. The Mowerys have made plenty of enemies in town, but why would anyone want to kill the happy-go-lucky playboy?
Check out:
(Charli Cross Mysteries)
Brett Wilson and De Soto’s Cross
by John Suter
Rating: 5.0 #ad
The hunt for Cibola continues as Brett Wilson returns home from the canyons of New Mexico ready to locate her missing father. With the information from Dr. Mies, Brett ventures into the mountains of Tennessee in search of the mystical cross of de Soto.
If she can find the cross, the doorway to Cibola can be opened. Rock Wilson’s life hangs in the balance as Brett races across Tennessee with her best friend Natalie. They will use her dad’s field book once again to uncover the clues hidden inside. Unfortunately, she isn’t the only one looking for the relic and the door to Cibola.
Age of Madness Collection
by Multiple Authors
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Three Complete Series
Two hundred years ago the earth was destroyed by the World’s Worst Day Ever and civilization has fallen.
Life on Earth will never be the same.
Who will guide them through this period of madness into a new world that unfolds after apocalypses?
Birth of Magic Series: In the brief pause between apocalypses, one woman standing for honor, courage, and commitment will bring the UnknownWorld back from the brink.
Live Free or Die Series: Ryder has been held against her will for twenty years … Now it’s time for some payback!
The Caitlin Chronicles: The Governor she trusted to protect her wants her dead. The target she was sent to capture wants to help her live.
Tom Clancy Under Fire
by Grant Blackwood
Rating: 4.0 #ad
On a mission in Tehran, Jack Ryan, Jr., meets his oldest friend, Seth Gregory. As they part, Seth slips Jack a key, along with a perplexing message. The next day Jack is summoned to an apartment where two men claim Seth has disappeared with funds for a vital intelligence operation. They say he’s turned and leave Jack with a warning: If you hear from Seth, call us. Do not get involved.
Jack soon finds himself lost in a maze of intrigue, lies, and betrayal where no one is who they seem to be—not even Seth, who’s harboring a secret that harkens back to the Cold War. A secret that is driving him to the brink of treason….
Check out:
(A Jack Ryan Jr. Mysteries)
Kindness Goes Unpunished
by Craig Johnson
Rating: 4.0 #ad
On a mission in Tehran, Jack Ryan, Jr., meets his oldest friend, Seth Gregory. As they part, Seth slips Jack a key, along with a perplexing message. The next day Jack is summoned to an apartment where two men claim Seth has disappeared with funds for a vital intelligence operation. They say he’s turned and leave Jack with a warning: If you hear from Seth, call us. Do not get involved.
Jack soon finds himself lost in a maze of intrigue, lies, and betrayal where no one is who they seem to be—not even Seth, who’s harboring a secret that harkens back to the Cold War. A secret that is driving him to the brink of treason….
Check out:
(Walt Longmire Mysteries)
I Don’t Know Why I Act Like This
by Carrie Vanderbilt
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Have you ever thought that you might be experiencing the world a little differently than everyone else?
For those of us living with various types of mental illness, the moods and emotions we have may not align with how other people around us act. We might fly into a rage when seemingly unprovoked or cry at the drop of the hat.
It may feel strange, but what’s happening could actually be completely normal, depending on your mental illness and your experiences with trauma and triggers.
Have you ever wished you could have the emotions of ‘normal’ people?
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
A Catered Fourth of July
by Isis Crawford
Rating: 4.2 #ad
High noon on July Fourth in the quiet town of Longley, New York, and it’s got to be a hundred degrees. Thankfully, sisters Bernie and Libby are setting up their yummy catering in a shady gazebo for the reenactment of The Battle of Meadow Creek—and not baking in those Revolutionary War uniforms with their fellow townspeople.
After a few cheery exchanges of “Moveth” and “Thou speakest treason,” the muskets are fired and the fake battle is over. But the blood on the notorious town playboy looks very real. Is it possible he’s had his last tryst?
