Saturday’s Mystery eBooks
V is for Vengeance
by Sue Grafton
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Private detective Kinsey Millhone feels a bit out of place in any department store’s lingerie section, but she’s entirely in her element when she puts a stop to a brazen shoplifting spree. For her trouble she nearly gets run over in the parking lot by one of the fleeing thieves—and later learns that the one who didn’t get away has been found dead in an apparent suicide. But Audrey Vance’s grieving fiance suspects murder and hires Kinsey to investigate a case that will reveal a big story behind a small crime and lead her into a web that connects a shadowy “private banker,”
A Cry from the Dust
by Carrie Stuart Parks
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A 19th-century conspiracy is about to be shattered by a 21st-century forensic artist.
In 1857, a wagon train in Utah was assaulted by a group of militant Mormons calling themselves the Avenging Angels. One hundred and forty people were murdered, including unarmed men, women, and children. The Mountain Meadows Massacre remains controversial to this day—but the truth may be written on the skulls of the victims.
When renowned forensic artist Gwen Marcey is recruited to reconstruct the faces of recently unearthed victims at Mountain Meadows, she isn’t expecting more than an interesting gig . . . and a break from her own hectic life.
Madame Fourcade’s Secret War
by Lynne Olson
Rating: 4.6 #ad
In 1941 a thirty-one-year-old Frenchwoman, a young mother born to privilege and known for her beauty and glamour, became the leader of a vast intelligence organization—the only woman to serve as a chef de résistance during the war. Strong-willed, independent, and a lifelong rebel against her country’s conservative, patriarchal society, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was temperamentally made for the job. Her group’s name was Alliance, but the Gestapo dubbed it Noah’s Ark because its agents used the names of animals as their aliases. The name Marie-Madeleine chose for herself was Hedgehog: a tough little animal, unthreatening in appearance, that, as a colleague of hers put it, “even a lion would hesitate to bite.”
A Spear of Summer Grass
by Deanna Raybourn
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Paris, 1923
The daughter of a scandalous mother, Delilah Drummond is already notorious, even among Paris society. But her latest scandal is big enough to make even her oft-married mother blanch. Delilah is exiled to Kenya and her favorite stepfather’s savanna manor house until gossip subsides.
Fairlight is the crumbling, sun-bleached skeleton of a faded African dream, a world where dissolute expats are bolstered by gin and jazz records, cigarettes and safaris. As mistress of this wasted estate, Delilah falls into the decadent pleasures of society.
The Tenth Commandment
by Lawrence Sanders
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Joshua Bigg, an investigator for a Manhattan law firm, usually spends his days tracking down witnesses and verifying clients’ alibis. Ironically, Bigg is quite short, and uses his boyish looks to coax information from his targets. The newly promoted agent gets the chance to show his mettle when he probes the disappearance of one client and the suspicious suicide of another. Professor Yale Stonehouse left his apartment one night, without saying anything to his wife, and never returned. Sol Kipper plunged to his death from the top floor of his Upper East Side townhouse. With little to go on, Bigg enlists the help of a cop, and uncovers a shocking connection between the two cases: a corrupt clergyman who preys on the lonely and bereaved.
The Road to Jonestown
by Jeff Guinn
Rating: 4.5 #ad
In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially mixed, and he was a leader in the early civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California, where he got involved in electoral politics and became a prominent Bay Area leader. But underneath the surface lurked a terrible darkness.
In this riveting narrative, Jeff Guinn examines Jones’s life, from his early days as an idealistic minister to a secret life of extramarital affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing, before the fateful decision to move almost a thousand of his followers to a settlement in the jungles of Guyana in South America.
Bill O’Reilly’s Legends and Lies
by David Fisher
Rating: 4.6 #ad
From the birth of the Republican Party to the Confederacy’s first convention, the Underground Railroad to the Emancipation Proclamation, the Battle of Gettysburg to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Bill O’Reilly’s Legends and Lies: The Civil War reveals the amazing and often little known stories behind the battle lines of America’s bloodiest war and debunks the myths that surround its greatest figures, including Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, General Robert E. Lee, Frederick Douglass, Stonewall Jackson, John Singleton Mosby, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, John Wilkes Booth, William Tecumseh Sherman, and more.
