Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
Draw and Order
by Cheryl Hollon
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Appalachian artist and local guide Miranda Trent opens a new murder investigation after her Paint & Shine tour group discovers the remains of a missing hiker along an ancient trail . . .
For her latest excursion, Miranda is thrilled to take a close-knit group of rock climbers, the Risky Business Adventurers, up the challenging Battleship Rock Trail to paint and sample moonshine. But the outing is cut short when they discover a skeleton near the trailhead. Even more startling, the bones belong to Howard Cable, Miranda’s cousin…and a former classmate of the Risky Business group.
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(A Paint & Shine Mysteries)
The Royal Quest Series Omnibus
by Ashley McLeo, Kelly N. Jane
Rating: 5.0 #ad
I wasn’t the kind of girl to believe in magic. Not even with my odd skillset.
I stayed that way until magic walked right into my life in the form of a hot, brooding dragon prince.
The moment I met Prince Rone was . . . tense to say the least, but after a shocking street-side brawl we had a second chance to get to know one another.
And learn we both possessed what the other needs. Now I’m on a wild hunt, trying to find a safe home for dragon eggs while being chased by murderous crazies who want all the dragons dead.
Backlash
by Lisa Jackson
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Two brothers return to their family’s Montana ranch in this pair of romance novellas available in one volume by the #1 New York Times bestselling author.
For Colton and Denver McLean, the beautiful ranch country of Montana is filled with bad memories. It’s been seven years since a fire claimed their parents’ lives and drove them both away. Now their uncle’s death has brought them back to a place where loyalty, love, and grudges run deep.
Suspicion about what caused the tragic fire created a rift between Denver and the foreman’s daughter, Tessa Kramer. Now Tessa hopes to buy the ranch, if Denver and Colton will agree to sell, but the property is beset by problems.
SQUALOR, NEW MEXICO
by Lisette Brodey
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Darla McKendrick is nine when she first hears her mother and her aunt Didi secretly discussing their younger sister, Rebecca, speculating about her life in squalor. From the moment Darla asks to know more about her mysterious aunt, she is offered nothing but half-truths, distortions, and evasions.
As Darla grows into her teen years, her life is oddly yet profoundly affected by this woman she has never known. She can’t help but notice that Rebecca seems to exist only in dark corners of conversations and that no one ever wants to talk about her—with Darla. Neither Darla nor her three cousins have a clue about their aunt, yet their respective parents appear to recoil in fear at the sound of her name.
The Secret Family
by Marie Wilkens
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A paranormal phenomenon, a mysterious curse, and an unsolved murder forty years in the making. Can Sasha solve the mystery in time? Or will she face the same doomed fate as the tenants who came before them?
The complicated history of the Brandt Mansion has been long forgotten.
Few in the small, remote town of Tibbetts, Connecticut even remember the estate and the insidious events that took place years earlier. Struggling with writer’s block and a tight deadline for his new novel, David Pragmore suggests a retreat away from Hartford to his wife, Susan, in order to find fresh inspiration.
Whiteout
by Ragnar Jonasson
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Two days before Christmas, a young woman is found dead beneath the cliffs of the deserted village of KÁlfshamarvÍk.
Did she jump, or did something more sinister take place beneath the lighthouse and the abandoned old house on the remote rocky outcrop?
With winter closing in and the snow falling relentlessly, Ari ThÓr Arason discovers that the victim’s mother and young sister also lost their lives in this same spot, twenty-five years earlier.
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(Dark Iceland Mysteries)
Storm’s Nightmare
by Mary Stone
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Some nightmares never end…
When a confidential informant hands FBI Agent Amelia Storm the flash drive containing the information he gave her brother Trevor before he was killed, Amelia realizes she’s holding a time bomb waiting to explode. Especially when its contents reveal the extent to which the senator on the FBI’s radar has infiltrated Chicago’s law enforcement system.
