Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Dying to Eat at the Pub
by Beatrice Fishback
Rating: 4.9 #ad
Chief Inspector Sean O’Reilly stormed into the pub. “Mrs. Weathervane, you are under arrest.”
My chair rattled and clanked backwards onto the stone floor as I jumped up. “You can’t be serious.” I whimpered.
Even though he had been retired for quite some time, Jim’s military bearing took over as he wrapped a protective arm around my shoulder. “What are you talking about, O’Reilly? What’s this all about?”
The policeman barked, “That’s Chief Inspector, Mr. Weathervane. Please stay out of this.” He nodded in my direction. “Your wife has withheld vital evidence in the murder of Dan Swansey.”
Azimuth
by Rennie St. James
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Trapped in an office job, Mia Rayner dreamed of adventure. And then it came true.
When she finds the body of her Gypsy teacher, Mia’s life will shift into a blur of martial arts, mythology, and murder. Taught by the enigmatic Cayden Jodhani, she’ll learn the warrior’s path in a Rahki world where magic hangs heavy between Mia and her destiny. With a young orphan by her side, Mia will have to fight to earn her place as a guardian protector. Ancient prophecies claim she and the gifted child are destined to save mankind; Mia is more worried about saving them from the next attempt on their lives.
Check out:
(The Rahki Chronicles)
The Serial Killer’s Daughter
by Alice Hunter
Rating: 4.3 #ad
In a sleepy Devon village, a woman is taken from the streets. Local vet Jenny is horrified. This kind of thing doesn’t happen here.
But it’s not the first time she’s been so close to a crime scene. The daughter of a prolific serial killer, she’s spent her whole life running from who she really is.
And the crime is harrowingly similar to those her father committed all those years ago…
Rizzoli & Isles: Listen to Me
by Tess Gerritsen
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Mothers know best . . . But who will listen?
Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles are newly plagued by what seems like a completely senseless murder. Sofia Suarez, a widow and nurse who was universally liked by her neighbors, lies bludgeoned to death in her own home. But anything can happen behind closed doors, and Sofia seemed to have plenty of secrets in her last days, making covert phone calls to traceless burner phones. When Jane finally makes a connection between Sofia and the victim of a hit-and-run from months earlier, the case only grows more blurry. What exactly was Sofia involved in? One thing is clear: The killer will do anything it takes to keep their secret safe.
Check out:
(Rizzoli & Isles Mysteries)
The Deserter
by Nelson DeMille, Alex DeMille
Rating: 4.4 #ad
When Captain Kyle Mercer of the Army’s elite Delta Force disappeared from his post in Afghanistan, a video released by his Taliban captors made international headlines. But circumstances were murky: Did Mercer desert before he was captured? Then a second video sent to Mercer’s Army commanders leaves no doubt: the trained assassin and keeper of classified Army intelligence has willfully disappeared.
When Mercer is spotted a year later in Caracas, Venezuela, by an old Army buddy, top military brass task Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor of the Criminal Investigation Division to fly to Venezuela and bring Mercer back to America—preferably alive.
A Duty to the Dead
by Charles Todd
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Charles Todd, author of the resoundingly acclaimed Ian Rutledge crime novels (“One of the best historical series being written today” —Washington Post Book World) debuts an exceptional new protagonist, World War I nurse Bess Crawford, in A Duty to the Dead. A gripping tale of perilous obligations and dark family secrets in the shadows of a nightmarish time of global conflict, A Duty to the Dead is rich in suspense, surprise, and the impeccable period atmosphere that has become a Charles Todd trademark.
Check out:
(Bess Crawford Mysteries)
Experimental Film
by Gemma Files
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Former film teacher Lois Cairns is struggling to raise her autistic son while freelancing as a critic when, at a screening, she happens upon a sampled piece of silver nitrate silent footage. She is able to connect it to the early work of Mrs. Iris Dunlopp Whitcomb, the spiritualist and collector of fairy tales who mysteriously disappeared from a train compartment in 1918.
Hoping to make her own mark on the film world, Lois embarks on a project to prove that Whitcomb was Canada’s first female filmmaker. But her research takes her down a path not of darkness but of light—the blinding and searing light of a fairy tale made flesh, a noontime demon who demands that duty must be paid.
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
Murder Most Fowl
by Donna Andrews
Rating: 4.8 #ad
In Murder Most Fowl, Meg Langslow’s in for a busy summer. Her husband is directing a production of Macbeth, and most of the cast and crew are occupying spare bedrooms in their house. She also has to keep an eye on Camp Birnam, where a group of medieval reenactors are commemorating the real-life Macbeth by setting up what they fondly believe is an authentic medieval Scottish military camp.
And then there’s Damien Goodwin, a filmmaker who has been hanging around, trying to document the production. When Goodwin hosts a showing of some of the footage he’s taken, he manages to embarrass or offend just about everyone. The next morning Meg isn’t exactly surprised to find that someone has murdered him.
