Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
An Itch for Danger
by Christa Nardi
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.6 #ad
A young woman’s body washes ashore with no leads to her murder. Izzie Di Sante, a reluctant restaurateur with a passion for cold cases, loves a challenge but not so many on the menu at once. With sudden personnel changes, she’s juggling the staff schedule for the family-owned Italian restaurant at the same time she’s itching to chase down the new cold case.
She discovers behind the scenes shenanigans as she searches for clues to the young woman’s death but not all the secrets. The case takes unexpected turns and danger to Izzie and the victim’s sister increases with each new twist. Just when Izzie thinks she’s got everything under control, yet another surprise pops up! She needs to figure out the killer’s recipe for murder and soon before she becomes the next victim…
Prey
by Michael Crichton
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.3 #ad
A terrifying page–turner in classic Crichton tradition, masterfully combining the elements of a heart–pounding thriller with cutting–edge technology. The result is a tale so realistic, so scary, you won’t be able to put it down.
Deep in the Nevada desert, the Xymos Corporation has built a state-of-the-art fabrication plant, surrounded by miles and miles of nothing but cactus and coyotes. Eight people are trapped. A self-replicating swarm of predatory molecules is rapidly evolving outside the plant. Massed together, the molecules form an intelligent organism that is anything but benign. More powerful by the hour, it has targeted the eight scientists as prey. They must stop the swarm before it is too late…
The Drowned Girl
by Sara Blaedel
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.3 #ad
It’s clearly no ordinary drowning. When a young girl is pulled from the watery depths, a piece of concrete tied around her waist and two mysterious circular patches on the back of her neck, Detective Louise Rick is immediately called out to Holbaek Fjord.
Her name was Samra, and when the police learn that she was a member of Holbaek’s sizeable Muslim immigrant community, they immediately assume it was an honor killing. Yet her mother insists Samra had done nothing dishonorable. Louise must navigate the complex web of family and community ties in the small town’s tightly knit Muslim community as she hunts a killer . . . before he strikes again.
Lost Soul
by Theresa Van Spankeren
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.4 #ad
Winner of the 2024 Readers’ Favorite Honorable Mention Award in Paranormal Romance.
Julia is the daughter of a wealthy family living in 16th-century London. She falls in love with Adam, a servant’s son, and is heartbroken when her family forces her into an arranged marriage. Her husband is neither kind nor merciful, and Julia struggles to keep safe those she cares about. When tragedy strikes, a stranger arrives and offers her a deal that could forever alter her destiny. Agreement would give her what she has been denied and grant her fondest wishes: the freedom to do as she pleases and a reunion with her one true love. There’s only one catch. Accepting would also mean joining the Vampire Resistance to fight the King.
Web of Evil
by J.A. Jance
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.3 #ad
The highway from Los Angeles to the Palm Springs desert is parched, unforgiving, and deadly. In the suffocating stillness of a car trunk, a man — his mouth and hands bound with tape – waits to learn his fate. Fortunately for him, he’ll never know. What possible enemy could be bitter enough to commit such a heinous crime? And when will the monster make another move?
Ali Reynolds is traveling that same blistering, lonesome highway, looking forward to putting her past behind her. She’d left Los Angeles for the home comforts of Sedona, Arizona, and the satisfaction of a blog…
The Grim Steeper
by Gretchen Rue
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.6 #ad
Bookstore owner Phoebe Winchester is putting on her first major author event when a body is discovered and the plot goes off the rails in this cozy mystery, perfect for fans of Cleo Coyle and Jenn McKinlay.
Amateur witch Phoebe Winchester is excited to host her first big author event at the Earl’s Study, her book and tea store. The author, Sebastian Marlow, is a famous birder excited to put Raven Creek on the map for his rediscovery of a presumed-extinct bird. When Sebastian is found dead before his planned bird hike, where he expected to prove the existence of the bird to fellow birding enthusiasts, it’s obvious someone wanted him to be extinct, too.
Mystery Writers of America Presents The Blue Religion
by Inc. Mystery Writers of America, Michael Connelly
Kindle $2.99 Rating: 4.1 #ad
Taking us from smoggy Los Angeles to the woods of Idaho, from Hawaii at the turn of the twentieth century to the post-Civil War frontier, these riveting stories trace the perils and occasional triumphs of lawmen and -women who put themselves in harm’s way to face down the bad guys. Some of them even walk the edge of becoming bad guys themselves.