But Amelia’s investigation into her brother’s murder is put on the back burner when the body of a young girl with her eyes gruesomely removed is found in the trunk of a black Nissan scheduled for processing at a local junkyard. Better yet, the salvage yard is run by the Leónes, the mafia family suspected to be behind Trevor’s death.
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(Amelia Storm FBI Mysteries)
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
The Corpse in the Gazebo
by Debra Sennefelder
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Food blogging is turning Hope Early into a household name. But the dead body down the block makes her a #1 suspect . . .
It seems everyone loves Hope’s blog these days, and she’s busier than ever volunteering to help other women create their own paths to success. So she’s shocked when a neighbor petitions to run Hope right out of her small Connecticut town! Set in her ways, apparently Birdie Donovan doesn’t like the chaos Hope’s sleuthing creates, the police activity and crime scenes, and it’s happening way too often lately. Eager to make amends, Hope bakes Birdie a batch of her best muffins.
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(A Food Blogger Mysteries)
Campus Bones
by Vivian Barz
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Amazon Charts bestselling author Vivian Barz reunites Special Agent Susan Marlan with Professor Eric Evans in a riveting installment in the Dead Remaining series.
It’s been a year since Special Agent Susan Marlan and Professor Eric Evans worked a taxing missing persons case together on the Olympic Peninsula. Though the couple have since separated, Eric must reluctantly turn to Susan for advice when a student accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend comes to Eric for help proving his innocence. Susan—busy tracking down two missing employees of San Francisco’s Gruben Dam—warns Eric to be cautious, as the young man has connections to Defenders of the Earth (DOTE), an ecoterror group operating out of San Francisco.
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(Dead Remaining Mysteries)
Desperation Kills
by John D. Ottini
Rating: 4.1 #ad
In Desperation Kills, author John D. Ottini weaves together three standalone yet interconnected stories about the dangerous and sometimes deadly situations that people find themselves in when blinded by passion or pushed to the point of desperation.
Parting Words
Sitting by the bedside of her dying mother, Gwen is told a secret so startling that she can only hope that what she is hearing are simply the delusions of an over-medicated woman in her final hours of life. But in the weeks and months following the funeral, that hope crumbles as more pieces of evidence come to light, threatening everything Gwen holds dear. Then tragedy strikes once more.
Desperate to move on with her life, Gwen sets out to discover the truth—only to be confronted with a question that is far more difficult to answer: Are there some secrets that are best left alone?
Shadow of the Dragon
by Marc Cameron
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Aboard an icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean a sonar operator hears an unusual noise coming from the ocean floor. She can’t isolate it and chalks the event up to an anomaly in a newly installed system.
Meanwhile, operatives with the Chinese Ministry of State Security are dealing with their own mystery–the disappearance of brilliant but eccentric scientist, Liu Wangshu. They’re desperate to keep his crucial knowledge of aerospace and naval technology out of their rivals’ hands.
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(A Jack Ryan Mysteries)
A Poisoned Season
by Tasha Alexander
Rating: 4.5 #ad
London’s social season is in full swing, and Victorian aristocracy is atwitter over a certain gentleman who claims to be the direct descendant of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Adding to their fascination with all things French, an audacious cat burglar is systematically stealing valuable items that once belonged to the ill–fated queen.
But things take a dark turn. The owner of one of the pilfered treasures is found murdered after the theft is reported in the newspapers, and the mysterious thief develops a twisted obsession with Lady Emily Ashton.
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(Lady Emily Mysteries Mysteries)
Mountain Man Boots
by Gene Turney
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A brand new Mountain Man adventure from Gene Turney!
Flapjack Street is on its way to become famous. It could be because it is the only main street in a village located in the foothills of the Rockies. With a Kit Carson Hotel, a café and a trading post bordering the street. Flapjack Street continues to be the scene of gunfights where the fastest gun does not always win.
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(Arrival Of The Mountain Man Mysteries)
Thieves’ World Volume One
by Robert Lynn Asprin
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Experience “a bold and daring experiment in fantasy storytelling” with the first three books in the bestselling Thieves’ World® series (Fantasy-Faction).
