Mysteries
Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
Apple Turnover Murder
by Joanne Fluke
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Early summer brings plenty of work for baker Hannah Swensen, even before Mayor Bascomb’s wife drops by The Cookie Jar to place an order for her charity event…for eleven hundred cookies! And Hannah almost flips when her business partner, Lisa, suggests setting up an apple turnover stand. But she places her faith in Lisa, and even agrees to be a magician’s assistant in the fundraiser’s talent show.
The only snag is the show’s host, college professor Bradford Ramsey. Hannah and her sister, Michelle, each had unfortunate romances with Ramsey, and when the cad comes sniffing around between acts, Hannah tells him off.
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(Hannah Swensen Mysteries)
Dark Sacred Night
by Michael Connelly
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Harry Bosch teams up with LAPD Detective Renée Ballard in the new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly.
Detective Renée Ballard is working the night beat–known in LAPD slang as “the late show”–and returns to Hollywood Station in the early hours to find a stranger rifling through old file cabinets. The intruder is retired detective Harry Bosch, working a cold case that has gotten under his skin.
Ballard can’t let him go through department records, but when he leaves, she looks into the case herself and feels a deep tug of empathy and anger. She has never been the kind of cop who leaves the job behind at the end of her shift–and she wants in.
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(Renée Ballard Mysteries)
Bounty Hunter Jonathan
by Jesse Storm
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Jonathan Kettleman is an honorable bounty hunter who keeps himself busy with his work after the death of his wife. Each job is simple. All he does is bring in the outlaw and get paid.
That is until the wealthiest woman in the state, Elizabeth Darton, shows up on the doorstep of the sheriff’s office. She begs the law to bring her daughter back to her. Isabella Darton is taken by one of the most notorious outlaws in the state. His name is Chester Dawson… and he wanted money.
The stakes are higher than ever as Jonathan sets out on a journey to bring Isabella back to her mother, in the midst of a conflict between the natives and the government.
The Tudor Secret
by C. W. Gortner
Rating: 5.0 #ad
The era of the Tudors was one of danger, intrigue, conspiracy, and, above all, spies.
Summer 1553: A time of danger and deceit. Brendan Prescott, an orphan, is reared in the household of the powerful Dudley family. Brought to court, Prescott finds himself sent on an illicit mission to the king’s brilliant but enigmatic sister, Princess Elizabeth. But Brendan is soon compelled to work as a double agent by Elizabeth’s protector, William Cecil, who promises in exchange to help him unravel the secret of his own mysterious past.
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(The Elizabeth I Spymaster Chronicles)
The Accidental Demon Slayer
by Angie Fox
Rating: 4.2 #ad
A New York Times bestselling, breakout novel
My name is Lizzie Brown, and demon slayer wasn’t my first career choice. It didn’t even crack the list. I had a good thing going as a preschool teacher until my long-lost Granny blew into my life riding a Harley and raving about a demon on my toilet. Why did she have to be right?
He was from the seventh layer of hell, and I killed his ass faster than you can say flush. Now Grandma insists I’m a demon slayer, destined to ride with her geriatric gang of biker witches. Do I even own a leather jacket?
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(Biker Witches)
Within and Without Time
by D. I. Hennessey
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Experience the Origin of a Prophet …
When a sixteen-year-old boy is suddenly caught up in a series of miraculous encounters, it heralds an adventure that will transform his life, rock his town, and trigger events that will ultimately change the world!
Befriended by a powerful angelic warrior, Jimmy finds himself in the center of God’s plan for Earth’s final Great Revival. The beginning of God’s amazing harvest at the End of the Age. Like an intense roller coaster, the journey he experiences is exciting and unpredictable. Heartwarming, as well as heart-rending. God prepares him for a mission more extraordinary than anything he could have imagined, placing him in the rare company of ancient prophets and apostles alike.