In T. Jefferson Parker’s “Skinhead Central,” an ex-cop and his wife find unexpected menace in the idyllic setting they have chosen for their retirement. In Alafair Burke’s “Winning,” a female officer who is attacked in the line of duty must protect her own husband from his worst impulses. In Michael Connelly’s “Father’s Day,” Harry Bosch faces one of his most emotionally trying cases, investigating a young boy’s death.
Paperbacks from Hell
by Grady Hendrix
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.6 #ad
Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of two iconic decades . . . if you dare. Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs! Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate!
Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby. Complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles, this unforgettable volume dishes on familiar authors like V. C. Andrews and R. L. Stine, plus many more who’ve faded into obscurity.
The Wailing Wind
by Tony Hillerman
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.6 #ad
To Officer Bernie Manuelito the man curled on the truck seat was just another drunk—which got Bernie in trouble for mishandling a murder scene—which got Sgt. Jim Chee in trouble with the FBI—which drew ex-Lieutenent Joe Leaphorn out of retirement into an old crime he longed to forget. Legends of the area’s lost gold mines join the mountains and canyons of the Navajo Reservation as elements of Hillerman’s plot, but this tale turns on an obsessive love and memories of a missing woman’s voice wailing in the darkness.
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Any Witch Way You Can
by Amanda M. Lee
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.4 #ad
Bay Winchester is having a tough week.
As the local editor of Hemlock Cove’s only newspaper, she just happens to be present when a body is found in an area corn maze. To make matters worse, the police believe the murder may have something to do with the occult.
This wouldn’t be a problem for a normal reporter, but since Bay is descended from a well-known line of actual witches, the town is understandably on edge.
Between the suspicious townspeople, the befuddled police presence and that random hot biker guy that may or may not have something to do with the murder – Bay has her hands full…
The Rogue Shapeshifter
by Martha Carr, Michael Anderle
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.6 #ad
Magic is real. So are monsters. And Izzie Berens is the one who hunts them down.
When a series of violent attacks shakes Austin’s magical district, Paranormal Defense Agent Izzie Berens and her partner, Rafe, are called in to investigate. The evidence points to a rogue shapeshifter—one with the terrifying ability to mimic anyone it touches. As the body count rises and the city teeters on the brink of chaos, Izzie and Rafe uncover a chilling conspiracy: someone is using dark magic to destabilize the fragile balance between humans and magical beings.
The chase takes them through Austin’s hidden supernatural underworld, where danger lurks behind every shadow and alliances are never what they seem…
The Burnt House
by Faye Kellerman
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.4 #ad
L.A.P.D. Detective Peter Decker and his wife, Rina, areprofoundly shaken by this terrible “accident” that has occurred frighteningly close to their daughter’s school. And an irate call from the unaccounted-for flight attendant’s stepfather further tangles an already twisted mystery. The man insists twenty-eight-year-old Roseanne Dresden was never on the doomed flight, but was probably murdered by her abusive, unfaithful husband – a revelation that propels Decker down a path of tragic history and deadly lies toward an unimaginable evil that will challenge his and Rina’s cherished beliefs about guilt and innocence and justice.
The Bone Collector
by Jeffery Deaver
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.5 #ad
“Lightning-paced…a breakneck thrill ride.” – The Wall Street Journal
Lincoln Rhyme was once a brilliant criminologist, a genius in the field of forensics – until an accident left him physically and emotionally shattered. But now a diabolical killer is challenging Rhyme to a terrifying and ingenious duel of wits. With police detective Amelia Sachs by his side, Rhyme must follow a labyrinth of clues that reaches back to a dark chapter in New York City’s past – and reach further into the darkness of the mind of a madman who won’t stop until he has stripped life down to the bone.
Silent Nights Are Murder
by Libby Klein
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.8 #ad
Ever since Thanksgiving, when an engagement ring in a velvet box—and no gift tag—was left behind, Poppy and her pals have been left with an unsolved mystery. But at least this mystery isn’t the kind that involves murder. That all changes when the body of a fish supplier is discovered in the kitchen of her ex’s restaurant—and he’s frozen, not fresh.
