Mysteries
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
Silver Anniversary Murder
by Leslie Meier
Rating: 4.4 #ad
As Tinker’s Cove, Maine, buzzes over a town-wide silver wedding anniversary bash, Lucy Stone is reminded of her own nuptials and ponders the whereabouts of Beth Gerard, her strong-willed maid of honor. Lucy never would have made it down the aisle without Beth’s help, and though the two lost touch over the years, she decides to reach out. It takes only one phone call for Lucy to realize that a reunion will happen sooner than later – at Beth’s funeral.
Beth, who was in the process of finalizing her fourth divorce, had a reputation for living on the edge – but no one believes she’d jump off a penthouse terrace in New York City. The more Lucy learns about Beth’s former husbands, the more she suspects one of them committed murder.
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(A Lucy Stone Mysteries)
Herding Bats
by Stephanie Parker McKean
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Buoyed by an inspirational calendar, Dulcinea Robbins travels from shady, green Georgia to hot, semi-arid Laredo, Texas, to flee a broken romance and help an aging author with dementia write a book about her mental decline. However, she runs headlong into two antagonistic brothers, the author’s sons, who resent her presence and initially try to force her to leave.
Dulcy attempts to help older brother HJ find his long-missing father. She has no idea that the quest for truth will lead her into an encounter with the Los Zetas drug cartel in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico; the necessity to rescue a kidnapped neighbor; and other, even more sinister, dangers. Finding that her calendar quotes do little to alleviate the mounting danger, Dulcy finds herself turning back to God as the mysteries spin out of control – and so does Dulcy’s heart.
Treachery in Death
by J. D. Robb
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Detective Eve Dallas and her partner, Peabody, are following up on a senseless crime – an elderly grocery owner killed by three stoned punks for nothing more than kicks and snacks. This is Peabody’s first case as primary detective – good thing she learned from the master.
But soon Peabody stumbles upon a trickier situation. After a hard workout, she’s all alone in the locker room when the gym door clatters open, and – while hiding inside a shower stall trying not to make a sound – she overhears two fellow officers arguing. It doesn’t take long to realize they’re both crooked – guilty not just of corruption but of murder.
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(In Death Mysteries)
Immortal Rising
by Lynsay Sands
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Stephanie McGill was attacked and turned when she was just a teenager. Worse, her abilities are unlike any other immortal. Now 13 years later, with the help of her adopted Argeneau family, Steph has carved out a new – if not lonely – life for herself. Until a new neighbor arrives…
Thorne is also one-of-a-kind. The result of a genetic experiment, he’s not an immortal, but he’s not mortal either. He’s looking for a place to hide, to get some peace and quiet so he can figure things out, and Stephanie’s sanctuary is perfect. In fact, Stephanie is perfect. For the first time, Thorne is free to be himself and he’s falling for her.
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(An Argeneau Mysteries)
20th Century Ghosts
by Joe Hill
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Imogene is young, beautiful . . . and dead, waiting in the Rosebud Theater one afternoon in 1945. . . .
Francis was human once, but now he’s an eight-foot-tall locust, and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . .
John is locked in a basement stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children, and an antique telephone, long since disconnected, rings at night with calls from the dead. . . .
Junkyard Veterans
by Jamie McFarlane
Rating: 4.6 #ad
With a price on their heads, grumpy old vets will risk everything to bring alien assassins to justice.
Someone is killing off the old team of vets who repelled Earth’s first Korgul invasion. With the end of a war precious few even knew was happening, life’s been peaceful. Of course, Albert Jenkins isn’t a bit surprised when that peace is shattered by the sounds of rocket propelled grenades fired over the Georgia swamps. To make matters worse, when he reports the alien’s foiled attack to the Army, he’s ordered to keep things quiet and stop causing trouble.
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(Junkyard Pirate Mysteries)
The Feud: The Hatfields and McCoys
by Dean King
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Unlike previous accounts, King’s begins in the mid-nineteenth century, when the Hatfields and McCoys lived side-by-side in relative harmony. Theirs was a hardscrabble life of farming and hunting, timbering and moonshining-and raising large and boisterous families-in the rugged hollows and hills of Virginia and Kentucky. Cut off from much of the outside world, these descendants of Scots-Irish and English pioneers spoke a language many Americans would find hard to understand. Yet contrary to popular belief, the Hatfields and McCoys were established and influential landowners who had intermarried and worked together for decades.
When the Civil War came, and the outside world crashed into their lives, family members were forced to choose sides…
Irine Wicklow: Bounty Hunter
by Laura Strickland
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A brand new third adventure in a new series from Laura Strickland!