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(Within & Without Time)
Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins
by Reed Farrel Coleman
Rating: 4.5 #ad
In the wake of a huge storm, three bodies are discovered in the rubble of an abandoned factory building in an industrial part of Paradise known as The Swap. One body, a man’s, wrapped in a blue tarp, is only hours old. But found within feet of that body are the skeletal remains of two teenage girls who had gone missing during a Fourth of July celebration twenty-five years earlier. Not only does that crime predate Jesse Stone’s arrival in Paradise, but the dead girls were close friends of Jesse’s right hand, Officer Molly Crane. And things become even more complicated when one of the dead girls’ mothers returns to Paradise to bury her daughter and is promptly murdered.
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(Jesse Stone Mysteries)
Battle Ground
by Jim Butcher
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Harry has faced terrible odds before. He has a long history of fighting enemies above his weight class. The Red Court of vampires. The fallen angels of the Order of the Blackened Denarius. The Outsiders.
But this time it’s different. A being more powerful and dangerous on an order of magnitude beyond what the world has seen in a millennium is coming. And she’s bringing an army. The Last Titan has declared war on the city of Chicago, and has come to subjugate humanity, obliterating any who stand in her way.
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(Dresden Files)
Ratchet
by Frank Wheeler
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Ratchet’s sworn to catch his brother’s killer. Auger’s sworn to watch him die.
Bounty hunting is a dangerous job. Honor will only get you so far. You have to be clever, cautious, and fast with your gun. Wade Ratchet watched his brother make one mistake and pay with his life. Now, he’s out to avenge his death and kill the man who robbed him of his family.
Only a handful of people have seen Auger Brooks’ face and lived to tell the tale. Wade Ratchet is one of them.
Iris Meadows is another. He knows they’re coming for him, and he’s not afraid. He’s also not stupid.
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(Westward Saga Western)
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
A House of Ghosts
by W. C. Ryan
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Winter 1917. As the First World War enters its most brutal phase, back home in England, everyone is seeking answers to the darkness that has seeped into their lives. At Blackwater Abbey, on an island off the Devon coast, armaments manufacturer Lord Highmount has arranged a spiritualist gathering to contact his two sons, both of whom died at the front.
Among the guests, two have been secretly dispatched from the intelligence service: Kate Cartwright, a friend of the family who lost her beloved brother at the Somme and who, in the realm of the spiritual, has her own special gift; and the mysterious Captain Donovan, recently returned from Europe…
Patriots
by James Rawles
Rating: 4.3 #ad
In this post-apocalyptic thriller, a group of American friends search for safety following disaster, but danger is hunting for them.
America faces a full-scale socioeconomic collapse—the stock market plummets, hyperinflation cripples commerce, and the mounting crisis passes the tipping point. Practically overnight, the fragile chains of supply and high-technology infrastructure fall, and wholesale rioting and looting grip every major city.
As hordes of refugees and looters pour out of the cities, a small group of friends living in the Midwest desperately tries to make their way to a safe-haven ranch in northern Idaho…
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(Coming Collapse Mysteries)
Mark of Steel
by Lynn Landes
Rating: 4.3 #ad
From singing to becoming the target of an unseen enemy.
Marina Stephenson follows her heart and fills in at her friends bar the night her singer doesn’t show up. It was a simple gift from friend to friend, but her life is soon in turmoil. Dubbed the “secret singer” by the press, Marina’s life is turned upside down when she sings to Billionaire Axl Devereaux.
Inventor, Axl Devereaux, CEO of Devereaux Knives, Inc., is ready to present his cutting-edge design to the United States military. His work has been heralded by multiple branches of the government. Security has been a problem in the past, not this time…
Rebel Slave
by Richard Davis
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Broken by war… Enslaved by a corrupt queen… Imprisoned in a frozen Hell from which no man has ever escaped before…
Charles Raptor is a White Shield, a deadly professional soldier paid by a corrupt regime to fight its forever wars. But after eighteen years of watching good men die for nothing and evil triumph, it’s time to walk away, to seek a life of peace with a new wife in the country of his birth.