Friday’s Mystery eBooks
The Twelve Clues of Christmas
by Rhys Bowen
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Scotland, 1933. While her true love, Darcy O’Mara, is spending his feliz navidad tramping around South America and her mother is holed up in a tiny village called Tiddleton-under-Lovey with droll playwright Noel Coward, Georgie is quite literally stuck at Castle Rannoch thanks to a snowstorm.
It seems like a Christmas miracle when she manages to land a position as hostess to a posh holiday party in Tiddleton. The village should be like something out of A Christmas Carol, but as soon as she arrives things take a deadly turn when a neighborhood nuisance falls out of a tree…
Five Years in Yemen
by Luana Ehrlich
Rating: 4.8 #ad
A CIA contractor goes missing in Iraq. Five years later, he turns up in Yemen.
Now, it’s up to Titus to find out if he’s a traitor or a patriot.
After Titus accepts an assignment to bring rogue CIA contractor Jacob Levin back to the States, he learns the operation has been put on hold pending Presidential approval. That’s fine with him. He’s looking forward to spending time in Oklahoma with his fiancée, Nikki Saxon.
But then, his boss needs a favor. After that, everything changes.
Radiant Angel
by Nelson DeMille
Rating: 4.2 #ad
After a showdown with the notorious Yemeni terrorist known as The Panther, John Corey has left the Anti-Terrorist Task Force and returned home to New York City, taking a job with the Diplomatic Surveillance Group. Although Corey’s new assignment with the DSG-surveilling Russian diplomats working at the U.N. Mission-is thought to be “a quiet end,” he is more than happy to be out from under the thumb of the FBI and free from the bureaucracy of office life.
But Corey realizes something the U.S. government doesn’t: The all-too-real threat of a newly resurgent Russia.
Broken Rhodes
by Kimber Silver
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Kinsley Rhodes blows into Harlow, Kansas like a tornado, twisting Sheriff Lincoln James’ life into knots. Her grandfather has been murdered and she wants answers.
As if the town’s first homicide in twenty years wasn’t enough, the beleaguered sheriff now has to deal with Henry Rhodes’ bobcat of a granddaughter, plunging his life deeper into chaos. As a dark storm threatens, long-held secrets are exposed, placing Kinsley directly in harm’s way.
Death in a White Tie
by Ngaio Marsh
Rating: 4.5 #ad
It’s debutante season in London, and that means giggles and tea-dances, white dresses and inappropriate romances . . ..and much too much champagne. And, apparently, a blackmailer, which is where Inspector Roderick Alleyn comes in. The social whirl is decidedly not Alleyn’s environment, so he brings in an assistant in the form of Lord “Bunchy” Gospell, everybody’s favorite uncle. Bunchy is more than lovable; he’s also got some serious sleuthing skills. But before he can unmask the blackmailer, a murder is announced. And everyone suddenly stops giggling . . .
OFF GRID
by J. P. Redding
Rating: 4.5 #ad
In the wake of a global calamity, the economy collapses. The Feds respond by wielding every power of the Welfare State to control the populace. A key tool is PivPal, an indispensable smartphone used to track citizens. As civil liberties crumble, resistance is relegated to flyover country whose residents – derided as off-gridders – cling to the time-honored virtues of freedom, self-reliance, and charity. Against this backdrop, Jenny Hernandez struggles to keep her rural church community nourished and safe. Hiding from the Feds, a team of inventors, and Jenny’s ex, arrive to complete the amazing plasma drive. They bring hope, but also the watchful eye of Big Brother. With the authorities closing in, local law enforcement must choose sides.
Robert B. Parker’s Broken Trust
by Mike Lupica
Rating: 4.5 #ad
BRAND NEW RELEASE
Spenser investigates the past secrets of an elusive tech billionaire in this latest installment of Robert B. Parker’s beloved series, and the first written by celebrated writer Mike Lupica.
Andrew Crain has it all: a brilliant scientist and astute businessman, his groundbreaking work with lithium has made him one of the world’s richest men. He is universally adored and admired; that is, until Crain’s beautiful wife, Laura, comes to Spenser hoping that he can find out what skeletons lurk in her husband’s closet. Though Crain is a generous philanthropist and loving family man, she is concerned—he has recently become secretive, bordering on paranoid, and prone to violent outbursts. This is the opposite of the man she knew, and not only does his behavior put their marriage at risk, but also a lucrative company merger that would be life-changing for the Crains, their business partner, and everyone associated. Laura wants Spenser to find out what has gotten into her husband, before it’s too late.
