Mysteries
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
Tequila Four
by Tricia O’Malley
Rating: 4.6 #ad
It isn’t every day that a billionaire pharmacy CEO sails his yacht down to Tequila Key to see how the common folk live. Or in Chadwick Harrington’s case, to hide out from the media circus threatening to ruin his not-so-illustrious career after he privatized a patented cure for Alzheimer’s.
No wonder he’s called “The Most-Hated Man in America.”
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(The Althea Rose Mysteries)
The Bastard’s Inheritance
by Dennis Roth
Rating: 4.3 #ad
“I won’t allow that bastard to ruin the family’s reputation,” promised the late Henry Molnar’s widow. On his deathbed when remorse had overcome his discretion, Molnar directed that the biggest secret of his life, the existence of an illegitimate son, be exposed at his funeral. The surprise revelation ended more than 26 years of innocence and propelled those closest to him towards paths of deceit, corruption, and blackmail. No one would be spared. Not even with the unexpected ending.
The well-developed cast of characters drives Dennis Roth’s debut novel that’s full of twists and turns while still being an easy-to-read page turner.
The Ice Swimmer
by Kjell Ola Dahl, Don Bartlett
Rating: 4.2 #ad
When a dead man is lifted from the freezing waters of Oslo Harbour just before Christmas, Detective Lena Stigersand’s stressful life suddenly becomes even more complicated. Not only is she dealing with a cancer scare, a stalker and an untrustworthy boyfriend, but it seems that both a politician and Norway’s security services might be involved in the murder.
With her trusted colleagues, Gunnarstranda and FrØlich, at her side, Lena digs deep into the case and finds that it not only goes to the heart of the Norwegian establishment, but it might be rather to close to her personal life for comfort.
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(Oslo Detective Mysteries)
Frozen Souls
by Rita Herron
Rating: 4.6 #ad
She looked like an angel. She lay perfectly still, silky blonde hair falling to her pale shoulders. Icicles clung to her eyelashes as snowflakes fluttered to the frozen ground, burying her body.
As a snowstorm wreaks havoc in the mountain town of Crooked Creek, a woman is found buried in ice. Detective Ellie Reeves is first on the scene. Examining the body, she finds frozen blonde hair, pink nail polish and a silver heart necklace engraved with Mine Forever.
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(Detective Ellie Reeves Mysteries)
Breaking Point
by John Rhodes
Rating: 4.5 #ad
1940, World War II. The Nazis have crushed Europe, and Hitler launches a massive aerial assault with the Luftwaffe against the heavily outnumbered British RAF. The fate of civilization teeters in the balance.
Johnnie Shaux, a Spitfire fighter pilot, must summon up the fortitude to fly into a battle where death is all but inevitable, and continue to do so until the inevitable occurs…
Eleanor Rand, a brilliant Fighter Command mathematician, studies the control room map constantly tracking the ebbs and flows of the conflict, and sees the glimmerings of a radical breakthrough…
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(Breaking Point Mysteries)
The Best American Mystery Stories
by C. J. Box, Otto Penzler
Rating: 4.3 #ad
A collection of the year’s best mystery short fiction selected by New York Times best-selling and Edgar Award–winning author C. J. Box.
C. J. Box , #1 New York Times best-selling author of the hugely popular Joe Pickett series, selects the best short mystery and crime fiction of the year in this annual “treat for crime-fiction fans” (Library Journal).
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(The Best American: Mystery Stories)
Defiance of the Fall
by TheFirstDefier, JF Brink
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Zac was alone in the middle of the forest when the world changed…
The whole planet was introduced to the multiverse by an unfeeling System… or God. A universe where an endless number of races and civilizations fought for power and dominion.
Zac finds himself stuck in the wilderness surrounded by deadly beasts, demons, and worse. Alone, lost and without answers, he must find the means to survive and get stronger in this new cut-throat reality.
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(A LitRPG Adventures)
“A” is for Alibi
by Sue Grafton
Rating: 4.3 #ad
A IS FOR AVENGER A tough-talking former cop, private investigator Kinsey Millhone has set up a modest detective agency in a quiet corner of Santa Teresa, California. A twice-divorced loner with few personal possessions and fewer personal attachments, she’s got a soft spot for underdogs and lost causes.
A IS FOR ACCUSED That’s why she draws desperate clients like Nikki Fife. Eight years ago, she was convicted of killing her philandering husband. Now she’s out on parole and needs Kinsey’s help to find the real killer. But after all this time, clearing Nikki’s bad name won’t be easy.