But war isn’t finished with Charles Raptor. Falsely convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, torn from his family, sold into slavery to a tribe of man-hating dwarves, Charles is condemned to a life of servitude and humiliation — a fate worse than death that has broken many a man who thought himself strong.
ONLY OUR DESTINY
by A.G. Russo
Rating: 4.4
The Mezzogiorno (Southern Italy). Up to 85 per cent of Italian Americans have their roots in this region. The story of the Coriello family begins in the fictional fishing village of Punto Roccioso along the Amalfi Coast. Alta Italia (Northern Italy) looks down on their southern countrymen as uneducated peasants. With limited opportunities available, many southern Italians dream of escaping poverty by leaving the land they love for a better life in America. But like all dreams, hardships, sacrifices, and realities intrude.
Having lived through World War I, the Spanish Flu, the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, and racial laws, Raffaela must raise and feed her ten children without any help from her estranged abusive husband Giuseppe, who refuses to give her money. With the support of her two oldest children, Geno, and Luisa, she struggles to survive… #ad
The Inscrutable Paris Beaufont Boxed Set
by Sarah Noffke, Michael Anderle
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Happily Ever After College has been churning out fairy godmothers for centuries. But their outdated curriculum can’t keep up with the modern world. They need something edgy. Something new, to keep true love alive. They need Paris Beaufont. Find out how she changes Happily Ever After College and the world with this 9-book urban fantasy boxset.
This fairy loses her lunch if she watches a romantic comedy. Love songs give her hives. She punched the last guy who tried to flirt with her. Needless to say, Paris Beaufont isn’t the romantic type. But she’s going to have to learn how to create budding love for others or she’s going to jail. When a series of criminal offenses forces Paris to attend fairy godmother college, she has to learn not to just stomach romance, but to master it…
Behind Her Eyes
by Sarah Pinborough
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Why is everyone talking about the ending of Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes?
Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. On a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar and sparks fly. Though he leaves after they kiss, she’s thrilled she finally connected with someone.
When Louise arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David. The man from the bar. The very married man from the bar…who says the kiss was a terrible mistake, but who still can’t keep his eyes off Louise.
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
Faithless
by Karin Slaughter
Rating: 4.6 #ad
The victim was buried alive in the Georgia woods—then killed in a horrifying fashion. When Sara Linton and Jeffrey Tolliver stumble upon the body, both become consumed with finding out who killed the pretty, impeccably dressed young woman. And for Sara and Jeffrey, a harrowing journey begins, one that will test their own turbulent relationship and draw dozens of lives into the case.
Lena Adams is one of them. A Grant County detective for years, she has her own reasons for being drawn to this case and a fierce drive to see justice done. For these three people, who have each seen the darkest side of human nature, the body of the murdered girl is but the first in a series of shocking and sordid revelations.
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(Grant County Mysteries)
Blind Eye
by Vanessa Luther
Rating: 4.6 #ad
After enduring years of infidelity and a painful divorce, Rachel Davis has finally reclaimed her life. Gorgeous, intelligent and now with a tenacity to survive whatever life throws at her, Rachel feels better than she has in a long time. With two wonderful children, a successful career and a newfound strength, life is good.
At least until she gets involved with Eric Sinclair, a handsome but mysterious colleague in the throes of a nasty divorce. What starts off as a harmless friendship catapults into a sensuous affair filled with sex, lies and murder. When a life-shattering event suddenly threatens their relationship, Rachel finds her life spiraling out of control until she is eventually forced to ask herself the question she fears the most. Just how well do we really know those around us?
Treachery Times Two
by Robert McCaw
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Secret military weapons, saboteurs, a volcanic eruption—and a probe of Chief Detective Koa Kane’s criminal past.
On Hawaii Island, a volcanic earthquake disrupts an abandoned cemetery—unearthing the body of a woman mutilated by her killer to conceal her identity.
