Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Murder at Mallowan Hall
by Colleen Cambridge
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Tucked away among Devon’s rolling green hills, Mallowan Hall combines the best of English tradition with the modern conveniences of 1930. Housekeeper Phyllida Bright manages the large household with an iron fist in her very elegant glove. In one respect, however, Mallowan Hall stands far apart from other picturesque country houses. For the manor is home to archaeologist Max Mallowan and his famous wife—Agatha Christie . . .
Phyllida is both loyal to and protective of the crime writer, who is as much friend as employer. An aficionado of detective fiction, Phyllida has yet to find a gentleman in real life half as fascinating as Mrs. Agatha’s Belgian hero, Hercule Poirot…
Pirate Hole Murders: Fog Busters Detectives
by Stephanie Parker McKean
Rating: 4.0 #ad
When a group of friends – old bones detectives who are young at heart – find and rescue a kidnapped child, it is just the start of a mystery that puts them all in danger.
They chase clues from their small Scottish village to York, England, to the Isle of Mull, as danger stalks them. They are determined to find their favorite waitress’ missing uncle for her. Twice they believe they have succeeded in finding him, and twice they discover they have failed. But none of them could have imagined how their desperate search for her missing uncle would end…
Reconstructing Amelia
by Kimberly McCreight
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Kate’s in the middle of the biggest meeting of her career when she gets the telephone call from Grace Hall, her daughter’s exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Amelia has been suspended, effective immediately, and Kate must come get her daughter—now. But Kate’s stress over leaving work quickly turns to panic when she arrives at the school and finds it surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. By then it’s already too late for Amelia. And for Kate.
An academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death. At least that’s the story Grace Hall tells Kate. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn’t jump.
The Girls Are Gone
by Michael Brodkorb, Allison Mann
Rating: 4.0 #ad
On the evening of April 19, 2013, Samantha and Gianna Rucki disappeared. Two of five children born to David Rucki and Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, the teenage sisters vanished in the midst of their parents’ divorce.
The girls’ father, David Rucki, worked tirelessly with law enforcement to search day and night for his two missing daughters, following every lead while raising three remaining children at home. Their mother, Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, used her newfound freedom to vacation around the world, abandoning her children. And as the investigation intensified, catching the attention of the media, Sandra also disappeared.
Switcheroo
by Aaron Elkins
Rating: 4.3 #ad
The Skeleton Detective is back.
A cold case dating from the 1960s draws forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver to the Channel Islands decades later to shine a light on the mysterious connection between two men who died there on the same night.
Swapped as young boys by their fathers during the Nazi occupation, wealthy Roddy Carlisle and middle-class George Skinner had some readjusting to do after the war ended—but their lives remained linked through work, trouble with the law, and finally, it would seem, through murder.
Check out:
(The Gideon Oliver Mysteries)
CRIME IN RETIREMENT
by CATHERINE MOLONEY
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Somewhere in the lush green grounds of a peaceful retirement home hides a serial killer.
Famous ex-ballet dancer and local celebrity Andrée Clark is found strangled in her bed at the genteel Rosemount Retirement Home. On the bedside table stands her favourite ballerina doll, its dainty arm pointed at the body.
Retired detective DS Noakes, now head of security at Rosemount, asks Detective Markham for his help.
Check out:
(Detective Markham Crime Mysteries)
Magic Bleeds
by Ilona Andrews
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Kate Daniels works for the Order of the Knights of Merciful Aid, officially as a liaison with the mercenary guild. Unofficially, she cleans up the paranormal problems no one else wants to handle – especially if they involve Atlanta’s shapeshifting community.
When she’s called in to investigate a fight at the Steel Horse, a bar midway between the territories of the shapeshifters and the necromancers, Kate quickly discovers there’s a new player in town. One who’s been around for thousands of years—and rode to war at the side of Kate’s father.
Check out:
(Kate Daniels Mysteries)
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
The Couch Carnival Caper
by G.G. Morris
Rating: 5.0 #ad
The Two Fellows Carnival has rolled into town! Residents of Portland’s charming Alphabet District are flocking to Couch Park to enjoy the funfair’s electrifying performances. But on opening night spectators get more bang for their buck when a carnie performer bites the big one in a spectacular way. Was it an unfortunate accident? Or is something more sinister afoot?
Soon, more performers are taking their final curtain calls. Something must be done before the gig is permanently up. Enter amateur sleuth, Wanda Whipple! Navigating a cast of whacky suspects with more motives than you can shake a cinnamon churro at, Wanda must get to the bottom of the Couch Carnival Capers before she ends up with her ticket permanently punched.