For once, it’s not Poppy who tripped over the corpse, yet she can’t escape being drawn in since the victim has a note taped to him reading Get Poppy. Figures—an engagement ring isn’t labeled, but the dead guy is addressed to her…
The Essex Serpent
by Sarah Perry
Kindle $2.99 Rating: 4.0 #ad
London, 1893. When Cora Seaborne’s brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was an unhappy one, and she never suited the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space, she leaves the metropolis for coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive eleven-year-old son, Francis, and the boy’s nanny, Martha, her fiercely protective friend.
Once there, they hear rumors that after nearly three hundred years, the mythical Essex Serpent, a fearsome creature that once roamed the marshes, has returned…
The Alcoholics
by Jim Thompson
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 3.9 #ad
Dr. Peter S. Murphy needs fifteen thousand dollars by the end of the day, or the city of Los Angeles can say goodbye to the El Healtho clinic. A recovery center for the most severe cases of alcoholism in the state – even if no one ever does quite seem to get dry there – El Healtho has been the bane of Dr. Murphy’s existence ever since he started running it. But now that its doors are about to close forever, Dr. Murphy finds he’ll do anything to keep it open.
Up to and including admitting Humphrey Van Twyne III, a patient with an extremely violent past whose wealthy family has the means to keep El Healtho open for business. Sure, the man isn’t exactly an alcoholic…
Changing
by Judith Arnold
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.7 #ad
Antiques dealer Diana Simms is engaged to her longtime boyfriend when she finds herself inside the Faulk Street Tavern. The song “Changing” emerges from the jukebox and enchants her. It also captivates Nick Fiore, a local guy who’s arrived at adulthood the hard way, after a tour through the juvenile justice system. Now he’s dedicated his life to helping other troubled kids. He has no business even looking at a beautiful, well-bred woman wearing a diamond engagement ring. But once they’re bewitched by the jukebox, he and Diana must change their lives, their goals, their dreams…and their hearts.
Nature Girl
by Carl Hiaasen
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.3 #ad
Passionate and willful Honey Santana is taking rude, gullible telemarketer Boyd Shreave and his less than enthusiastic mistress, Eugenie Fonda, into the mangroves of Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands for a gentle lesson in humility. What Honey doesn’t know is that she’s being followed by her obsessed former employer, Piejack, and her still-smitten ex-husband, Perry, with their protective and wise-beyond-his-years twelve-year-old son, Fry. And when they all arrive on Dismal Key, they don’t know the island is occupied by Sammy Tigertail, a failed alligator wrestler trying like hell to be left alone despite the Florida State coed clinging to his side…
Joanne Fluke’s Lake Eden Cookbook
by Joanne Fluke
Kindle $2.99 Rating: 4.6 #ad
It’s a picture-postcard December in Minnesota. Pristine white snow is glistening in the winter sunlight, and Main Street is brimming with festive holiday decorations. Best of all, it’s the day Hannah’s mother, Delores Swensen, is holding her annual Holiday Cookie Exchange at the Community Center – catered by none other than The Cookie Jar!
The whole Swensen clan, their friends, and members of “The Lake Eden Gossip Hotline,” of which Delores is a founding member, have gathered for the delicious event…
Framed
by John Grisham, Jim McCloskey
Kindle $7.99 Rating: 4.4 #ad
John Grisham is known worldwide for his bestselling novels, but it’s his real-life passion for justice that led to his work with Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries, the first organization dedicated to exonerating innocent people who have been wrongly convicted. Together they offer an inside look at the many injustices in our criminal justice system.
A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty, there is very little room to prove doubt…
Blood Ties
by Jo Nesbo, Robert Ferguson
Kindle $14.99 Rating: BRAND NEW RELEASE #ad
By all accounts, Carl and Roy Opgard are doing quite well for themselves. Or at least they’re doing as well as can be expected in a small town like Os. Carl manages the area’s swanky and successful spa and hotel, while Roy runs a nearby gas station and harbors grand plans to build it out into an entire amusement park, complete with a roller coaster. But when news breaks about a new highway to be built nearby, bypassing Os and leaving the town cutoff and isolated, it’s clear that something has to be done . . . even if the methods are bound to be dirty. Fortunately, Carl and Roy have experience with just that kind of work.
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
People Behaving Badly
by John D. Ottini
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.2 #ad
Semi-Finalist in the 2015 Royal Palm Literary Award Competition. (Florida Writers Association)
People Behaving Badly is a collection of thirteen short mystery stories exploring the folly of criminal behavior. Welcome to a world filled with strange and quirky characters where murder, vigilantism, jealousy, infidelity, sex, violence and people behaving badly are the norm.