Check out:
(Meg Langslow Mysteries)
The Sandman
by NEIL GAIMAN
Rating: 4.5 #ad
The first issue of the first volume of Neil Gaiman’s horror/fantasy epic! An occultist accidentally traps Morpheus, the embodiment of Dreams, and holds him for 70 years. Finally free, Morpheus seeks his lost objects of power and rediscovers his place in the universe.
Check out:
(The Sandman Mysteries)
The Souls of Lost Lake
by Jaime Jo Wright
Rating: 4.8 #ad
To save the innocent, they must face an insidious evil.
Wren Blythe has long enjoyed living in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, helping her father with ministry at a youth camp. But when a little girl in the area goes missing, an all-out search ensues, reviving the decades-old campfire story of Ava Coons, the murderess who is believed to still roam the forest. Joining the search, Wren stumbles upon the Coonses’ cabin ruins and a sinister mystery she is determined to unearth.
In 1930, Ava Coons has spent the last several years carrying the mantle of mystery since the day she emerged from the woods as a thirteen-year-old girl, spattered with blood, dragging a logger’s ax. She has accepted she will never remember what happened to her family, whose bodies were never found, and that the people of Tempter’s Creek will always blame her for their violent deaths.
Murder at St Anne’s
by J. R. Ellis
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Winter, snow, murder—and a centuries-dead suspect.
In the chilly depths of a Yorkshire winter, a well-liked rector is found bludgeoned to death in her own church. With no sign of a murder weapon, local superstition quickly pins the blame on the ghost of a medieval monk believed to haunt the building…
Well accustomed to unusual murder investigations, DCI Jim Oldroyd takes on the case, along with his assistant, Sergeant Andy Carter, but they are hampered at every turn by the deepening snow and the threat of the supernatural. Even as possible motives and opportunities begin to reveal themselves, Oldroyd struggles to find a better suspect than the hooded phantom.
Check out:
(A Yorkshire Murder Mysteries)
The Long Way Home from Crete
by Isaac Kal
Rating: 4.0 #ad
As the clouds of war and anti-Semitic feelings gather pace in 1930’s Europe, Abraham recognizes the danger that he and others are facing and decides to leave his comfortable life in Germany and travel with his family to Israel. There he intends to make a new life, far from the gathering storm, but life as an exile means a different set of hardships and as a means to support his family he eventually enlists in the British Royal Pioneer Corps, the only unit in the British military where an enemy alien was allowed to serve.
Within its ranks, fighting in desperate battles in Greece and Tobruk, Abraham must find deep reserves of strength and resilience if he is to survive the conflict and return to his wife, Genia, who is left struggling to raise their young son as a single parent in a new country. As the war drags on interminably, Abraham is left shattered by his wife’s unexpected infidelity. But even greater challenges must be faced by his son, Aaron, who is sent to live in an orphanage.
Under Her Care
by Lucinda Berry
Rating: 4.2 #ad
From the bestselling author of The Perfect Child comes a shocking thriller about the disturbing complexities of a mother’s love and the deadly consequences of unravelling family secrets.
On a humid summer day in Alabama, a mayor’s wife turns up brutally murdered under a railroad bridge. Standing next to her body is fourteen-year-old Mason Hill, the autistic son of former Miss USA Genevieve Hill. The locals are quick to level their verdict on young Mason: he did it…
A Trace of Deceit
by Karen Odden
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A young painter digs beneath the veneer of Victorian London’s art world to learn the truth behind her brother’s murder…
Edwin is dead. That’s what Inspector Matthew Hallam of Scotland Yard tells Annabel Rowe when she discovers him searching her brother’s flat for clues. While the news is shocking, Annabel can’t say it’s wholly unexpected, given Edwin’s past as a dissolute risk-taker and art forger, although he swore he’d reformed. After years spent blaming his reckless behavior for their parents’ deaths, Annabel is now faced with the question of who murdered him—because Edwin’s death was both violent and deliberate. A valuable French painting he’d been restoring for an auction house is missing from his studio: find the painting, find the murderer. But the owner of the artwork claims it was destroyed in a warehouse fire years ago.
Check out:
(A Dangerous Duet)
Living Dead in Dallas
by Charlaine Harris
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Even though Sookie has her own vampire to look out for her—her red-hot, cold-blooded boyfriend, Bill Compton—she has to admit that the bloodsuckers did save her life. So when one of the local Undead asks the cocktail waitress for a favor, she feels like she owes them.
Soon, Sookie’s in Dallas using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She’s supposed to interview certain humans involved. There’s just one condition: The vampires must promise to behave—and let the humans go unharmed. Easier said than done. All it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly…
Check out:
(Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries)