Mysteries
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Myrtle Grove Garden Club Box Set
by Loulou Harrington
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Welcome to Myrtle Grove, a small town nestled in the lake country of Oklahoma, where life revolves around friendship, family and Sunday dinner, and no one seems to have noticed the recent rise in the local murder rate. The founding members of the Myrtle Grove Garden Club are Jesse Camden and her mother, Sophia, who are co-owners of the Gilded Lily Tea Room and Coffee House, along with Vivian Windsor, who is Myrtle Grove’s resident oil heiress and a lifelong friend of the Camden ladies.
Bonus: Recipes included in each book.
Spin
by Patricia Cornwell
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Captain Calli Chase races against time to thwart a plot that leaves the fate of humanity hanging in the balance in this new thriller from international bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.
In the aftermath of a NASA rocket launch gone terribly wrong, Captain Calli Chase comes face-to-face with her missing twin sister—as well as the startling truth of who they really are. Now, a top secret program put in motion years ago has spun out of control, and only Calli can redirect its course.
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(Quantum)
Hart Manus
by James Leonard
Rating: 5.0 #ad
When Hart Manus got the message about his brother’s “accidental” death, he knew it was strange. The Enright Mining Co. seems more intent on keeping their secrets than on figuring out what went wrong. And they’ve got Cuddy Raines there pulling the strings – by any means necessary.
But Georgetown is about as honest as it is safe. Men are getting hurt left and right. First Hart’s brother. Then the marshal. When the deputy resigns under suspicious circumstances, it’s too much to take. Hart’s determined to get to the bottom of things, even if he has to risk his life doing it.
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(Western Justice)
A Spool of Blue Thread
by Anne Tyler
Rating: 3.7 #ad
“It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon …” This is how Abby Whitshank always describes the day she fell in love with Red in July 1959.
From Red’s parents, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to the grandchildren carrying the Whitshank legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century, the Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate an indefinable kind of specialness, but like all families, their stories reveal only part of the picture: Abby and Red and their four grown children have accumulated not only tender moments, laughter, and celebrations, but also jealousies, disappointments, and carefully guarded secrets.
Death Sentence
by Jerry Bledsoe
Rating: 4.4 #ad
In this “true story that reads like a novel,” the #1 New York Times–bestselling author reveals the facts behind a notorious Southern murder case (Library Journal).
When North Carolina farmer Stuart Taylor died after a sudden illness, his forty-six-year-old fiancée, Velma Barfield, was overcome with grief. Taylor’s family grieved with her—until the autopsy revealed traces of arsenic poisoning. Turned over to the authorities by her own son, Velma stunned her family with more revelations. This wasn’t the first time she had committed cold-blooded murder, and she would eventually be tried by the “world’s deadliest prosecutor” and sentenced to death.
No Escape
by Mary Burton
Rating: 4.6 #ad
HE WAS TAUGHT HOW TO KILL Even behind bars, serial killer Harvey Lee Smith exudes menace. Psychologist Jolene Granger has agreed to hear his dying confession, vowing not to let the monster inside her head. And Harvey has secrets to share—about bodies that were never found, and about the apprentice who is continuing his grisly work . . .
AND NOW HE’LL TEACH THEM He buries his victims alive the way his mentor Harvey did, relishing their final screams as the earth rains down. And as one last gift to the only father he knew, he’ll make the most perfect kill of all.
HOW TO DIE
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(Texas Rangers Mysteries)
Murder Most Fair
by Anna Lee Huber
Rating: 4.5 #ad
All is far from quiet on the home front in USA Today bestselling author Anna Lee Huber’s captivating mystery series, in which former Secret Service agent Verity Kent receives a visitor—who is being trailed by a killer . . .
November 1919.A relaxing few weeks by the seaside with her husband, Sidney, could almost convince Verity Kent that life has returned to the pleasant rhythm of pre-war days. Then Verity’s beloved Great-Aunt Ilse lands on their doorstep. After years in war-ravaged Germany, Ilse has returned to England to repair her fragile health—and to escape trouble. Someone has been sending her anonymous threats, and Verity’s Secret Service contacts can only provide unsettling answers.
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(A Verity Kent Mysteries)
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries
by Lois Winston
Rating: 4.3 #ad
The seventh and eighth books in the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series.
Drop Dead Ornaments
Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide
“A laugh a minute, gripping couldn’t put it down, any of it! How many times can you get into iffy situations. Oh and I’m also one who hates peanut butter lol.” by Amazon Customer
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(Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries)
Girl Island
by Kate Castle
Rating: 4.5 #ad
TEENAGE GIRLS CAN BE SAVAGE. Six teenage girls. One deserted island. Removed from civilised society, can they challenge class, identity and toxic femininity to pull together and survive? Or will they descend into savagery?
This thrilling must-read adventure novel is perfect for fans of The Hunger Games and Divergent.
Seventeen-year-old farm girl Ellery is used to being alone; used to taking care of herself. After she wins an athletics scholarship to a prestigious new school, she finds herself facing her own personal nightmare – stuck on a plane with a bunch of mean girls, the school dork and her ex-best friend. But when the plane crashes and they find themselves alone on a deserted island, the real challenge begins…
Night Fall
by Nancy Mehl
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Now that Alexandra “Alex” Donovan is finally free of her troubled upbringing, she’s able to live out her childhood dream of working for the FBI. But soon after she becomes a member of the FBI’s elite Behavioral Analysis Unit, authorities in Kansas and Missouri contact them about bodies found on freight trains traveling across the country–all killed in the same way.
Alex never expected to be forced to confront her past in this new job, but she immediately recognizes the graffiti messages the killer is leaving on the train cars. When the BAU sends her to gather information about the messages from her aunt in Wichita, Kansas, Alex is haunted by the struggles she thought she’d left behind forever.
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(The Quantico Files)
Scion of Lightning
by J.T. Moy
Rating: 4.7 #ad
The deadliest blades are not made of steel . . . When Jaks almost kills another soldier with his volatile magic, he is forced to tread the fearful path of the electromancer. Succeed, he will be the first in a generation. Fail, he will lose everything.
As the ruthless king of Voros invades the land with axe warriors, skyships and dragons, Jaks and his battlemage master begin a quest to train his powers and uncover a potent artifact that could halt the rampaging enemy. On their journey through dangerous lands, they are accompanied by a sharp-eyed ranger, a lethal assassin, and a mysterious foreigner with unworldly weapons.
One Little Lie
by Christopher Greyson
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Kate had high hopes when she moved to her husband‘s hometown, but her domestic bliss was short-lived. Blindsided by her spouse’s public affair with his high school sweetheart, Kate’s determined to hold onto custody of her kids and pull herself together. When Kate’s struck in the head by a drone at her son’s soccer game and face-plants in the grass, it’s more than her self-esteem that’s shattered. The drone’s footage reveals that someone is stalking her. And though the handsome detective she’s falling for vows to protect her, Kate knows to be wary of any man making vows.
Dark Passage
by L.T. Vargus, Tim McBain
Rating: 4.5 #ad
The corpse juts from the heaping bulge of the landfill. Milky white flesh laid bare by the front loader’s blade. Naked. Female. Face down in the garbage.
When three bodies turn up in a landfill outside of Philadelphia, FBI profiler Violet Darger heads to Pennsylvania to investigate. Right away there’s a major complication. The emaciated corpses appear to have been starved to death.
Darger arrives in time for the autopsies. Watches withered bodies laid out on the stainless steel slabs of the morgue, their faces crusted with sandy soil, skin pulled taut around knobby cheekbones.
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(Violet Darger FBI Mysteries)
Caduceus
by Sarah England
Rating: 4.6 #ad
‘Beth Harper is a highly gifted spiritual medium and clairvoyant. Having fled Scarsdale Hall, she’s drawn to the remote coastal town of Crewby in north west England, and it soon becomes apparent she has a job to do. The congeniality here is but a thin veneer masking decades of deeply embedded secrets, madness and fear. Although she has help from her spirit guides and many clues are shown in visions, it isn’t until the senseless and ritualistic murders happen on Mailing Street, however, that the truth is finally unearthed. And Joe Sully, the investigating officer, is about to have the spiritual awakening of his life.
Once Upon a Punchline
by Holly Schindler
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…
you were a child. And fairy tales were delightful stories that insisted life wasn’t scary and overwhelming, but magical and sweet. Oh, there were happy endings galore—not to mention plenty of helpful godmothers and wands locked and loaded with life-changing sparkles.
Come on—admit it! That was pretty great. Now, you’re an adult. And let’s admit this: adulthood isn’t quite as swell as you’d once hoped it would be. What if you could explore this (ahem) more mature era of life through the same rose-tinted magical lens of a fairy tale?
The Deeds of the Disturber
by Elizabeth Peters
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Back in London after an archaeological dig, adventurous sleuth Amelia Peabody—“rather like Indiana Jones, Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple all rolled into one”—discovers that a night watchman at the museum has perished in the shadow of a mummy case (The Washington Post Book World).
There are murmurings about an ancient curse, but a skeptical Amelia is determined to find an all-too-human killer. Soon, she’s balancing family demands, including the troubles of her precocious son, Ramses (aka Walter), with not just one unsolved crime, but two . . .
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(The Amelia Peabody Murder 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).
Check out:
(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.