Check out:
(The Alphabet District Mysteries)
The Labyrinth of the Spirits
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Rating: 4.7 #ad
In this unforgettable final volume of Ruiz Zafón’s cycle of novels set in the universe of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, beautiful and enigmatic Alicia Gris, with the help of the Sempere family, uncovers one of the most shocking conspiracies in all Spanish history.
Nine-year-old Alicia lost her parents during the Spanish Civil War when the Nacionales (the fascists) savagely bombed Barcelona in 1938. Twenty years later, she still carries the emotional and physical scars of that violent and terrifying time. Weary of her work as an investigator for Spain’s secret police in Madrid, a job she has held for more than a decade, the twenty-nine-year old plans to move on. At the insistence of her boss, Leandro Montalvo, she remains to solve one last case: the mysterious disappearance of Spain’s Minister of Culture, Mauricio Valls.
Check out:
(The Cemetery of Forgotten Mysteries)
Heir of Koradin
by Lisa Dunn
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Dagger of Willow and Strike has waited a lifetime to return to the village of his birth. He’s been promised the throne of Koradin, but getting captured by his treacherous sire wasn’t part of the plan. Dagger needs a miracle to turn his childhood dreams into reality—And Grit of Berth and Stone might be that miracle.
Unfortunately for him, Grit’s stuck in the rival village of Thresh, and she’s in way over her head. Having bluffed her way into commanding an army of incompetents, she’s useless to Dagger if her new recruits don’t learn the right end of a sword. To make matters worse, Dagger’s sire seeks Grit’s life, and there’s no telling when he’ll return to Thresh to finish what he started when he killed her dame.
Check out:
(The Chasmaria Chronicles)
Adventure’s Invitation
by Cheri Swalwell
Rating: 4.9 #ad
Families stick together. That’s what they do.
It’s no secret that Holly has a crush on Mitch, her older brother’s best friend. A church mission trip offers the chance to add adventure to summer vacation, and the added bonus to finally date the young man of her dreams.
But early into the mission, a senseless tragedy rocks Holly’s carefully laid plans. Now she faces a future that’s bleaker than she ever could have imagined. Although members of her community blame her for the incident, it’s the support of her family that helps her through the rough times.
Check out:
(The Redemption of Green Pines Mysteries)
More Shocking Celebrity Murders
by Jack Smith
Rating: 3.6 #ad
Have you ever heard the phrase “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”? Well—here’s a new twist for you: what about “Deathstyles of the Rich and Famous”? Because here in this book we go down the list of some of the most notorious murders of the fabulously wealthy, famous, or just downright infamous individuals that you’ll likely ever hear of.
Here in this book, we ask a lot of questions. We ask—for example—What really happened to a famous rapper, entrepreneur extraordinaire, Nipsey Hussle? Was he killed at random? Or was his death part of a larger conspiracy? One could ask the very same question about the odd execution-style hit that was made on British journalist Jill Dando. How come this beloved TV personality was gunned down on her doorstep for no apparent reason?
Rituals & Runes Collection
by Multiple Authors
Rating: 5.0 #ad
The runes are cast, the rituals prepared. Now it’s time to break the rules…
Fall under the spell of swoon-worthy supernatural heroes and magical heroines in fantastical worlds filled with dangerous adventures and epic romances.
Witches, Wizards, Shifters, Vampires, Demons, Devils, and other mythical creatures prowl the pages of this limited edition collection of paranormal romance and urban fantasy tales.
A DEATH TO RECORD
by REBECCA TOPE
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A sleepy village, a dead body and a policeman with a broken heart.
One cold winter morning, the body of herdsman Sean O’Farrell is discovered lying crumpled on the ground. His clothes are streaked with fresh blood, his face strangely expressionless.
The prime suspect is farmer Gordon Hillcock. It’s well-known that there was little love lost between them. Gordon had engaged in a very public affair with Sean’s wife.
Check out:
(West Country Murder Mysteries)
Reckonings
by Karen E. Osborne
Rating: 4.8 #ad
“With its fast pace, well-developed characters and plot twists and turns, Reckonings is a story you won’t soon forget.” Gail Olmstead, author of Landscape of a Marriage
For all her adult life, Roxy suppressed the impact of two traumatic events—being abandoned by her mother at the age of twelve and being raped by her boyfriend, Spider, at eighteen. She never told anyone but her best friend about the rape. Though happily married to Carl, they both long to be out from under the thumb of Carl’s domineering father, for whom they both work. And she’s convinced that her first play—being staged at the community theater with her movie-star friend from high school in the lead role—is the ticket to that better life.