Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
Claws for Alarm
by Cate Conte
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Maddie James has finally given in to her friend Katrina’s pleas to open up her cat cafe to more than ten felines: they’re now up to fifteen purring friends. In fact, JJ’s House of Purrs is making such a splash that she’s getting national attention. The Shoreline Animal Rescue League is quite interested in the cafe, and so Maddie accepts a request to meet with Jillian Allen, the executive director. Jillian shows up at the cafe and asks Maddie if they can partner on a fundraiser to support the local rescue efforts—and she offers up her celebrity endorser and her celebrity cat to sweeten the deal. Maddie, caught up in the prospect, offers up her sister Val to help plan the event.
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(Cat Cafe Mysteries)
Cash and Nettie
by Frank Wheeler
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Cash Summers spent most of his life working his father’s ranch. When Hitch Gunner sends the Gomez brothers to raid the place, only a handful of people survive the attack. Cash’s mother and sister aren’t two of them. Struggling to find justice in an unjust world, Cash and his brothers set out to tear down the men who unraveled their family. Along for the ride is their Uncle Jem, who promises to keep them safe.
Hitch Gunner has made it no secret that he wants Cash dead, and he’s willing to pay a high price to the man who does the job. Born without morals, Hitch’s own family is scared of him.
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(Cat Cafe Mysteries)
The Bone Code
by Kathy Reichs
Rating: 4.5 #ad
On the way to hurricane-ravaged Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast, Tempe receives a call from the Charleston coroner. The storm has tossed ashore a medical waste container. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic and bound with electrical wire. Tempe recognizes many of the details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Quebec fifteen years earlier. With a growing sense of foreboding, she travels to Montreal to gather evidence.
Meanwhile, health authorities in South Carolina become increasingly alarmed as a human flesh-eating contagion spreads. So focused is Tempe on identifying the container victims that, initially, she doesn’t register how their murders and the pestilence may be related. But she does recognize one unsettling fact.
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(Temperance Brennan Mysteries)
The Cutting Edge
by Jeffery Deaver
Rating: 4.5 #ad
In the early hours of a quiet, weekend morning in Manhattan’s Diamond District, a brutal triple murder shocks the city. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs quickly take the case. Curiously, the killer has left behind a half-million dollars’ worth of gems at the murder scene, a jewelry store on 47th street. As more crimes follow, it becomes clear that the killer’s target is not gems, but engaged couples themselves.
The Promisor vows to take the lives of men and women during their most precious moments–midway through the purchase of an engagement ring, after a meeting with a wedding planner, trying on the perfect gown for a day that will never come. The Promisor arrives silently, armed with knife or gun, and a time of bliss is transformed, in an instant, to one of horror.
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(Lincoln Rhyme Mysteries)
Megan’s Way
by Melissa Foster
Rating: 3.9 #ad
What would you give up for the people you love?
When Megan Taylor, a single mother and artist living on Cape Cod, receives the shocking news that her cancer has returned, she’s faced with the most difficult decision she’s ever had to make. The love she has for her daughter, Olivia, and her closest friends will be stretched and frayed.
Megan’s illness reawakens her best friend, Holly Townsend’s, torment of a long-held secret and years of betrayal. How does one choose between a daughter and a life-long best friend? Can the secret she has been keeping be revealed after years of lying without destroying everyone in its wake?
Love and Death Among the Cheetahs
by Rhys Bowen
Rating: 4.5 #ad
I was so excited when Darcy announced out of the blue that we were flying to Kenya for our extended honeymoon. Now that we are here, I suspect he has actually been sent to fulfill another secret mission. I am trying very hard not to pick a fight about it, because after all, we are in paradise! Darcy finally confides that there have been robberies in London and Paris. It seems the thief was a member of the aristocracy and may have fled to Kenya. Since we are staying in the Happy Valley—the center of upper-class English life—we are well positioned to hunt for clues and ferret out possible suspects.
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(A Royal Spyness Mysteries)
Cold as Hell
by Lilja Sigurdardottir
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Icelandic sisters ÁrÓra and Ísafold live in different countries and aren’t on speaking terms, but when their mother loses contact with Ísafold, ÁrÓra reluctantly returns to Iceland to find her sister. But she soon realizes that her sister isn’t avoiding her … she has disappeared, without trace.
