Mysteries
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
One Fete in the Grave
by Vickie Fee
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Party planner Liv McKay has outdone herself this time. She’s put together an unforgettable Fourth of July celebration for the town of Dixie, Tennessee—including breathtaking fireworks and an exciting Miss Dixie Beauty Pageant. Maybe a little too exciting.
As the party is winding down, Liv’s sense of triumph fizzles when the body of town councilman Bubba Rowland is discovered on the festival grounds. And now the prime suspect in his murder is Liv’s mother’s fiancé, Earl, who had a flare-up recently with Bubba. To clear Earl’s name, Liv and her best friend Di burst into action to smoke out the real killer before another life is extinguished . . .
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(A Liv and Di in Dixie Mysteries)
Trace: Scarpetta
by Patricia Cornwell
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Now freelancing from south Florida, Dr. Kay Scarpetta returns to Richmond, Virginia, the city that turned its back on her five years ago. Investigating the death of a young girl, she must follow the twisting leads and track the strange details in order to make the dead speak-and to reveal the sad truth that may be more than even she can bear.
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(Kay Scarpetta Mysteries)
Connor Wilson
by D.C. Brockwell
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Before The Rubber Duck, before Philo Beddoe, and even before The Bandit, there was Trailblazer!
In April 1976, Denver, Colorado, ex-Rodeo rider-turned hit sensation country singer, Connor ‘Trailblazer’ Wilson is forced to go on a month-long tour of the Midwest to earn enough cash to pay off a huge debt owing to New York mob boss, Anthony Dellucci.
On the morning of the first tour date, Connor wakes up in his trailer next to a young woman. Connor’s troubles have only just begun, he realises, when he finds out the young woman, Darlene, is married to Deputy Sheriff Brad Morris, a relentless man-mountain, who has just arrived in the bar’s parking lot. With help from his band, Connor subdues Brad and orders him to relinquish his gun, badge, and clothes.
Bones To Pick
by Carolyn Haines
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Intrepid P.I. Sarah Booth Delaney has been known to single-handedly save her family’s Mississippi plantation, converse with Dahlia House’s ghost, and capture a killer or two. But when a local girl is found dead in a cotton field, it’s enough to make a lady toss back a Bloody Mary before noon on Sunday.
Someone held twenty-three-year-old Quentin McGee’s face down in the rich Southern soil until she suffocated. The lawmen think Quentin’s lover killed her. When the suspect’s brother hires Sarah to prove his sibling innocent, Sarah quickly learns that the victim had plenty of wealthy, powerful enemies.
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(Sarah Booth Delaney Mysteries)
A Split Worlds Omnibus
by Emma Newman
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Now in one volume: the first three novels in the urban fantasy series “that playfully mixes magic and interesting characters into an intriguing mystery” (Kirkus Reviews).
Between Mundanus, the world of humans, and Exilium, the world of the Fae, lies the Nether, a mirror-world where the social structure of 19th-century England is preserved by Fae-touched families who remain loyal to their ageless masters. Born into this world is Catherine Rhoeas-Papaver, who escapes it all to live a normal life in Mundanus, free from her parents and the strictures of Fae-touched society. But now she’s being dragged back to face an arranged marriage, along with all the high society trappings it entails.
Between Two Thorn
Any Other Name
All Is Fair
Love, Death, and the Art of Cooking
by Linda Griffin
Rating: 3.9 #ad
Software engineer Reid Lucas loves to cook and has a history of falling in love with married women. When he leaves his complicated past in Chicago for a job in California, he runs into trouble and must call a virtual stranger to bail him out of jail.
Alyssa Knight, a tough street cop waiting for a church annulment from her passive-aggressive husband, is the roommate of the woman Reid calls for help, and she reluctantly provides bail for Reid.
He falls for her immediately, and cooking for her is an act of love. She just wants to be friends, but they keep ending up in bed together. When his boss is murdered, Reid is a suspect…or is he the intended target?
Sand
by Hugh Howey
Rating: 4.3 #ad
The old world is buried. A new one has been forged atop the shifting dunes. Here in this land of howling wind and infernal sand, four siblings find themselves scattered and lost. Their father was a sand diver, one of the elite few who could travel deep beneath the desert floor and bring up the relics and scraps that keep their people alive. But their father is gone. And the world he left behind might be next.