These short mysteries were written as individual bite-size stories that can be devoured in one sitting. Perfect reading for your bus, train or subway commute to work, while you’re waiting at the doctor’s or dentist’s office, having your car serviced, enjoying a latte at your favorite coffee shop, or whenever you have a few minutes of free time.
Finding Moon
by Tony Hillerman
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.4 #ad
A phone call in 1975 changes Moon Mathias’s life forever, as a voice on the line tells him his dead brother’s baby daughter—a child Moon never knew existed—is waiting for him in Southeast Asia.
A task he believes beyond his meager talents is pulling Moon to Vietnam. In a chilling world of mystery and silence, disguise and deception, he’ll risk everything for the sake of one little girl—and discover a Moon Mathias who’s a better man than he ever thought he could be.
Goth Drow Unleashed Complete Series
by Martha Carr, Michael Anderle
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 5.0 #ad
Cheyenne Summerlin isn’t your typical college student – she’s a halfling with a heritage to hide and magical powers she’s still figuring out how to control. But when supernatural threats emerge from the shadows, she’ll have to step into the spotlight she’s been avoiding.
With sharp wit, explosive magic, and a dash of rebellion, this series follows one woman’s journey to embrace her true nature and fight back against those who would cage her.
The world can’t know Cheyenne’s a Drow halfling. Not yet. She barely has her powers under control, but time’s up.
The black-ops government group believe they can run her life… But Cheyenne has plans ofher own.
Watch out magical evil doers – Cheyenne’s about to crash your party.
Drop Shot
by Harlan Coben
Kindle $2.99 Rating: 4.4 #ad
Once, Valerie Simpson’s tennis career skyrocketed; now, the headlines belong to a player from the wrong side of the tracks. But when Valerie is shot dead in cold blood and dropped outside the stadium at the U.S. Open, sports agent Myron Bolitar investigates the killing and uncovers a connection between the two players and a six-year-old murder at an exclusive mainline club. As Myron is drawn into the case—along with a dirty U.S. senator, a jealous mother, and the mob—he finds himself caught between a killer and the truth.
Depraved Heart
by Patricia Cornwell
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.0 #ad
Mayes v. People, 806 III. 306 (1883)
Dr. Kay Scarpetta is working a suspicious death scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts when an emergency alert sounds on her phone. A video link lands in her text messages and seems to be from her computer genius niece Lucy. But how can it be? It’s clearly a surveillance film of Lucy taken almost twenty years ago.
As Scarpetta watches she begins to learn frightening secrets about her niece, whom she has loved and raised like a daughter…
Acqua Alta
by Donna Leon
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.4 #ad
As Venice braces for a winter tempest, intrepid Italian sleuth Commissario Guido Brunetti finds out that an archaeologist and old friend has been savagely beaten at the palazzo home of opera singer Flavia Petrelli.
Then, as the floodwaters rise, the corpse of a museum director is discovered—and Brunetti must wade through the chaotic city to solve his deadliest case yet.
When the Night Falls
by Glenn Rolfe
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.3 #ad
“Rolfe is a vital part of this horror generation.” — Brian Keene
Rocky Zukas lives with the ghosts of what happens when you fall in love with a monster. Lucky to be alive, Rocky roams his beachside hometown living on autopilot, waiting for life to start again.
November Riley has never been far from the boy that stole her heart. She watches from the shadows, knowing she can never make things right between them, but never giving up on the chance they could try one more time.
The Bloodstained Doll
by John Everson
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.4 #ad
The latest homage to the Italian Giallo film genre by award winning John Everson, with nods to the sensational movies of Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino, Luciano Ercoli, Mario Bava and more.
When Allyson’s mom dies unexpectedly, she thinks her world has hit rock bottom. But that’s before she goes to live with her estranged Uncle Otto in Germany. When a child’s empty casket is unearthed in the backyard during a violent storm, suddenly people close to her uncle start turning up dead. Is there a connection? As the noose tightens and murders draw closer to Berger Mansion, Allyson and her new boyfriend Andrew discover a dark truth hidden in the attic. Soon their lives are at stake if they don’t discover why each broken body is decorated with a Bloodstained Doll.
