Friday’s Mystery eBooks
Muddled Through
by Barbara Ross
Rating: 4.7 #ad
When Julia spots police cars in front of Lupine Design, she races over. Her sister Livvie works there as a potter. Livvie is unharmed but surrounded by smashed up pottery. The police find the owner Zoey Butterfield digging clay by a nearby bay, but she has no idea who would target her store. Zoey is a vocal advocate for turning four blocks of Main Street into a pedestrian mall on summer weekends. Other shop owners, including her next-door neighbor, are vehemently opposed. Could a small-town fight provoke such destruction? When a murder follows the break-in, it’s up to Julia to dig through the secrets and lies to uncover the truth . . .
Check out:
(A Maine Clambake Mysteries)
An American Conspiracy
by Alan C. Moore
Rating: 3.9 #ad
“Secrets are the fuel that keeps this city burning. I thought I could play the game better than anyone…but I was wrong.”
When Representative Madison Gladstone’s first term in Congress is interrupted by the shocking suicide of her longtime mentor, she won’t rest until she discovers the reasons behind his death. Pursuing answers, Madison partners with an enigmatic FBI agent who harbors his own agenda.
As the investigation continues a cryptic message emerges that forces Madison to put her career and life on the line. Coordinated terrorist attacks by a mysterious cabal are pushing the global economy into a downward spiral. When escalating worldwide crisis brings Madison face-to-face with a frightening operation that hits perilously close to home-will she be forced to make a disturbing choice that will alter the world order?
Paint the Hills Red
by Ron Schwab
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Greed. Land. Lawlessness.
These ingredients do not portend a peaceful life in Nebraska’s Pine Ridge country for Dan McClure. Dan’s not afraid to fire a gun, but after a lifetime of fighting, he would rather wield a paintbrush. When he’s thrust into the middle of a range war, however, he has but two options . . . and Dan’s not one to run away from a fight.
Set in 1880s Nebraska, Paint the Hills Red is a story of men – and women – who won’t back down . . . even when it looks as though they should.
Hidden Thrones:The Rise of Darkness
by Russ Scalzo
Rating: 4.5 #ad
As current as this morning’s newspaper, this series will challenge the reader’s belief system, introduce him or her to the invisible world of spiritual warfare, and ensure that the reader will never look at the world in quite the same light ever again.
The spirit world is astir as the coming of the Lord draws near. The mystery swirling around the rise in supernatural activity has attracted much attention. A powerful secret society desperately seeks to harness this mystical power.
Author and prayer warrior Jack Bennett can see evil. His unusual gift catapults him into a spiritual world of angels and demons. Jack’s unique ability makes him the FBI’s newest hire, serving as a consultant for their new Paranormal Division. With Special Agent Frank Lederman, they investigate the improbable and the unexplainable…
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(Hidden Thrones Mysteries)
Murder at Keyhaven Castle
by Clara McKenna
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Between ornate bridal gown fittings and meetings with Lyndy’s distant relatives, Stella finally feels less like an out-of-place American and more like a respected aristocrat. Everything changes as the arrival of an anonymous gift and return of her overbearing father cast a dark shadow over the festivities, conjuring difficult memories and new fears . . .
Tensions intensify when a daytrip to Southampton ends with a suspicious stranger getting trampled by a horse-drawn cab. Before anyone can explain why the victim possessed a newspaper clipping about the upcoming ceremony at Morrington Hall, tragedy strikes again, this time resulting in a murder that turns Stella’s world completely upside down while implicating one of Lyndy’s well-regarded family members . . .
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(A Stella and Lyndy Mysteries)
Heart-Shaped Box
by Joe Hill
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals . . . a used hangman’s noose . . . a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known to his legions of fans as the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, an item for sale on the Internet, a thing so terribly strange, Jude can’t help but reach for his wallet.
I will “sell” my stepfather’s ghost to the highest bidder. . . .
For a thousand dollars, Jude will become the proud owner of a dead man’s suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. He isn’t afraid. He has spent a lifetime coping with ghosts—of an abusive father, of the lovers he callously abandoned, of the bandmates he betrayed. What’s one more?
The House Of York
by Terry Tyler
Rating: 4.0 #ad
When widowed single mother Lisa Grey meets wealthy businessman Elias York, romance blossoms. Alas, she is marrying into a complicated family. Her new sister-in-law doesn’t want to know her, middle brother Gabriel’s marriage flounders under a cloud of infidelity and gambling debts, while the youngest, Richard, keeps his dark secrets well hidden—and his wife suffers in silence.
Lisa and her mother are bonded by a powerful intuition, but on some subjects they dare not voice their fears; neither can explain the terror Lisa feels whenever she walks through the doors of the ancient, imposing York Towers.
Love and loss, abduction, incestuous desires and murderous intent form the basis of this compelling saga in which horrors float just beneath the surface, culminating in a shocking outcome.
Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
Furmidable Foes
by Rita Mae Brown
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Spring arrives in northern Virginia, and as the ground thaws and the peonies begin to bloom a bright magenta, the women of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church prepare for a Homecoming celebration like no other. Harry, Susan Tucker, and their friends are busy planting flowers and trimming hedges to get the church grounds in shape for the big day.
But a note of a menace mars the beautiful spring: The brewery owned by Janice Childs and Mags Nielsen, two members of the gardening committee, gets robbed, with hundreds of dollars in merchandise taken off their delivery trucks in the dead of night. Is this the work of a random thief? Or is something more sinister afoot?
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(Mrs. Murphy Cozy Mysteries)
Rogue State
by Steven Konkoly
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A family runs for its life across the wastelands of a future America on the brink of collapse.
Twenty years in the future, America perches on the edge of collapse, devastated by drought and dwindling resources. California, now a totalitarian surveillance state controlling the lion’s share of the nation’s economy, is on the brink of secession. And family man Nathan Fisher finds himself at the heart of a bloody conspiracy that threatens the lives of his loved ones and the future of the country itself. Pursued by Mason Flagg and the sinister Cerberus organization, Nathan and his embattled family—accompanied by tough-as-nails Marine David Quinn—make a desperate run across the blasted wastes of the western United States, seeking sanctuary in Nevada.
Sheriff Rick
by Jesse Storm
Rating: 4.6 #ad
After the murder of Teller City’s two law enforcers, Rick Walker jumps at the opportunity to be the town’s next sheriff.
Shortly after assuming the sheriff role for Teller City, a wave of crimes plague the troubled town. A notorious outlaw by the name of Leopold Lodges has been released from Colorado’s penitentiary for good behavior. But he is far from reformed. Leopold is striking back in order to get his revenge on the law for locking him up.
One peaceful night, Leopold and his gang ride through the town to look for trouble before kidnapping Jenny Bridle from her bed. Upon learning about the kidnapping, Sheriff Rick heads after the criminals to rescue the innocent woman while proving to the doubtful locals that he is the sheriff that Teller City deserved.
The Burnside Body Snatcher
by G.G. Morris
Rating: 3.9 #ad
The residents of Portland’s charming Alphabet District are horrified when the neighborhood’s favorite auntie goes missing–on the day of her funeral! Soon, other prominent citizens are meeting nasty ends and bodies are vanishing like pies on windowsills.
When the boondoggling detective fails to provide the terror-stricken community with answers, amateur sleuth Wanda Whipple steps up to the plate. But the disturbing clues quickly lead her down a sinister path involving an enigmatic cult and a frightening legend from the Alphabet District’s shadowy past. Will Wanda uncover the identity of the Burnside Body Snatcher, or will she become the killer’s next victim?
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(The Alphabet District Mysteries)
The Tywi Estuary Killings
by John Nicholl
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Is it revenge or is it justice?
DI Gravel is supposed to be on mandatory leave, but when a severed head washes up on the estuary beach his holiday is cut short. Back on the job, he’s shocked when the case leads him to the victim from an old case
Seventeen years ago, the system failed Rebecca. They let the abuser of a six-year-old girl walk free. But she’s all grown up now and taking the law into her own hands.
Is this one killer DI Gravel doesn’t want to catch?
Plymouth Undercover
by Pamela M. Kelley
Rating: 4.3 #ad
A mother and daughter inherit a PI Agency with a reputation that takes them by surprise.
Meet Emma McCarthy, a thirty-year-old failed actress that just moved home to Plymouth, MA. And her mother, Cindy, a yoga instructor in the Pinehills, an exclusive golf community in Plymouth.
They’ve just inherited Court Street Investigations, a private detective agency. And its one part-time employee, eighty-year-old Mickey, a retired police detective.
They expect typical cases like cheating spouses or workman’s comp, but quickly learn that the agency also has a reputation for solving murders when they are hired to find a local missing woman.
Boogie Beach
by Winnie Winkle
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Two bars, one magical and one human, lie in the exact same space. That should work. It’d better; I run those joints and we’re under attack.
I live a pretty weird life – as in gods in speedos, powerful witches with little patience for mere humans, and shifters whose vibrations make my guts quake. Plus, an oceanside bar and a magical book run my existence.
Beach life and eccentric are besties. The record picked me, Cleopatra O’Keefe, to be the next Keeper. I took over the book and started chronicling the intersection and occasional asininity of the human and magical worlds. That’s when eccentric plunked its butt on the deck next to mine and we careened into the world of funky oddities seasoned with occasional mayhem.
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(The Record Series)
Medical Mystery
by Richard Mabry
Rating: 3.9 #ad
When her phone rang, Diane Macklin wondered what her sister wanted now. Then, she heard that their mother was in the Emergency Room with a heart problem.
The doctor tending to her mother was Dr. Joe Adams, who was far from Diane’s idea of the family doctor. He had been alone since his first wife had died, and was apparently heaven-sent as a mate for Diane, if she could only get past the trauma of her previous near-miss at the altar.
The heart problem was hard to solve initially, the subsequent difficulty turned out to be murder, and affected the lives of both Diane and Joe.