Check out:
(A Mystery With Recipes Mysteries)
Circle of Doubt
by Tracy Buchanan
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Emma and Dele’s dreams came true nine years ago when they adopted their daughter, Isla. It felt like fate, like they were meant to find each other, and now they’re living the life they always wanted. But then one day a new family moves into Forest Grove—and Emma can’t shake the chilling feeling that the wife looks just like Isla’s birth mother.
Emma tells herself that this sophisticated stranger can’t possibly be the troubled woman she remembers from the adoption. But as they get to know each other and it becomes clear that Tatjana has a special interest in Isla, her suspicions grow.
Check out:
(A Forest Grove Mysteries)
Midnight in Darkness
by Jacie Middlemann
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Tragedy, indescribable courage, and heart-wrenching secrets. It was her family’s history…one that she wasn’t aware of until recently.
Shay was stunned to learn about her family’s tragic past…a history shrouded in secrets and from what she’d read so far in journals that dated back hundreds of years…there was good reason for the secrecy…fear was a huge motivator no matter the century.
She was equally surprised to hear from Patrick Johnston. He had questions about the Delasina family…questions that she wouldn’t mind knowing the answers to herself…
The Hangman
by Mary Burton
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Julia Vargas is a cop with a mission. When she’s not chasing down bad guys, Julia dedicates her time to investigating the Hangman serial killer…the same unsolved case that her father, Jim Vargas, was working on when he supposedly shot and killed himself three decades before. While rumors continue to swirl around her father’s death, Julia attempts to hunt down the truth.
The case once again hits dangerously close, however, when a woman’s bones are discovered in a historic downtown home, together with a photograph of Jim and Julia as a young girl. As horrifying as this discovery is, it may just be the break Julia has waited for.
Check out:
(Forgotten Files Mysteries)
Agent of Byzantium
by Harry Turtledove
Rating: 4.4 #ad
In another, very different timeline—one in which Mohammed embraced Christianity and Islam never came to be—the Byzantine Empire still flourishes in the fourteenth century, and wondrous technologies are emerging earlier than they did in our own.
Having lost his family to the ravages of smallpox, Basil Argyros has decided to dedicate his life to Byzantium. A stalwart soldier and able secret agent, Basil serves his emperor courageously, going undercover to unearth Persia’s dastardly plots and disrupting the dark machinations of his beautiful archenemy, the Persian spy Mirrane, while defusing dire threats emerging from the Western realm of the Franco-Saxons…
Where There’s Hope
by Elizabeth Smart
Rating: 4.7 #ad
In her fearless memoir, My Story—the basis of the Lifetime Original movie I Am Elizabeth Smart—Elizabeth detailed, for the first time, the horror behind the headlines of her abduction by religious fanatic Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. Since then, she’s married, become a mother, and travelled the world as the president of the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, sharing her story with the intent of helping others along the way.
Over and over, Elizabeth is asked the same question: How do you find the hope to go on? In this book, Elizabeth returns to the horrific experiences she endured, and the hard-won lessons she learned, to provide answers. She also calls upon others who have dealt with adversity – victims of violence, disease, war, and loss – to explore the pathways toward hope…
The Postscript Murders
by Elly Griffiths
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Murder leaps off the page when crime novelists begin to turn up dead in this intricate new novel by internationally best-selling author Elly Griffiths, a literary mystery perfect for fans of Anthony Horowitz and Agatha Christie.
The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should not be suspicious. Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing out of the ordinary when Peggy’s caretaker, Natalka, begins to recount Peggy Smith’s passing.
But Natalka had a reason to be at the police station: while clearing out Peggy’s flat, she noticed an unusual number of crime novels, all dedicated to Peggy. And each psychological thriller included a mysterious postscript: PS: for PS. When a gunman breaks into the flat to steal a book and its author is found dead shortly thereafter—Detective Kaur begins to think that perhaps there is no such thing as an unsuspicious death after all.
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
How to Knit a Murder
by Sally Goldenbaum
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A mysterious woman arrives in picturesque Sea Harbor, Massachusetts, and the Seaside Knitters welcome her into their cozy world of intricate patterns and colorful skeins. Unfortunately, nothing frays a warm introduction like cold-blooded murder . . .