As she confronts Ísafold’s abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend BjÖrn, and begins to probe her sister’s reclusive neighbours – who have their own reasons for staying out of sight – ÁrÓra is led into an ever-darker web of intrigue and manipulation.
The Other Side of Midnight
by Sidney Sheldon
Rating: 4.6 #ad
The Other Side of Midnight is Sidney Sheldon at his best.
This page-turner is full of tortured romantic entanglements, reverses of fortune, thrilling suspense, and ultimate justice. In Paris, Washington, and a fabulous villa in Greece, an innocent American becomes a bewildered, horror-stricken pawn in a game of vengeance and betrayal. She is Catherine Douglas, a woman caught in a web of four lives intertwined by passion as her handsome husband pursues an incredibly beautiful film star . . . and as Constantin Demeris, a legendary Greek tycoon, tightens the strands that control them all.
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
The Hangman’s Sonnet
by Reed Farrel Coleman
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Jesse Stone, still reeling from the murder of his fiancée by crazed assassin Mr. Peepers, must keep his emotions in check long enough to get through the wedding day of his loyal protégé, Suitcase Simpson. The morning of the wedding, Jesse learns that a gala 75th birthday party is to be held for folk singer Terry Jester. Jester, once the equal of Bob Dylan, has spent the last forty years in seclusion after the mysterious disappearance of the master recording tape of his magnum opus, The Hangman’s Sonnet.
That same morning, an elderly Paradise woman dies while her house is being ransacked. What are the thieves looking for? And what’s the connection to Terry Jester and the mysterious missing tape?
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(A Jesse Stone Mysteries)
Her Perfect Life
by Hank Phillippi Ryan
Rating: 4.0 #ad
“A powerhouse of a novel.” Mystery Scene Magazine
Everyone knows Lily Atwood―and that may be her biggest problem. The beloved television reporter has it all―fame, fortune, Emmys, an adorable seven-year-old daughter, and the hashtag her loving fans created: #PerfectLily. To keep it, all she has to do is protect one life-changing secret. Her own.
Lily has an anonymous source who feeds her story tips―but suddenly, the source begins telling Lily inside information about her own life. How does he―or she―know the truth?
The Night Hawks
by Elly Griffiths
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Ruth is back as head of archaeology at the University of North Norfolk when a group of local metal detectorists – the so-called Night Hawks – uncovers Bronze Age artifacts on the beach, alongside a recently deceased body, just washed ashore. Not long after, the same detectorists uncover a murder-suicide—a scientist and his wife found at their farmhouse, long thought to be haunted by the Black Shuck, a humongous black dog, a harbinger of death. The further DCI Nelson probes into both cases, the more intertwined they become, and the closer they circle to David Brown, the new lecturer Ruth has recently hired, who seems always to turn up wherever Ruth goes.
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(Ruth Galloway Mysteries)
ONCE UPON A MURDEROUS DELUSION
by A.G. Russo
Rating: 4.3 #ad
The year is 1980 in a small, sleepy New England town. Out of nowhere, a series of devastating murders threaten the safety and well-being of the community. A serial killer has begun a deadly game of catch-me-if-you-can with local police, who have dubbed the carnage, “The Mommy Murders.”
Frightened residents are certain the violent rape/murders are in some way connected to the psychiatric unit of Parkhirst General Hospital. Nella, a nurse angst-ridden by her service during the Vietnam War, is new to the area and the hospital. She joins the tight-knit group of nurses on the evening shift. Val, the leader of the group, with her own history of trauma, believes it stems from the prejudice their patients suffer from a community unsympathetic to mental illness. Or is evil closer to home than they think?
Fugitive Gideon Safford
by Bill Yenne
Rating: 5.0 #ad
The first adventure in a brand new Western series from acclaimed author Bill Yenne!