The search for her identity leads Hilo Hawaii’s Chief Detective Koa Kane to a mysterious defense contractor with a politically connected board of directors. Defying his chief of police, Koa pursues the killer, only to become entangled in an FBI espionage investigation of Deimos, a powerful secret military weapon. Is the FBI telling all it knows—or does it, too, have a duplicitous agenda?
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(Koa Kane Hawaiian Mystery)
Madness in Wonderland
by Tabitha Bouldin
Rating: New Release #ad
Brand New Release from Tabitha Bouldin.
Wonderland is in trouble. Under the rule of the Red Queen, Wonderland is under constant threat. In fear for her throne, children are taken into the queen’s army and only the strongest survive. Alice is nothing but a pirate, but with the help of Hatter, they hatch a plan to sneak into the Red Queen’s palace to free Hatter’s sister. After all, Alice has always wanted to fly an airship.
Dr. Frank N. Stein has created an army of automatons to serve their queen. Of particular note: a prototype soldier. Part man. Part machine. The best of both worlds…
Murder at the Wedding
by Helena Dixon
Rating: 4.5 #ad
1934. Kitty Underhay steps out of the battered Rolls Royce and onto the gravelled driveway of Thurscomb Castle in deepest Yorkshire. She’s honoured to be a bridesmaid at her cousin Lucy’s wedding to the reluctant Lord Rupert Woodcomb, but as family and friends gather for welcome drinks, Kitty dodges intrusive questions about her own marital status by taking a stroll about the castle grounds. As she passes through the manicured gardens, a fatal shot rings out…
The valet, Evans, is dead. And Kitty can’t help but notice how rattled the man standing next to him seems. Could Rupert’s best man, The Right Honourable Alexander ‘Sandy’ Galsworthy, believe the speeding bullet was meant for him?
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(A Miss Underhay Mystery)
OFFENBUNKER: Cold War Spies Face Nuclear Menace
by A.G. Russo
Rating: 4.2 #ad
A top secret bunker deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A silo housing a ballistic missile.
Cold War super powers the United States and the Soviet Union are engaged in an intense “arms race” build up of nuclear weapons and face off for control as the fate of the free world hangs in the balance. The CIA, U.S. military intelligence, spies, double agents, the KGB, Stasi secret police, and assassins engage in a dangerous contest of espionage as Russia wants to spread communism and take control of Europe, and the United States wants to stop them. What is the personal cost to those who devote their lives to preventing nuclear war?
The Coldness of Objects
by Panayotis Cacoyannis
Rating: 4.5 #ad
London 2030. When a postman knocks on his door, the news he delivers will cause 70-year-old Anthony Pablo Rubens to reflect on all the many sadnesses and joys of the past, while he begins to prepare for the surprises of the future. The past still revolves around the moment in the summer of 1984 when young Anthony first realized he had fallen in love.
The present is a Kafkaesque nightmare worse than Orwell’s 1984, “a hideous world where people don’t need to be watched by Big Brother.” It’s a world that Anthony has mostly shut his eyes to, but which suddenly he is forced to confront. And the future now encompasses the mystery, and excitement, and dread of a day as an exhibit at the National People’s Museum.
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
Knee Deep in Dough
by Catherine Bruns
Rating: 4.8 #ad
From USA Today bestselling author Catherine Bruns comes a hilariously homicidal Cookies & Chance mystery!
For once, baker Sally Muccio’s life isn’t a recipe for disaster. She’s happy to be out celebrating her wedding anniversary… that is until she spies her friend Officer Brian Jenkins with a gorgeous blonde who is not his newlywed wife. The woman’s name is Kelsey Sherman, and it turns out she once dated Brian. Which doesn’t make Sal feel any better about the situation, but she decides to mind her own business and enjoy her evening.