A IS FOR ALIBI
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(A Kinsey Millhone Mysteries)
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
The Inugami Curse
by Seishi Yokomizo, Yumiko Yamakazi
Rating: 4.3 #ad
A fiendish classic murder mystery, from one of Japan’s greatest crime writers, featuring the country’s best-loved detective
In 1940s Japan, the wealthy head of the Inugami clan dies, and his family eagerly await the reading of the will. But no sooner are its strange details revealed than a series of bizarre, gruesome murders begins. Detective Kindaichi must unravel the clan’s terrible secrets of forbidden liaisons, monstrous cruelty, and hidden identities to find the murderer, and lift the curse wreaking its bloody revenge on the Inugamis.
Four Steps Missed
by Luana Ehrlich
Rating: 4.7 #ad
CIA covert operative Titus Ray is used to keeping secrets. This time, it’s different. This time, he’s keeping secrets from his boss, his handler, and his wife.
Operation False Flag is the secret Titus is keeping from his boss . . . While his boss, Deputy Director of Operations, Robert Ira, would ordinarily be aware of any operation being run out of the Agency, this mission concerns the DDO himself, a mission that could cost him his job.
The whistleblower behind the operation is the secret Titus is keeping from his handler . . . Even though his handler, Douglas Carlton, has been tasked with directing Operation False Flag, he has no idea Titus knows the identity of the whistleblower who gave the Inspector General the files that set the operation in motion.
The operation itself is the secret Titus is keeping from his wife . . .
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(Titus Ray Thrillers Mysteries)
Eight Perfect Murders
by Peter Swanson
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Years ago, bookseller and mystery aficionado Malcolm Kershaw compiled a list of the genre’s most unsolvable murders, those that are almost impossible to crack—which he titled “Eight Perfect Murders”—chosen from among the best of the best including Agatha Christie’s A. B. C. Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, Ira Levin’s Deathtrap, A. A. Milne’s The Red House Mystery, Anthony Berkeley Cox’s Malice Aforethought, James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity, John D. MacDonald’s The Drowner, and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.
Cameron: Case Twelve
by Blair Howard
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Kate had no idea what she was getting herself in to when she answered the call that Monday morning.
The brutal murder of Cameron Geffner started her along a trail more complex and shocking than any case she’d handled in her long career as a homicide detective. That and the turmoil in her personal life will test her skills and fortitude like never before.
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(The Lt. Kate Gazzara Murder Files)
Disappearing Earth
by Julia Phillips
Rating: 4.0 #ad
One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls–sisters, eight and eleven–go missing. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women.
Taking us through a year in Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth enters with astonishing emotional acuity the worlds of a cast of richly drawn characters, all connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother.
Haunted Hideout
by Michelle Dorey
Rating: 4.4 #ad
The FBI safe house is haunted? They didn’t know it was the last day of normal. Liam—husband, father—the rock who anchored them in a comfortable life in sunny Miami had been gunned down by a hit man.
The wounds of losing him are raw when Lydia and her two children are snatched for their own protection. The FBI scoop the family into the Witness Protection Program. Their safety from the drug cartel is assured.
Or is it? The FBI makes a serious mistake in the relocation plan. The secluded farmhouse in a northern state is anything but a sanctuary. No one questioned why they could buy the house so cheap. No one listened to the local yokel tale of what happened there.
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(Paranormal Suspense Mysteries)
Girl in the Box
by Robert J. Crane
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Her mother is missing. A psychotic beast is stalking her. How will she escape? Alone
Sienna Nealon was a 17 year-old girl who had been held prisoner in her own house by her mother for twelve years. Then one day her mother vanished, and Sienna woke up to find two strange men in her home. On the run, unsure of who to turn to and discovering she possesses mysterious powers, Sienna finds herself pursued by a shadowy agency known as the Directorate and hunted by a vicious psychopath named Wolfe, each of which is determined to capture her for their own purposes…
A Cold Trail
by Robert Dugoni
Rating: 4.5 #ad
The last time homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite was in Cedar Grove, it was to see her sister’s killer put behind bars. Now she’s returned for a respite and the chance to put her life back in order for herself, her attorney husband, Dan, and their new daughter. But tragic memories soon prove impossible to escape.
Dan is drawn into representing a local merchant whose business is jeopardized by the town’s revitalization. And Tracy is urged by the local PD to put her own skills to work on a new case: the brutal murder of a police officer’s wife and local reporter who was investigating a cold-case slaying of a young woman.
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(Tracy Crosswhite Mysteries)
The Stand
by Stephen King
Rating: 4.5 #ad
This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.
And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides — or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail — and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.
Saturday’s Mystery eBooks
The Burnside Body Snatcher
by G.G. Morris
Rating: 3.9 #ad
The residents of Portland’s charming Alphabet District are horrified when the neighborhood’s favorite auntie goes missing–on the day of her funeral! Soon, other prominent citizens are meeting nasty ends and bodies are vanishing like pies on windowsills.
When the boondoggling detective fails to provide the terror-stricken community with answers, amateur sleuth Wanda Whipple steps up to the plate. But the disturbing clues quickly lead her down a sinister path involving an enigmatic cult and a frightening legend from the Alphabet District’s shadowy past. Will Wanda uncover the identity of the Burnside Body Snatcher, or will she become the killer’s next victim?
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(The Ankeny Arsonist)
Gifts from a Stalker
by Blye Donovan
Rating: 4.7 #ad
His small town had been marred by violence—violence he couldn’t shake.
He is used to helping others, but after he is unable to move past the death of one of his junior officers that occurred in the line of duty, Dillon is forced to ask for help from local therapist, Lydia Mason.
Dillon is soon offering to help Lydia instead when a figure from her past comes back to haunt her. She has recently moved to Rolling Brook from Chicago hoping to escape a man who is stalking her. Dillon and Lydia are attracted to each other but know anything other than a professional relationship is out of the question . . . or is it? Can Lydia help Dillon let go of the past, and can he keep her safe from hers in the process?
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(Hunted at Whiteford Farm)
The Exceptional Sophia Beaufont Omnibus
by Sarah Noffke, Michael Anderle
Rating: 5.0 #ad
The first dragon rider in over a hundred years has been born. And it’s a girl.
Never before has a female been chosen to ride a dragon. Join Sophia as she conquers evil, as the dragon riders should have been doing for centuries with the first 12 books in The Exceptional Sophia Beaufont series!
The Elite, a guild comprised exclusively of dragon riders, is dead according to most. No one has seen a rider in decades. The problems they used to fight overwhelm the world. Dragons are thought to be near extinction. However, the Elite aren’t dead…
To Love and To Kill
by M. William Phelps
Rating: 4.2 #ad
A bizarre love triangle leads to a brutal murder in Florida in this true-crime story by the New York Times bestselling author of One Breath Away.
The missing-persons case of Heather Strong, a young, beautiful suburban mother, baffled Florida detectives. When the file was handed to a veteran investigator, he knew Heather was dead. The challenge was to find her body – and whoever killed her. Soon, a sordid triangle of sex, jealousy, and rage came to light. The killers were cunning, manipulative, depraved – and they were as close to Heather as a man and a woman could possibly be. Vividly recreated by master investigative journalist M. William Phelps, this riveting account of seething small-town passions is a classic tale of crime and justice.
Cycles of the Moon
by Eric Wilder
Rating: 4.8 #ad
The sun illuminates all things, the moon nothing but the shadows of our minds
Paranormal investigator Wyatt Thomas awakens from a vivid dream in his French Quarter apartment. He finds an antique double-moonstone pendant placed in his hand by the ghost of a voodoo mambo. One of the two moonstones is missing, and both gemstones are needed to make the pendant magical. There are other problems. The rightful owner of the pendant is a supernatural fairy named Maurelle. Someone chopped off Maurelle’s wings and buried her alive in the ruins of a French Quarter Creole townhouse…
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(French Quarter Mysteries)
Quiver
by Lisa Borne Graves
Rating: 4.8 #ad
What would you do if you could live forever? Could you hide it from the one you truly loved, especially if her life depended on it?
Thanks to his dysfunctional Olympian family, Archer Ambrose finds out firsthand how difficult this can be. He never falls in love but bestows it on others—until he meets Callie.
When Callie Syches moves to the Upper East Side to prepare for her father’s impending death, she doesn’t expect to meet the boy of her dreams. She also never believed her father’s harebrained theory about myths, but her uncanny ability to “see” uncovers godly secrets Callie can hardly fathom.
Uncharted
by L.T. Ryan, Gregory Scott
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A runaway in over her head proves not what she seems. Brier must navigate UNCHARTED waters if he’s to bring her back alive.
The latest installment from USA Today bestselling author L.T. Ryan & former Detective Gregory Scott, Blake Brier returns in the thrilling sequel to Unleashed. “A FIVE STAR story that grabs you immediately and you do not breathe until the book ends.”
When Blake Brier gets a call from FBI Special Agent Andrew Harrison asking for help, he’s obligated to assist. Looking out for a family member in need whose daughter has run away, Harrison asks Brier if he can use his unofficial channels and unorthodox approach to bring this to resolution.
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(Blake Brier Thrillers Mysteries)
The Glory
by Herman Wouk
Rating: 4.6 #ad
This follow-up to The Hope plunges immediately into the violence and upheaval of the Six-Day War of 1967 – and continues the stories of its multiple characters and of Israel’s dramatic struggle for survival across the years. The Glory takes readers through the terrors of the Yom Kippur War, the famous Entebbe rescue, and the airstrikes on Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor—ending with the final hope for peace.
Illuminating the inner lives of real Israeli leaders – including David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and Ariel Sharon—the Pulitzer Prize-winning “master of the historical novel” (Los Angeles Times) tells the story of Israel’s struggle to exist with a compelling sense of both the broad significance of this time in history, and its personal impact on those who lived through it.