Irine Wicklow, better known as the dangerous bounty hunter, Wolverine, has sent her sometime-partner, Justice Turrant back to Kentucky, reckoning she’d rather weather a little unhappiness now than a whole lot of heartbreak later. But her wild black mare, Jezebel, is miserable without Jus’s horse, Settler. And Rine just can’t lose her longing for the handsome Reb. He’s one of only two men alive who know Wolverine’s a woman. The other’s her latest bounty, a charming Spaniard whom she intends to take in for the price on his head.
Jus hoped news of the revenge he and Rine had won for his sister, Jenny, would help her heal from her devastating past ordeal.
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(Irine Wicklow: Bounty Hunter Series)
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
The Diva Serves Forbidden Fruit
by Krista Davis
Rating: 4.8 #ad
With Old Town’s DIY Home Decorating Festival in full swing, Sophie’s swamped, juggling a bumper crop of artisans, antique dealers, and decorators for the busy street fair. Still, when her best friend Nina suddenly needs a ride from the airport, Sophie is happy to help . . . until she sees Nina disembarking in a state of disarray. It’s obvious the trip to Portugal soured somewhere along the way. But after one of Nina’s traveling companions turns up murdered the following day, Sophie knows something is truly rotten . . .
Though the crime scene is staged to look like an accident, Sophie isn’t fooled and peels off to conduct her own investigation. Her only clue is a strange image the victim scratched into the soil before dying. Could it point to a cryptic killer in Old Town? A bitter travel adversary?
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(A Domestic Diva Mysteries)
Murder at Lolly Beach
by Jane Suen
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Chef Blake Conway has been stirring up the locals with his campaign for a plastics ban on the quaint town’s littered beach. When Eve’s friend Cassie takes her to visit Blake’s crêpe food truck and they discover he’s being rushed to the hospital, the college journalism student can’t just stand by, especially after Cassie’s beach house is burglarized.
Beach Beat reporter Jake Thorne, who takes Eve on as an intern, mentors her while they race to find the answers. The fuse is running short on suspects who oppose Blake’s proposed ordinance. And a killer is lurking at the small town’s quiet beach, where murders are practically unheard of.
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(Eve Sawyer Mysteries)
Blazer: Ghosts of War
by G.C. Harmon
Rating: 4.6 #ad
GO BACK IN TIME WITH BLAZER AS THIS HEART-STOPPING ACTION TAKES A CLEVER LOOK AT HISTORY.
Before Steve Blazer was given command of SFPD’s Special Forces – before he was a crack Homicide Inspector – he was an elite up and comer on the Vice Squad.
During an Asian drug smuggler bust, two Vice cops are murdered. The killer leaves a signature – one that means something to Blazer’s mentor, Captain John Stanson – leading him to believe the smuggler gang is tied to a wealthy Vietnamese businessman who rules San Francisco’s Little Saigon district with an iron fist. As Blazer dives deeper into the investigation, he clashes with the Federal Agency providing his protection, and when the Vietnamese businessman is murdered, the feds put Blazer on the top of their suspect list.
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(Blazer Mysteries)
A Three Book Problem
by Vicki Delany
Rating: 4.5 #ad
It’s a crisp, early October weekend, and business is slowing down as fall descends at the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium and adjacent Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room. Wealthy philanthropist and prominent Sherlockian David Masterson has rented Suffolk Gardens House, where he plans to entertain his friends in a traditional English country house weekend.
As the chosen caterers, Jayne Wilson and Gemma Doyle get to work preparing lavish meals and setting up Sherlockian books and props for entertainment. Meanwhile, police detective Ryan Ashburton has taken time away from his duties to assist in the kitchen.
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(A Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mysteries)
Mateo’s Law
by Sandra Cox
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A modern day, shapeshifting sheriff. He’s the sheriff of a sparsely populated county in Montana. His blood brother and childhood best friend is Chief of Police on the Blackfoot Reservation, but they no longer speak.
His deputy is a southern transplant with the body of a high-priced call girl, a voice of honey and mouth of a trucker. And if that’s not enough, he’s got a secret that would stun those that know him best. Other than that, it’s business as usual for Sheriff Mateo Grey.
The Missing Daughter
by Emily Gunnis
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Some secrets are locked away for years . . .
Rebecca Waterhouse is just thirteen when she witnesses her mother’s death at the hand of her father in Seaview Cottage. But what else did she see?
Years later, Rebecca’s daughters Iris and Jessie know their mother will never speak of that terrible night. But when Jessie goes missing, with her gravely ill newborn, Iris realises the past may hold the key to her sister’s disappearance.
With Jessie in trouble, Iris must unravel a twisting story of love and betrayal in her mother’s family history.
The Mystery of Albert E. Finch
by Callie Hutton
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Bath, England, 1892. Celebrated mystery author Lady Amy Lovell is set to tie the knot with Lord William Wethington, a fellow member of the Mystery Book Club of Bath. Amy’s great-aunt, Lady Priscilla Granville, has offered to host their wedding at her stately Derby Manor House. But on the eve of the ceremony, the festive air in the drawing room is marred by Mrs. Alice Finch’s argument with her husband, Albert, in another room. The next morning at the wedding breakfast, Alice falls face-first into her breakfast—dead.