Welcome to the world of Sand, a novel by New York Times best-selling author Hugh Howey. Sand is an exploration of lawlessness, the tale of a land ignored. Here is a people left to fend for themselves. Adjust your ker and take a last, deep breath before you enter.
My Chaotic Light
by L.E. Hallow
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Loren struggled to convince academics of her research to improve creativity through guided intuition. When she pushed that frustration into darkness, it took form. One frightful night, she was overwhelmed by a dark presence and called for help. After banishing that entity, the guide arranged a learning, intuitive path suited to her restless energy. She learnt much along the way, although her hasty actions sometimes came with a price. When it was time, ill-formed soul experiments resurfaced from an age long gone, created by her kind in a past life. Had she learnt enough to help them? Was she worthy?
Readers have described this book as realistic, relatable and insightful. It is a rare, enjoyable gem filled with surprises, support and understanding.
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
The Gun Also Rises
by Sherry Harris
Rating: 4.7 #ad
A wealthy widow has asked Sarah Winston to sell her massive collection of mysteries through her garage sale business. While sorting through piles of books stashed in the woman’s attic, Sarah is amazed to discover a case of lost Hemingway stories, stolen from a train in Paris back in 1922. How did they end up in Belle Winthrop Granville’s attic in Ellington, Massachusetts, almost one hundred years later?
Before Sarah can get any answers, Belle is assaulted, the case is stolen, a maid is killed, and Sarah herself is dodging bullets.
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(A Sarah W. Garage Sale Mysteries)
The Club Dumas
by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Lucas Corso is a book detective, a middle-aged mercenary hired to hunt down rare editions for wealthy and unscrupulous clients. When a well-known bibliophile is found dead, leaving behind part of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, Corso is brought in to authenticate the fragment. He is soon drawn into a swirling plot involving devil worship, occult practices, and swashbuckling derring-do among a cast of characters bearing a suspicious resemblance to those of Dumas’s masterpiece. Aided by a mysterious beauty named for a Conan Doyle heroine, Corso travels from Madrid to Toledo to Paris on the killer’s trail in this twisty intellectual romp through the book world.
Body from the Scottish Castle Murder
by Stephanie Parker McKean
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Comedy and chaos ensue when Rik Patience – who has no patience – takes a ghost hunting trip to Scotland with her colorful friend, Hooter. Rik doesn’t believe in ghosts. Hooter probably doesn’t either—but she wants to be sure. When Rik witnesses a murder, she is stalked by the killer, who can’t take the chance that she will recognize him.
Hooter’s ghost hunting friends resent Rik and her disbelief in paranormal events. She can survive their dislike, but can she survive the constant attempts on her life? Meanwhile, Hooter – who is unaware of the animosity between Rik and her ghost hunting friends – proves that no one is too old for love when she falls for a Scottish pastor.
The Seduction of Tallchief
by Doreen Owens Malek
Rating: 4.4 #ad
THE SEDUCTION OF TALLCHIEF concerns the criminal pursuit of a multi-millionaire serial child molester, George Walden, who has used his wealth and connections to escape detection for decades. A reluctant, unconventional agent, Jefferson Tallchief, is sent into Walden’s New Jersey mansion to assemble the case against him. The relationship that develops between Walden’s bitter and reclusive daughter, Victoria, and the new hire acting as her driver forms the core of the story. As they get to know one another, their prejudices (he’s Native American and she’s mostly WASP) dissipate and a bond slowly develops between them. While Tallchief works covertly to uncover evidence that will bring Walden to justice, he’s increasingly conflicted about his deceptive role in Victoria’s life.
Unseen (with bonus novella “Busted”)
by Karin Slaughter
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Will Trent is a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent whose latest case has him posing as Bill Black, a scary ex-con who rides a motorcycle around Macon, Georgia, and trails an air of violence wherever he goes. The cover has worked and he has caught the eye of a wiry little drug dealer who thinks he might be a useful ally. But undercover and cut off from the support of the woman he loves, Sara Linton, Will finds his demons catching up with him.
Although she has no idea where Will has gone, or why, Sara herself has come to Macon because of a cop shooting: Her stepson, Jared, has been gunned down in his own home.
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(Will Trent Mysteries)
Relic
by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum’s dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human…
But the museum’s directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders. Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who–or what–is doing the killing. But can she do it in time to stop the massacre?