Friday’s Mystery eBooks
Crust No One
by Winnie Archer
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Business is booming at Yeast of Eden. But with a deadly mystery taking over the seaside town of Santa Sofia, the Mexican bread shop can’t possibly leaven a killer’s appetite . . .
For once, Ivy Culpepper feels fulfilled. An apprenticeship at Yeast of Eden has opened her world to time-honored baking techniques under owner Olaya Solis’s guidance—as well as the freshest small-town gossip, courtesy of chatty regulars known as the Blackbird Ladies. Ivy even begins accepting that she and restaurateur Miguel Baptista may never again rekindle their romance—despite the undeniable tension between them . . .
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(A Bread Shop Mysteries)
Swann Series: Books 1 – 3
by Ryan Schow
Rating: 4.7 #ad
How do you turn a broken girl into a weapon? And what do you do with her when she loses control? Meet Savannah Van Duyn…
USA TODAY Bestselling Author, Amazon ALL-STAR AWARD winner, and Top 10 Sci-Fi writer, Ryan Schow, presents a deliciously dark tale that begs the question, can you genetically alter and perfect an imperfect child? And what happens when an experiment spins wildly out of control?
“A series of transformations turn an ugly duckling into a beautiful Swann, but this is not a fairy tale, it is more a fable, a moral tale. Which will win? Evil or good?” by Amazon Customer
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(The Rise of a Legend Boxset Mysteries)
Darkness Stirring
by J.R. Erickson
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Inspired by an eerie true story.
Lorraine Hicks is fourteen-years-old when she watches her best friend, Beverly climb into a tree in the forest and never come back down. It’s a mystery that haunts her small town and embeds itself in Lorraine’s life.
Fifteen years later, Lori is a grown woman, doing her best to move on from her troubled childhood. She reluctantly agrees to a night of camping, despite her secret terror of the woods. As she sits by a roaring bonfire, a man stands and tells the story of two fourteen-year-old friends who walked into the Manistee National Forest-only one of them walked back out.
The Heckler
by Ed McBain
Rating: 4.2 #ad
With crooks to cuff and pimps to put behind bars, detectives Carella and Meyer of the 87th Precinct simply don’t have the time or patience to deal with a prank caller – even if he has phoned murder threats to two dozen local shop owners. What they fail to realize, however, is they aren’t dealing with a heckler who’s ringing round for kicks but rather a modern-day Moriarty known only as the Deaf Man – and these phone calls are just his first move in a calculated scheme to pull off the bank robbery of the decade. Further calls darken a lovely spring with suspicion and fear, before a brutal murder whips things into a frenzy, prompting Carella and Meyer to scour the town for clues to the Deaf Man’s identity.
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(87th Precinct Mysteries)
The Munich Girl
by Phyllis Edgerly Ring
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Anna Dahlberg grew up eating dinner under her father’s war-trophy portrait of Eva Braun. Fifty years after the war, she discovers what he never did—that her mother and Hitler’s mistress were friends.
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.
Murder at Morrington Hall
by Clara McKenna
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Stella Kendrick is an all-American heiress who can’t be tamed. But when the lively aspiring equine trainer tangles with British aristocracy, she meets her match—and a murderer . . .
Like the Thoroughbreds she rides across the Kentucky countryside, Stella takes adventure by the reins when she’s asked to attend a mysterious wedding in rural England. But once she arrives at the lush Morrington Hall estate, her cold, ambitious father reveals that he has arranged to give away his daughter as bride to the Earl of Atherly’s financially strapped son . . .
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(A Stella and Lyndy Mysteries)
The Killing Kind
by Jane Casey
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Ingrid will never forget what John did. The people he hurt. The way he lied about it so easily. The way she defended him.
Now he’s back. He says a murderer is after her. He says only he can protect her.
Would you trust him? The clock is ticking for Ingrid to decide. Because the killer is ready to strike…
The Waxman Murders
by Paul Doherty
Rating: 4.9 #ad
Murder, treachery, intrigue and betrayal abound in Paul Doherty’s fascinating fifteenth tale to feature medieval sleuth, Hugh Corbett. Perfect for fans of Robin Hobb and Michael Jecks.
October 1300: The Waxman, most feared of war cogs, is carrying the Cloister Map – an ancient manuscript alleged to chart the whereabouts of a legendary treasure – when it is overrun by ships flying the colours of the Hanseatic League.
December 1303: Wilhelm Von Paulents, a representative of the Hanseatic League, arrives in Canterbury in possession of the Cloister Map. Sir Hugh Corbett is sent, by Edward I, to negotiate for ownership of the chart. But shortly after his arrival, Von Paulents and his companions are assassinated.
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(Hugh Corbett Mysteries Mysteries)