When Amy and William’s favorite detectives are summoned to the house, they see two champagne glasses in front of Mrs. Finch and none in front of her husband. Did Albert give his wife a poisoned drink? Always looking for the easiest solution, the detectives charge Albert with the murder.
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(A VICTORIAN BOOK CLUB MYSTERIES)
Foucault’s Pendulum
by Umberto Eco
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Bored with their work, three Milanese book editors cook up an elaborate hoax that connects the medieval Knights Templar with occult groups across the centuries. Becoming obsessed with their own creation, they produce a map indicating the geographical point from which all the powers of the earth can be controlled—a point located in Paris, France, at Foucault’s Pendulum.
But in a fateful turn the joke becomes all too real. When occult groups, including Satanists, get wind of the Plan, they go so far as to kill one of the editors in their quest to gain control of the earth. Orchestrating these and other diverse characters into his multilayered semiotic adventure, Umberto Eco has created a superb cerebral entertainment.
Saturday’s Mystery eBooks
Murder at the Bingo Hall
by Linda Pohl
Rating: 4.3 #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. These quirky amateur sleuths use creative, unconventional means to uncover evidence to find the murderer. What did Priscilla stumble upon that made her a killer’s target?
Guarding Her Heart
by Laura Haley-McNeil
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Threatened by a stalker, she turns to the only man who can help her – the man who walked out of her life ten years ago.
Artist Victoria Whitloch escapes the clutches of a stalker only to stumble into the arms of the man she never wants to see again, bad boy prosecutor Garrett Reynolds. To protect Victoria, Garrett whisks her away to an isolated lodge. Major problem for Victoria – how does she help Garrett capture the stalker while guarding her heart against the man who broke it once before?
Garrett thought his heart had healed when Victoria left him ten years ago. Garrett’s bigger problem – capture the stalker determined to imprison Victoria. Keeping Victoria safe is no easy task for Garrett, but getting her to trust him is an entirely different challenge.
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(Crystal Creek Mysteries)
The Broken Room
by Peter Clines
Rating: 4.4 #ad
You can still owe the dead.
Hector was the best of the best. A government operative who could bring armies to a halt and nations to their knees. But when his own country betrayed him, he dropped off the grid and picked up the first of many bottles.
Natalie can’t remember much of her life before her family brought her to the US, but she remembers the cages. And getting taken away to the Project with dozens of other young children to become part of their nightmarish experiments. That’s how she ended up with the ghost of a dead secret agent stuck in her head.
And Hector owes Natalie’s ghost a big favor.
Special Agent Charli
by Mimi Barbour
Rating: 4.4 #ad
You can still owe the dead.
Hector was the best of the best. A government operative who could bring armies to a halt and nations to their knees. But when his own country betrayed him, he dropped off the grid and picked up the first of many bottles.
Natalie can’t remember much of her life before her family brought her to the US, but she remembers the cages. And getting taken away to the Project with dozens of other young children to become part of their nightmarish experiments. That’s how she ended up with the ghost of a dead secret agent stuck in her head.
And Hector owes Natalie’s ghost a big favor.
Check out:
(Undercover FBI Mysteries)
We Shall Inherit the Wind
by Gunnar Staalesen, Don Bartlett
Rating: 4.1 #ad
1998. Varg Veum sits by the hospital bedside of his long-term girlfriend Karin, whose life-threatening injuries provide a deeply painful reminder of the mistakes he’s made.
Investigating the seemingly innocent disappearance of a wind-farm inspector, Varg Veum is thrust into one of the most challenging cases of his career, riddled with conflicts, environmental terrorism, religious fanaticism, unsolved mysteries and dubious business ethics. Then, in one of the most heart-stopping scenes in crime fiction, the first body appears…
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(Varg Veum Mysteries)
The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Volume Two
by Fritz Leiber
Rating: 4.1 #ad
The Hugo and Nebula Award – winning series of sword and sorcery – featuring two unorthodox heroes – from a Grand Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Long before George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones became a worldwide phenomenon, Fritz Leiber ruled the literary universe of sword and sorcery. This novel and two short story collections chronicle the adventures of Leiber’s endearing and groundbreaking antiheroes: the barbarian Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, a former wizard’s apprentice – in the series hailed as “one of the great works of fantasy in this century” (Publishers Weekly).
Swords Against Wizardry,
The Swords of Lankhmar,
Swords and Ice Magic
A Better Heart
by Chuck Augello
Rating: 4.5 #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. These quirky amateur sleuths use creative, unconventional means to uncover evidence to find the murderer. What did Priscilla stumble upon that made her a killer’s target?