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(Pendergast Mysteries)
Live and Let Work
by Tim Allard
Rating: 5.0 #ad
It’s a typical workday.
Your calendar is overloaded with meetings. Your inbox is filled with unread email. You hear the ringing of buzzwords and corporate jargon in your head. Your job might be rewarding, and you might even enjoy your day, if not for these annoyances. Isn’t this just ‘normal’ for a corporate job? Does it have to be this way?
No. There is a better approach to work.
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
The Mystery of the Lost Cezanne
by M. L. Longworth
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A friend in his cigar club asks Antoine Verlaque to visit René Rouquet, a retired postal worker who has found a rolled-up canvas in his apartment. As the apartment once belonged to Paul Cézanne, Rouquet is convinced he’s discovered a treasure. But when Antoine arrives at the apartment, he finds René dead, the canvas missing, and a mysterious art history professor standing over the body.
When the painting is finally recovered, the mystery only deepens. The brushwork and color all point to Cézanne. But who is the smiling woman in the painting?
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(A Provençal Mysteries)
Fear Nothing
by Dean Koontz
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Christopher Snow is different from all the other residents of Moonlight Bay, different from anyone you’ve ever met. For Christopher Snow has made his peace with a very rare genetic disorder shared by only one thousand other Americans, a disorder that leaves him dangerously vulnerable to light. His life is filled with the fascinating rituals of one who must embrace the dark. He knows the night as no one else ever will, ever can—the mystery, the beauty, the many terrors, and the eerie, silken rhythms of the night—for it is only at night that he is free.
Until the night he witnesses a series of disturbing incidents that sweep him into a violent mystery only he can solve, a mystery that will force him to rise above all fears and confront the many-layered strangeness of Moonlight Bay and its residents.
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(Moonlight Bay Mysteries)
The Dark
by Sharon Bolton
Rating: 4.5 #ad
When a baby is snatched from its pram and cast into the river Thames, off-duty police officer Lacey Flint is there to prevent disaster. But who would want to hurt a child?
DCI Mark Joesbury has been expecting this. Monitoring a complex network of dark web sites, Joesbury and his team have spotted a new terrorist threat from the extremist, women-hating, group known as ‘incels’ or ‘involuntary celibates.’ Joesbury’s team are trying to infiltrate the ring of power at its core, but the dark web is built for anonymity, and the incel army is vast.
The Grim Sleeper
by Christine Pelisek
Rating: 4.3 #ad
The inside story of one of the notorious and elusive serial killer who stalked the vulnerable, the young, and the ignored in 1980s Los Angeles—and then returned decades later to kill again
The Grim Sleeper was one of the most brutal serial killers in California history, preying on the women of South Central for decades. No one knows this story better than Christine Pelisek, the reporter who followed it for more than ten years. Based on extensive interviews, reportage, and information never released to the public, The Grim Sleeper captures the long, bumpy road to justice in one of the most startling true crime stories of our generation from his violent first crime while serving in the US Army to his inevitable death in prison.
Stalker
by Lisa Stone
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Someone is always watching…
Derek Flint is a loner. He lives with his mother and spends his
evenings watching his clients on the CCTV cameras he has installed inside their homes. He likes their companionship – even if it’s through a screen.
When a series of crimes hits Derek’s neighbourhood, DC Beth Mayes begins to suspect he’s involved. How does he know so much about the victims’ lives? Why won’t he let anyone into his office? And what is his mother hiding in that strange, lonely house?
Awaken to Ascension
by Marsha Hankins
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Need help discovering your path to enlightenment? Discover an approachable guide to shattering illusions and finding inner peace.
Stuck in your spiritual development? Curious where profound truths may lie? Searching for clarity and greater self-awareness? Spiritual coach and healer with twenty-three years of experience, Marsha Hankins has guided countless seekers in their explorations of the bigger questions of existence. And now she’s here to share how to empower yourself in your journey, escape limiting beliefs, and tap into the infinite well of pure joy by reaching higher levels of consciousness and awareness.
Awaken to Ascension: Mastering Oneness and Knowing Yourself as Source is a nourishing guide for expanding your perspective and fully developing innate wisdom.