Only before the night is over Kelsey is dead from a gunshot wound, and Brian is found standing over her body. To make matters worse, the bullet is confirmed to have come from his own gun.
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(Cookies & Chance Mysteries)
Trophy Girl
by Marlis Manley
Rating: 4.9 #ad
It’s summer 1957, and when fourteen-year-old Sandy Turner goes missing – along with one of her late mother’s hidden scrapbooks – Aunt Maggie can think of only one place the girl might be.
Frank Haggard, the race-car driver in those yellowing news clippings, assumes the girl claiming to be his daughter is a fan acting on a dare, until Maggie tracks them down. Memories of his annulled marriage to Maggie’s sister flood over him, and the timing couldn’t be worse…
Snap
by Belinda Bauer
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Just before Jack’s mother disappeared up the road to get help, she put the eleven-year-old boy in charge of his two sister. As they wait for her on the shoulder of the road in their stifling, broken-down car, the three children bicker, whine and play I-Spy. But their mother never comes back. And after that long, hot summer’s day, nothing will ever be the same again.
At fifteen-years-old, Jack is still in charge—supporting his sisters any way he can while evading social services. Meanwhile, a young woman across town wakes to find a knife beside her bed, and a note reading I could of killed you.
The Last Stand
by Lorhainne Eckhart
Rating: 4.7 #ad
From New York Times & USA Today bestselling author Lorhainne Eckhart comes a new Billy Jo McCabe mystery set on a small island town in the Pacific Northwest. On the eve of Police Chief Mark Friessen’s wedding, a fierce snowstorm blankets the island, knocking out power, and the body of a woman is discovered in the church. The only clue is the note in her hand, a list of names—all members of Mark’s family.
Mark Friessen has been counting down the days to his wedding to Billy Jo McCabe. Yet only days from Christmas, after their families arrive, a freak blizzard comes out of nowhere and knocks out power on the entire island…
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(Billy Jo McCabe Mysteries)
Judgment
by Joseph Finder
Rating: 4.3 #ad
It was nothing more than a one-night stand. Juliana Brody, a judge in the Superior Court of Massachusetts, is rumored to be in consideration for the federal circuit, maybe someday the highest court in the land. At a conference in a Chicago hotel, she meets a gentle, vulnerable man and has an unforgettable night with him—something she’d never done before. They part with an explicit understanding that this must never happen again.
But back home in Boston, Juliana realizes that this was no random encounter. The man from Chicago proves to have an integral role in a case she’s presiding over–a sex-discrimination case that’s received national attention…
Cribbins
by R. H. Dixon
Rating: 4.6 #ad
He belonged in Hell, but lived next door! While struggling to cope with the emotional and physical impact of being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, single mother Sophie Harrington is tormented by a man from her past: her old neighbour Ronnie Cribbins.
Cribbins has been dead for the past fifteen years and Sophie is faced with the possibility that his malevolent spirit could be the cause of her autoimmunity, because she can feel him attacking her senses from within.
HOTEL OBSCURE
by Lisette Brodey
Rating: 4.3 #ad
In a run-down neighborhood in an unnamed city, people live and die in “the Obscure.”
Whether anyone remembers the real name of the derelict establishment is a mystery. In this six-story building, most who occupy the rooms are long-term residents, though some stay for as little as an hour.
The patronage is an eclectic group: musicians, writers, addicts, hookers, lonely people, poor people, rich people, once-well-off people, and those who have reason to hide from their former lives or to escape the demands of a disapproving and punishing society.
Running Blind
by Lee Child
Rating: 4.5
Jack Reacher races to solve the perfect crime in the fourth novel in Lee Child’s New York Times bestselling series.
Across the country, women are being murdered, victims of a disciplined and clever killer who leaves no trace evidence, no fatal wounds, no signs of struggle, and no clues to an apparent motive. They are, truly, perfect crimes. In fact, there’s only one thing that links the victims. Each one of the women knew Jack Reacher–and it’s got him running blind.