Gideon Safford is a fugitive, but his trail has long since grown cold. Heading into the Rockies from his native Kentucky, hoping to get across the Continental Divide before winter, he stops for refreshment and a night’s rest at the Dollar Saloon in Ithaca, Montana, a little town of farmers and small-time prospectors in the Elk Fork country. A chance intervention in a gunfight forces Gideon to kill a man in order to save another. Unfortunately, the dead man works for Clay Schugrue, a powerful rancher who controls the Elk Fork through intimidation and thievery by his hired guns. The shooting touches off an eight-day war between Schugrue’s men and riled-up townsfolk, with a mysterious rogue sniper attacking both sides. Unable to leave the people of Ithaca to their fate, Gideon reluctantly takes a stand for justice…and can only pray he’ll be able to see it through.
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(A Fugitive Gideon Safford Western Adventure)
Rampike
by European P. Douglas
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Trapped in an isolated mountain town… Something doesn’t want them to leave
When the local hermit, Maul Thorndean, disappears, Sheriff Joe Moorefield finds his cabin in a disconcerting state: all the surrounding trees are ghost-white, brittle, and leaning towards the cabin. There is blood on the floor, but no sign of Maul. Usually, if there is trouble in Mercy, Maul is the cause. Now, he might be the victim. The strange trees and their wraith-like limbs spread across the town. But when people begin disappearing, it’s clear that the trees are the least of the sheriff’s worries. In a desperate race to escape, only the luckiest will survive.
Little Secrets
by Jennifer Hillier
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Marin had the perfect life. Married to her college sweetheart, she owns a chain of upscale hair salons, and Derek runs his own company. They’re admired in their community and are a loving family—until their world falls apart the day their son Sebastian is taken.
A year later, Marin is a shadow of herself. The FBI search has gone cold. The publicity has faded. She and her husband rarely speak. She hires a P.I. to pick up where the police left off, but instead of finding Sebastian, she learns that Derek is having an affair with a younger woman.
Faithful Place
by Tana French
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Back in 1985, Frank Mackey was a nineteen-year-old kid with a dream of escaping hisi family’s cramped flat on Faithful Place and running away to London with his girl, Rosie Daly. But on the night they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn’t show. Frank took it for granted that she’d dumped him-probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again. Neither did Rosie. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie’s suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank, now a detective in the Dublin Undercover squad, is going home whether he likes it or not.
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(Dublin Murder Squad Mysteries)
A Witch in Time
by Constance Sayers
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Helen Lambert has lived several lives-a young piano virtuoso in 1890s Paris, an actress in 1930’s Hollywood, a rock star in 1970s Los Angeles — only she doesn’t know it. Until she meets a strange man who claims he’s watched over her for centuries, bound to her from the beginning.
At first, Helen doesn’t believe him. Her life is as normal as any other modern career woman’s. Then she begins having vivid dreams about ill-fated love and lives cut short.
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
The Art of Betrayal
by Connie Berry
Rating: 4.6 #ad
In Connie Berry’s third Kate Hamilton mystery, American antique dealer Kate Hamilton’s spring is cut short when a body turns up at the May Fair pageant.
Spring is a magical time in England–bluebells massing along the woodland paths, primrose and wild thyme dotting the meadows. Antiques dealer Kate Hamilton is spending the month of May in the Suffolk village of Long Barston, enjoying precious time with Detective Inspector Tom Mallory. While attending the May Fair, the annual pageant based on a well-known Anglo-Saxon folktale, a body turns up in the middle of the festivities…
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(A Kate Hamilton Mysteries)
Midnight Magic Collection
by Multiple Authors
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Enter a magical world of sassy heroines and mystical creatures…
Fall under the spell of these outstanding USA TODAY and Bestselling authors as they spin unforgettable tales of witches, demons, dragons, shifters, and more.
Explore enchanting worlds filled with magic, unexpected twists, strong leading ladies, and just the right amount of flirty romance.
This limited edition collection of BRAND NEW paranormal romance and urban fantasy books will take you on a thrilling joy ride you won’t soon forget.
Wheels of Injustice
by Susan Louise Gabriel
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Six weeks into a blissful honeymoon, life turns into a nightmare when Susan’s 9-year-old daughter is taken away and her husband is falsely accused of child sexual abuse.
Dragged under the churning wheels of the child protection system, Susan is given a choice: cooperate in prosecuting her innocent husband or lose her daughter. When the couple doesn’t give in to pressure, Susan loses custody of her daughter, and her husband is charged with a felony that carries a 16-year prison sentence.
No one wants to hear the facts. No one wants to know the truth…
Cage
by Lilja Sigurdardottir
Rating: 4.1 #ad
“One of the darkest and most compelling series in modern crime fiction … Tackling topical issues, the book will tell you a great deal about why the world’s in the state it is, while never neglecting its duty to entertain” Sunday Express
The prison doors slam shut behind Agla, when her sentence ends, but her lover Sonja is not there to meet her.
As a group of foreign businessmen tries to draw Agla into an ingenious fraud that stretches from Iceland around the world, Agla and her former nemesis, MarÍa find the stakes being raised at a terrifying speed. Ruthless drug baron Ingimar will stop at nothing to protect his empire, but he has no idea about the powder keg he is sitting on in his own home.
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(Reykjavik Noir Trilogy)
The Protector: The Complete Box Set
by Laura Domino
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Perfection in Sharla’s life comes to an end when sudden deaths in the family change everything.
Sharla’s search for truth gets her very few answers. Wishing she knew who was behind the deception and why doesn’t help her. When Sharla’s world turns upside down, who can she rely on?
Should she trust the billionaire or the bodyguard? In book two, Dorian needs Max to assist, but will he be helpful enough? Are they safe or are they sitting ducks?
In book three, Max gets his chance to be a hero. When he’s lied to about the reason he was hired, how will he save the lives of those at the party – especially Penny?
The Boy From Nain
by Cy Young
Rating: 5.0 #ad
The year 35 B.C.: A 14-year old boy who hates God because he was born with a withered hand.
Despondent and having nothing to live for, the boy constantly gets drunk with his friends in the local tavern in the small village of Nain in Galilee. One night, after getting drunk with his buddies, after they go home, the boy takes several wine skeins with him and wanders off into the Hills of Galilee where he falls asleep. In the 4th watch of the night, he is awakened by voices, peers over the edge of a hill, and witnesses Jesus’ transfiguration.
Petrified, the boys runs down the hill, and when he stops, he realizes his withered hand has been healed. No one believes his story; the town stones him for breaking the Jewish law of committing blasphemy.
While the boy is lying in state on the way to the burial ground, Jesus appears, revives him, and he becomes a follower of the Master.
Whirlwind
by L.T. Ryan, Brian Shea
Rating: 4.5 #ad
For Hatch, normal is never easy. But in the months since surviving a deadly encounter atop an Alaskan glacier, she’s settled into her life in Coronado. With Cruise’s team still physically recovering and out of commission, Hatch receives her first mission. To find a missing girl who disappeared after a church picnic.
Hatch finds herself in Jericho Falls, a small town outside of Nashville, Tennessee. The small town carries a dark secret. As she seeks to expose it, Hatch finds that there are forces willing to do anything to keep that from happening. To save the missing girl, Hatch must face her past as it catches up to her and forces her to make a choice that will forever change her future.
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(Rachel Hatch Mysteries)
The Empress’ Spy Complete Series Boxed Set
by S.E. Weir, Michael Anderle
Rating: 5.0 #ad
What if you were given an offer you shouldn’t refuse?
Seraphina Waters craves the opportunity to protect Bethany Anne’s growing Etheric Empire. Thrown a lifeline when she needs it most, she’s given a chance to prove herself. If she can. Pulled into alien politics, and a life beyond her imagination, Phina might just have a chance to have the one thing she’s always wanted.
Now, she just needs to pull it off without getting killed.
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
Death of a Green-Eyed Monster
by M. C. Beaton
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Hamish’s new constable, Dorothy McIver, may be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. Completely bewitched by her sparkling blue eyes, Hamish spends the summer traveling with her up and down Sutherland until finally, he can take it no longer. He gets down on one knee beside the Land Rover and begs her to marry him—and to his amazement and delight, she says yes.