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
Parallel Roads
by Dennis Higgins
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.2 #ad
When the spring of 1946 comes, Katherine Callahan decides to leave her loving husband and newborn baby so that she may embark upon an unknowingly tragic journey across the famous American highway from Chicago to her sister’s home in Burbank. She never does arrive.
Fast forward into the present, Kevin Callahan, Katherine’s grandson, along with his best friend Cheryl Bachman, traces his grandmother’s steps along the now decommissioned road to uncover the mystery surrounding her disappearance…
The Darkest Night
by Lindy Ryan
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 3.9 #ad
From New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box, Josh Malerman, comes a story of a dark Christmas past in “Children Aren’t the Only Ones Who Know Where the Presents Are Hidden.”
From national bestselling author Rachel Harrison, in “Thaw,” a couple spends their first Christmas together in a cabin—but are they alone, or does something else watch them from the tree line?
New York Times bestselling authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon’s “Wintry Blue” sets an innocent child on the road with a strange and monstrous creature.
EVANGELINE
by Herc Samson
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.3 #ad
In 1953, two FBI agents are called in to investigate the disappearance of a young White woman in Louisiana. In their pursuit of clues, they stumble across the horrific murder of a Black youth. It soon becomes apparent that the two cases are linked, and solving the murder is the key to unlocking both cases.
But the agents are impeded in their investigation by parties on the both sides of the color line in the victim’s hometown of Evangeline, right on the edge of the Louisiana swamplands. The Whites close ranks, seemingly in effort to protect their own; the Black population keeps silent in fear of reprisals and the threat of more violence. And the deeper they dig, the more the agents find that nothing and no one are as they seem…
Pay Dirt
by Sara Paretsky
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.5 #ad
V .I. Warshawski is famous for her cool under fire, her intelligence, her humor, her unflinching courage, and her love of good coffee. But even the strongest people sometimes need a break to recharge, so her friends send her to Kansas for a weekend of college basketball where Angela, one of her protégées, is playing. And that’s where trouble finds V.I.
Sabrina, one of Angela’s roommates, disappears and V.I. agrees to try to find her. Finding a missing person in a city where she knows few people and doesn’t have her trusted contacts is hard, but not as hard as the brutally negative reaction to the detective from some of the locals…
Crazy Love You
by Lisa Unger
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 3.9 #ad
Darkness has a way of creeping up when Ian is with Priss. Even when they were kids, playing in the woods of their small upstate New York town, The Hollows, he could feel it. Still, Priss was his best friend, his salvation from the bullies who called him “loser” and “fatboy”… and from his family’s deadly secrets.
Now that they’ve both escaped to New York City, Ian no longer inhabits the tortured shell of his childhood. He is a talented and successful graphic novelist, and Priss…Priss is still trouble…
Five Deaths for Seven Songbirds
by John Everson
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.4 #ad
Somebody is murdering the Songbirds…
A modern Giallo, Everson’s homage to the stylish Italian mystery thrillers. When Eve Springer arrives in Belgium to study with the world-famous Prof. Ernest Von Klein at The Eyrie, an exclusive music conservatory, it’s the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. But that dream is soon to become a nightmare.
When the star of the school’s piano program is strangled with a piano wire, the only clue to the killer is a grainy picture of the victim during her final moments, mouth wide and screaming, posted on the girl’s own Facebook account, alongside a classic music video…
Sayonara
by James A. Michener
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.3 #ad
From a great master of historical fiction comes a brilliant tale of love amid war. James A. Michener combines powerful storytelling with deep sensitivity in this novel of a U.S. Army man who, against all odds, falls for a fascinating Japanese woman. Stationed in the exotic Far East, Major Lloyd Gruver considers himself lucky. The son of a general, dating the daughter of another powerful military family, he can look forward to a bright future. And he just can’t understand guys like Private Joe Kelly, who throw away their lives in the States by marrying local girls…
Paranoia
by James Patterson, James O. Born
Kindle $14.99 Rating: BRAND NEW RELEASE #ad
NYPD Detective Michael Bennett will stop at nothing to protect family: his wife, his kids—and his fellow officers—in the latest psychological thriller from bestselling author James Patterson.
At every death scene, Bennett says a prayer over the victim. But recently, too many of the departed have been fellow cops. “I want you to look at these deaths on special assignment,” NYPD Inspector Celeste Cantor says. “Report only to me.” Bennett excels as a solo investigator. But he’s chasing a killer who feeds on isolation… and paranoia.