With her shy manner and baggy jeans, Rose Chopra becomes an unlikely hero the night she stumbles into Izzy Perry’s shop and inadvertently saves a shipment of yarn from water damage. When the Seaside Knitters help the enigmatic handywoman settle into town and find work at a popular real estate company, Rose proves she can fix just about anything—until a potential homebuyer is killed and she becomes entangled in murder . . .
Check out:
(Seaside Knitters Society Mysteries)
Edge
by Jeffery Deaver
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Behind the well-known U.S. security organizations—the FBI and CIA among them—lies a heavily guarded, anonymous government agency dedicated to intelligence surveillance and to a highly specialized brand of citizen protection.
Shock waves of alarm ripple through the clandestine agency when Washington, D.C., police detective Ryan Kessler inexplicably becomes the target of Henry Loving, a seasoned, ruthless “lifter” hired to obtain information using whatever means necessary. While Loving is deft at torture, his expertise lies in getting an “edge” on his victim—leverage—usually by kidnapping or threatening family until the “primary” caves under pressure.
ONCE UPON A MURDEROUS DELUSION
by A.G. Russo
Rating: 4.3 #ad
The year is 1980 in a small, sleepy New England town. Out of nowhere, a series of devastating murders threaten the safety and well-being of the community. A serial killer has begun a deadly game of catch-me-if-you-can with local police, who have dubbed the carnage, “The Mommy Murders.”
Frightened residents are certain the violent rape/murders are in some way connected to the psychiatric unit of Parkhirst General Hospital. Nella, a nurse angst-ridden by her service during the Vietnam War, is new to the area and the hospital. She joins the tight-knit group of nurses on the evening shift. Val, the leader of the group, with her own history of trauma, believes it stems from the prejudice their patients suffer from a community unsympathetic to mental illness. Or is evil closer to home than they think?
Beyond the Moonlit Sea
by Julianne MacLean
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Olivia Hamilton is married to the love of her life, Dean, a charismatic pilot who flies private jets for the rich and famous. But when he vanishes over the Bermuda Triangle, Olivia’s idyllic existence unravels. After years of waiting, Olivia must eventually let go of the fragile hope that her beloved husband might still be alive.
Melanie Brown is a particle physicist who spends late nights studying the Bermuda Triangle. But her research interests falter when her mother dies in a tragic accident. Struggling to reboot her life and career, Melanie begins a forbidden love affair with her therapist.
The Golden Couple
by Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Wealthy Washington suburbanites Marissa and Matthew Bishop seem to have it all—until Marissa is unfaithful. Beneath their veneer of perfection is a relationship riven by work and a lack of intimacy. She wants to repair things for the sake of their eight-year-old son and because she loves her husband. Enter Avery Chambers.
Avery is a therapist who lost her professional license. Still, it doesn’t stop her from counseling those in crisis, though they have to adhere to her unorthodox methods. And the Bishops are desperate.
Rotten to the Core
by T E Kinsey
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Summer 1911. A scorching heatwave engulfs the quiet town of Littleton Cotterell and brings about an unusually early harvest. The villagers are thrilled, but events quickly turn sour when one of them turns up dead in an apple orchard, stabbed through the heart.
Amateur sleuth Lady Hardcastle and her trusty lady’s maid, Flo, suddenly have a juicy case on their hands. Might the mysterious stranger they recently met in the village be to blame?
Check out:
(A Lady Hardcastle Mysteries)
Wicked Beauty
by Katee Robert
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A scorchingly hot modern retelling of Helen of Troy, Achilles, and Patroclus that’s as sinful as it is sweet.
In Olympus, you either have the power to rule…or you are ruled. Achilles Kallis may have been born with nothing, but as a child he vowed he would claw his way into the poisonous city’s inner circle. Now that a coveted role has opened to anyone with the strength to claim it, he and his partner, Patroclus Fotos, plan to compete and double their odds of winning.
Neither expect infamous beauty Helen Kasios to be part of the prize…or for the complicated fire that burns the moment she looks their way.
Check out:
(Dark Olympus Mysteries)