But just as the town of Lochdubh gets ready to celebrate, Hamish finds himself with a new murder on his hands. If he doesn’t find the killer fast, Hamish’s dream wedding could become a nightmare.
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(A Hamish Macbeth Mysteries)
The Jewels of Paradise
by Donna Leon
Rating: 3.7 #ad
Caterina Pellegrini is a native Venetian, and like so many of them, she’s had to leave home to pursue her career. With a doctorate in baroque opera from Vienna, she lands in Manchester, England. Manchester, however, is no Venice. When Caterina gets word of a position back home, she jumps at the opportunity.
The job is an unusual one. After nearly three centuries, two locked trunks—believed to contain the papers of a baroque composer—have been discovered. Deeply connected in religious and political circles, the composer died childless; now, two Venetians, descendants of his cousins, each claim the inheritance.
Autumn’s Chaos
by Mary Stone
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Guilt is a powerful motivator… Less than twenty-four hours after yet another near-death experience, forensic and criminal psychologist Dr. Autumn Trent should be resting and recovering, not back at work. But she has no choice. Her best friend, Special Agent Winter Black, is missing.
So is Winter’s baby brother, Justin…a brutal serial killer. To make matters worse, Autumn feels responsible for Winter’s disappearance. Plagued by guilt and haunted by the memory of her little brother before he was kidnapped and groomed by The Preacher, Autumn knows that Winter would do anything for Justin.
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(Autumn Trent FBI Mysteries)
Death on the Agenda
by Patricia Moyes
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Amazingly enough, Henry Tibbett is at work. Crime tends to catch him when he’s on vacation, but this time around Henry’s at a coppers’ conference, an international effort intended to stop drug-smuggling. The conference is in Switzerland (for a Scotland Yard detective, Henry does manage to get around.) and the always sensible Emmy has come along for the parties and the chocolate. It’s a glittering whirl of attractive folks in their best early-1960s attire until one of Henry’s colleagues winds up dead and Henry, of all people, becomes Suspect No. 1. A minor but real pleasure here? The reappearance of some characters from Dead Men Don’t Ski, widening both the Tibbetts’ social circle and the circle of suspects.
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(Inspector Tibbett Mysteries)
Not Dark Yet
by Peter Robinson
Rating: 4.4 #ad
When property developer Connor Clive Blaydon is found dead, Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his Yorkshire team dive into the investigation. As luck would have it, someone had installed a cache of spy-cams all around his luxurious home. The team hope that they’ll find answers—and the culprit—among the video recordings.
Instead of discovering Connor’s murderer, however, the grainy and blurred footage reveals another crime: a brutal rape. If they can discover the woman’s identity, it could lead to more than justice for the victim; it could change everything the police think they know about Connor and why anyone would want him dead.
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(Inspector Banks Mysteries)
Quicksilver
by Dean Koontz
Rating: 4.1 #ad
#1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense Dean Koontz takes a surprising and exhilarating road trip with a man in pursuit of his strange past—mile by frightening mile.
Quinn Quicksilver was born a mystery—abandoned at three days old on a desert highway in Arizona. Raised in an orphanage, never knowing his parents, Quinn had a happy if unexceptional life. Until the day of “strange magnetism.” It compelled him to drive out to the middle of nowhere. It helped him find a coin worth a lot of money. And it practically saved his life when two government agents showed up in the diner in pursuit of him. Now Quinn is on the run from those agents and who knows what else, fleeing for his life.
LOVE, LOOK AWAY
by Lisette Brodey
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Twenty-nine-year-old Sage Gordon has had it with love. When she’s not busy running her metaphysical gift shop in the old-money town of Swansea, New York, she’s content with the company of her dog and two cats. Years ago, the boy she thought she’d marry some day disappeared in the middle of the night and was never heard from again. Haunted by the loss of Jimmy, she remains wary about love, until she is set up with a gorgeous NYC marketing executive.
Love moves quickly, and she finds herself engaged — but if only he had betrayed her before she sent out the save-the-date cards. Sage reverts to her former mindset: love, look away. Forever. Despite her best efforts, though, two completely different yet wonderful men enter her life. Still haunted by the past, can she let romance back into her life?