Saturday’s Mystery eBooks
Best In Show
by Laurien Berenson
Rating: 4.6 #ad
There are dog shows. And then there’s The Poodle Club of America National Specialty Dog Show. For poodle purists, it’s the pinnacle of the season, drawing competitors and spectators from all over the world.
Once in Maryland, Melanie Travis is put to work selling raffle tickets by the co-chairs of the raffle committee, Betty Jean and Edith Jean Boone. Sixtyish steel magnolias from the South, the reclusive sisters make few appearances. But this year, they have a silver Toy puppy that has already caused quite a buzz on the show circuit.
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(A Melanie Travis Mysteries)
The Vanishing Point
by Val McDermid
Rating: 4.0 #ad
From one of the finest crime writers we have, The Vanishing Point kicks off with a nightmare scenario—the abduction of a child in an international airport. Stephanie Harker is in the screening booth at airport security, separated from Jimmy Higgins, the five-year-old boy she’s in the process of adopting, when a man in a TSA uniform leads the boy away. The more Stephanie sounds the alarm, the more the security agents suspect her, and the further away the kidnapper gets.
It soon becomes apparent that nothing in this situation is clear-cut. For starters, Jimmy’s birth mother was a celebrity—living in a world where conspiracy and obfuscation are excused for the sake of column inches…
The Strangers on Montagu Street
by Karen White
Rating: 4.7 #ad
With her relationship with writer Jack Treholm as shaky as the foundation of her family home, Melanie’s juggling a number of problems. Like restoring her Tradd Street house…and resisting her mother’s pressure to ‘go public’ with her talent—a sixth sense that unites them to the lost souls of the dead. But Melanie never anticipated her new problem.
Her name is Nola, Jack’s estranged young daughter who appears on their doorstep, damaged, lonely and defiantly immune to her father’s attempts to reconnect. Melanie understands the emotional chasm all too well.
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(Tradd Street Mysteries)
Cold Snap
by Marc Cameron
Rating: 4.7 #ad
In the remote northern town of Deadhorse, Alaska, Supervisory Deputy US Marshal Arliss Cutter escorts four very dangerous handcuffed prisoners onto a small bush plane en route to Fairbanks. Cutter’s expecting a routine mission and a nonstop flight—or so he thinks. When the plane goes down in the wilderness, all hell breaks loose. The prisoners murder the pilot and a guard and torch the plane. But their nightmare’s just beginning. Back in Anchorage, deputy Lola Teariki has traced the dismembered foot to a missing girl—and the serial psychopath who slaughtered her.
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(An Arliss Cutter Mysteries)
The Island
by Amy Cross
Rating: 4.4 #ad
In the near future, everyone’s a criminal. Every lie, every minor mistake, is monitored and logged. No-one, no matter how hard they might try, can ever be perfect. And if you build up enough points, you’ll be hauled off to work for the government.
Unless you decide that enough’s enough, in which case you can choose to go to the island. But if you take that option, you can never come back.
Arrested for a crime she didn’t commit, Iris Bloom soon discovers that she has a long criminal record that she knew nothing about. Invoking her right to go to the island, she quickly discovers that she’s merely swapped one hell for another. On the island, anything goes.
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(Island Mysteries)
The Last Time We Met
by Trisha Ridinger McKee
Rating: 5,0 #ad
As a member of the richest family in town, Willow understands the importance of reputation. Her stern grandmother has taught her that family secrets are to be buried, and as the most popular girl in school, Willow follows that lesson with a smile covering up the darkness.
But when Walden, the new guy from the wrong side of town comes to her school, Willow finds her image slipping and the secrets of her homelife in danger of being exposed. As a scandal tears the couple apart and throws Willow into a new, unfamiliar life, she must choose between saving Walden’s future or risking it all for love.
Defiance of the Fall
by TheFirstDefier, JF Brink
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Just as a threat is dealt with, an opportunity presents itself.
After searching for months, Zac’s forces have finally discovered the elusive Underworld that’s both teeming with riches and dangers. Meanwhile, the armies of the Undead Empire advances on all fronts while the Dominators scheme in the dark.
Having endured the Integration in the punishing environment of the subterranean cave system, the trapped warriors of the Underworld could become the key in surviving the incursions aboveground.
But first, Zac has to deal with the golems intent on digging to the center of the plane
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(Defiance of the Fall Mysteries)