The first three books include stories by Lynn Abbey, Poul Anderson, Robert Lynn Asprin, Marion Zimmer Bradley, C. J. Cherryh, David Drake, Philip José Farmer, Joe Haldeman, Janet Morris, Andrew J. Offutt, and others. They introduce you to the nefarious citizens of the city of Sanctuary, including One-Thumb, the proprietor of the Vulgar Unicorn tavern; Regli, a nobleman; Illyra, the seer; Hanes, the thief; Jubal, the crime lord; and Tempus Thales, the immortal mercenary.
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(Thieves’ World Mysteries)
Dangerous Behavior
by Nancy Bush
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Some couples. Just one look, and it’s clear they’re perfect together. It’s in the way they touch, talk, and kiss. They share the same interests. The same twisted passions. They do everything together. Even kill . . .
Are too good. Julia St. James Ford has washed up on a beach near her home in Seaside, Oregon, with no memory of how she got there or how her husband, Joe, died. The police rule the case an accident. But Joe’s brother, Sam—Jules’ rescuer and her first love—suspects otherwise. While Sam tries to piece the facts together, Jules fears someone is watching, determined to find out how much she knows.
To be true.
The Secrets of Hawthorn Place
by Jenni Keer
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Two houses, hundreds of miles apart . . . yet connected always.
When life throws Molly Butterfield a curveball, she decides to spend some time with her recently widowed granddad, Wally, at Hawthorn Place, his quirky Victorian house on the Dorset coast.
But cosseted Molly struggles to look after herself, never mind her grieving granddad, until the accidental discovery of an identical Arts and Crafts house on the Norfolk coast offers her an unexpected purpose, as well as revealing a bewildering mystery.
Highland Madness
by Elizabeth Rose
Rating: 4.2 #ad
(The complete MadMan MacKeefe Trilogy.) This boxed set contains:
Onyx – Book 1
Aidan – Book 2
Ian – Book 3
“Excellent box set. Enjoyed each and every book, and the last one had me reading it as quickly as I could, it was so gripping. Thoroughly recommend these books, well worth 5*” by Amazon Customer
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
Killer Comfort Food
by Lynn Cahoon
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A soybean processing plant is trying to buy up the land around the small farm Angie’s beloved Nona left her. If Angie doesn’t sell, she’ll be surrounded by the plant and the congestion that comes with it. On the other hand, it’s Nona’s farmhouse. What is Angie supposed to do without it? Move into a condo in town with Precious, Mabel, and Dom—respectively, a goat, chicken, and dog. Worse, a troubling rumor is circulating about the lawyer who’s heading up the development: His socialite wife seems to be missing. When Barb, owner of the local bar, asks Angie to look into the woman’s disappearance, she’s hesitant—until Barb reveals her surprising connection.
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(A Farm-to-Fork Mysteries)
Saving Sara
by Terry Toler
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Finalist for American Bookfest 2021 Best Book Award in the thriller/adventure category.
Sara is missing in the Cayman Islands. No one knows it. Except her abductors, of course.
Beloved CIA heroine, Jamie Austen, is sent to Tampico, Mexico, to rescue four girls, abducted on their senior class trips. Are the cases related?
All of Jamie’s skills are tested as she must overcome the powerful drug war lord, El Mata, his ruthless band of heavily armed killers, and a hurricane that’s bearing down on the Caribbean islands.
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(THE JAMIE AUSTEN THRILLERS)
Calculated
by Nova McBee
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Soon to be a major motion picture, with Emmy Award-winning screenwriter, Ann Peacock, best known for The Chronicles of Narnia, to adapt the novel for screen.
Set in Shanghai and Seattle, Calculated is a gritty, modern day blend of the Count of Monte Cristo and Mission Impossible.
She has many names – Octavia, Double 8, Phoenix, Josephine. She’s a math prodigy, a calculating genius and everyone wants her.
In seventeen-year-old Jo River’s complicated world of numbers, there’s no such thing as coincidence. When she is betrayed by someone she loves, kidnapped by the world’s most wanted smuggler, and forced to use her talent to shore up a criminal empire, Jo deems her gift a curse—until she meets Red.
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(Calculated Mysteries)
Pale Kings and Princes
by Robert B. Parker
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A hotshot reporter is dead. He’d gone to take a look-see at “Miami North”—little Wheaton, Massachusetts—the biggest cocaine distribution center above the Mason-Dixon line.
Did the kid die for getting too close to the truth . . . or to a sweet lady with a jealous husband?
Spenser will stop at nothing to find out.
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(The Spenser Mysteries)
The Tangled Web We Weave
by Roger Stelljes
Rating: 4. #ad
She was young and beautiful but now she was dead. How far will someone go to protect the secrets now that so many are tangled up in the lies? Or will the search for the truth get you killed? Oh, what a tangled web we weave…
An absolutely gripping, compelling and intense mystery that will keep you racing through the pages long into the night. A chart-topping bestseller, that turns fans of John Sandford and James Patterson into Stelljes addicts.
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(McRyan Mysteries)
Hint of Her Blood
by Sarah Spade
Rating: 4.4 #ad
When Aleks looks at me, he sees his past. I see a future that I just can’t have…
For most of my life, being Luna-touched was a blessing. Then I met Jack “Wicked Wolf” Walker and it wasn’t long before it became a curse.
I thought I’d be trapped in my gilded cage forever—until his long-lost daughter returned to the Wolf District, handing him his first defeat in more than twenty-five years. She spared his life, but our laws are clear: an Alpha who loses a challenge is no Alpha. Our pack was forced to disband, and I finally was free.
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(Claws and Fangs Mysteries)
The Last Shadow
by Orson Scott Card
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Orson Scott Card’s The Last Shadow is the long-awaited conclusion to both the original Ender series and the Ender’s Shadow series, as the children of Ender and Bean solve the great problem of the Ender Universe—the deadly virus they call the descolada, which is incurable and will kill all of humanity if it is allowed to escape from Lusitania.
One planet. Three sapient species living peacefully together. And one deadly virus that could wipe out every world in the Starways Congress, killing billions. Is the only answer another great Xenocide?
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(Ender Sextet Mysteries)
The Darkest Place
by Phillip Margolin
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Robin Lockwood is an increasingly prominent defense attorney in the Portland community. A Yale graduate and former MMA fighter, she’s becoming known for her string of innovative and successful defense strategies. As a favor to a judge, Robin takes on the pro bono defense of a reprehensible defendant charged with even more reprehensible crimes. But what she doesn’t know – what she can’t know – is how this one decision, this one case, will wreak complete devastation on her life and plans.
As she recovers from those consequences, Robin heads home to her small town of Elk Grove and the bosom of her family. As she tries to recuperate, a unique legal challenge presents itself—Marjorie Loman, a surrogate, is accused of kidnapping the baby she carried for another couple, and assaulting that couple in the process.
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(Robin Lockwood Mysteries)
Saturday’s Mystery eBooks
Tea is for Trouble
by Karen Sue Walker
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A new life complete with tea, scones, and… murder? And let’s not forget the ghost…
When your fiancé breaks up with you on your 49th birthday, what do you do? If you’re April May, you buy a huge Victorian home on a whim and open a tearoom featuring lace tablecloths, exotic teas, and dainty sandwiches.
No one told her the house came with a cat in the attic who might just be guarding a treasure. How else to explain people breaking in?
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(Haunted Tearoom Cozy Mysteries)
The Munich Girl
by Phyllis Edgerly Ring
Rating: 4.5 #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.
Coyote’s Road Trip
by Laura Koerber
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Coyote Jim, a shapeshifter, takes off in search of a new home.
In a post-climate change dystopian future, Coyote, the guardian spirit of a desert valley in Nevada, is forced out of his home by the heat, the drought, and the deaths of his friends. He hits the road on a journey through the Pacific Northwest, looking for new home. Along the way he discovers a new purpose for his existence.
The Widow
by K.L. Slater
Rating: 4.3 #ad
My husband was not a monster. No matter what they say…
The day my husband, Michael, stepped in front of a lorry after being questioned by the police, my world fell apart. He was devoted to me and our six-year-old daughter. But they’d connected him to the disappearance of a young mother from our tiny village.
Now I stand at Michael’s funeral, clutching my little girl’s hand, with tears in my eyes as I insist to all our friends that he died an innocent man. Yet the questions have started, and nothing I say will stop them digging for the truth.
But none of them can read the secrets in my heart, or know about the phone I found hidden in his toolbox…
City of Spirits
by Eric Wilder
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Paranormal investigator Wyatt Thomas deals with murder, Mardi Gras, and a forbidden love triangle
It’s Mardi Gras in the Big Easy, an escaped killer on the loose, and a sunken boat in the shipping channel preventing cruise ships from entering or leaving the city. Wyatt’s rich new client wants him to prove he isn’t a passeblanc—a person of black heritage passing as white. Wyatt becomes enamored with his client’s beautiful daughter, a conflict of interest that threatens to get him killed. Oh, and N.O.P.D. Homicide detective Tony Nicosia is having a torrid affair with the daughter of his best friend.
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(French Quarter Mysteries)
Sword of Destiny
by Andrzej Sapkowski
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Geralt the Witcher battles monsters, demons and prejudices alike in Sword of Destiny, the second collection of adventures in Andrzej Sapkowski’s groundbreaking epic fantasy series that inspired the Netflix show and the hit video games.
Geralt is a Witcher, a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless hunter. Yet he is no ordinary killer: his targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent.
Check out:
(The Witcher)
OFF GRID
by J. P. Redding
Rating: 4.6 #ad
From the halls of D.C. to the remote shores of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, OFF GRID is a wild ride through a dystopian near future of mass surveillance.
In the wake of a global calamity, the economy collapses. The Feds respond by wielding every power of the Welfare State to control the populace. A key tool is PivPal, an indispensable smartphone used to track citizens. As civil liberties crumble, resistance is relegated to flyover country whose residents—derided as off-gridders—cling to the time-honored virtues of freedom, self-reliance, and charity. Against this backdrop, Jenny Hernandez struggles to keep her rural church community nourished and safe. Hiding from the Feds, a team of inventors, and Jenny’s ex, arrive to complete the amazing plasma drive. They bring hope, but also the watchful eye of Big Brother. With the authorities closing in, local law enforcement must choose sides.
A Mayhem of Murderous Monks
by Howard of Warwick
Rating: 4.5 #ad
From Best Selling Howard of Warwick comes yet more mysterious nonsense…
In what should be a straightforward investigation, Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances, (look him up), sends Hermitage, Wat and Cwen to find out who murdered one Brother Egeus.
Or does he?
It quickly becomes apparent that the bishop has more ulterior motives than a conclave of liars.
If they can find out who killed Egeus that would be nice, but there are far more important matters to resolve. Matters that virtually everyone seems to have a hand in.
Check out:
(The Chronicles of Brother Hermitage)
The Treadstone Transgression
by Joshua Hood
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A blown mission and a dead team leave Adam Hayes the last loose thread in a tapestry of betrayal in this latest high stakes international thriller from the world of Robert Ludlum.
The most pressing issue on Adam Hayes’ mind is planning his son’s upcoming 5th birthday party. After years of operating in the world’s most dangerous spots for Treadstone, he’s ready to call it quits, but the feeling isn’t mutual.
Levi Shaw, Treadstone’s director, calls Hayes back for one more mission. “It’s a walk in the park. You don’t even have to go in with the strike team. I just need you to set up the safe house. You’ll be home in time to pick up the birthday cake.”
Check out:
(A Treadstone Mysteries)