Majipoor Chronicles
by Robert Silverberg
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Lord Valentine has claimed the title of Coronal, ruling over the gigantic planet of Majipoor. Yet he still remembers Hissune, the boy who aided him in his time of wandering, and gives him a post in the House of Records.
In a catalogue of ancient reports, Hissune discovers the Register of Souls, a repository of millions of memories of long-dead explorers, pioneers, warriors, even Coronals and Pontifexes. He begins to immerse himself into their lives—and finds himself experiencing first-hand the vast history of Majipoor . . .
Parade of Hearts
by J. Carol Nemeth
Rating: 4.8 #ad
New to Old Colorado City, Hannah Overman is excited about the success of her bakery. However, Hannah’s elation is soon overshadowed by the fact that her position on the Christmas parade committee isn’t going as well she had hoped. The mayor has taken a dislike to her and doubts she can do her job. The committee voted unanimously in favor of her idea to invite recently returned troops from Afghanistan to march in the Christmas parade. Hannah soon finds one particular Army captain is more than willing to lend a hand. However, when things turn sinister in the old town, Hannah and Capt. Caleb Ryan are caught up in something no one ever expected. Between lemon crumb muffins and threats aimed at Hannah, tension grows as the little western town prepares for the Christmas parade.
The Angelic Realm
by Dennis Macy
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Become inspired as this book reveals mystifying and unusual encounters outside the realm of normal existence. You will become fascinated by the way spirits try to make contact with their loved ones here on earth as I take you into the Angelic Realm with my visits, spiritual encounters, along with the messages and the signs that are being revealed to me to deliver to others. The stories and revelations are heartening and enlightening that will provide a sense of hope and healing of one’s heart, mind and soul. As my journey takes me to seek out and understand my enhanced abilities in this uplifting and powerful book that will bring joy, peace and comfort to those who seek it.
Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
A Poisonous Page
by Kitt Crowe
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Kitt Crowe’s second Sweet Fiction Bookshop mystery whips up an array of intriguing suspects and motives into a diabolically deft read, perfect for fans of Jenn McKinlay and Joanne Fluke.
It’s summer festival time in Confection, Oregon, and that means a barrage of tourists making cash registers ring at Sweet Fiction Bookshop. But what should be bookseller Lexi’s most lucrative time of year turns disturbing when a member of the chamber of commerce suddenly dies of a heart attack. Not entirely unexpected—considering her family history—but it’s a different story when another chamber member dies just one week later…also, presumably, of natural causes.
Free Worlds Complete Series
by Kevin Mclaughlin, Michael Anderle
Rating: 5.0 #ad
George Dane was the hero of the last war on Earth. Now he faces his greatest challenge yet as security chief for humanity’s first interstellar colony mission.
After over a century in stasis aboard their ship, the colonists are shocked to find their new home is completely covered by oceans. Upon landing, they discover that they are not alone…
Will the colonists be able to survive on the world they have been sent to? Or does space have different plans for them?
The Sins of our Fathers
by Åsa Larsson
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year 2021 (Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy)
Winner of the Storytel Award for Best Suspense Novel 2021
Winner of the Adlibris Award for Best Suspense Novel 2021
Forensic pathologist Lars Pohjanen has only a few weeks to live when he asks Rebecka Martinsson to investigate a murder that has long since passed the statute of limitations. A body found in a freezer at the home of the deceased alcoholic, Henry Pekkari, has been identified as a man who disappeared without a trace in 1962: the father of Swedish Olympic boxing champion Börje Ström. Rebecka wants nothing to do with a fifty-year-old case – she has enough to worry about. But how can she ignore a dying man’s wish?
Auschwitz
by Multiple Authors
Rating: 4.5 #ad
When the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, they sent virtually the entire Jewish population to Auschwitz. A Jew and a medical doctor, Dr. Miklos Nyiszli was spared from death for a grimmer fate: to perform “scientific research” on his fellow inmates under the supervision of the infamous “Angel of Death”: Dr. Josef Mengele. Nyiszli was named Mengele’s personal research pathologist. Miraculously, he survived to give this terrifying and sobering account.
Below Ground
by Michael Wood
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A MISSING DETECTIVE DCI Matilda Darke has been kidnapped and her nemesis, Steve Harrison appears to be behind it. He’s currently residing in the supermax of Wakefield Prison and spends twenty-three hours a day in his cell, so how could he possibly be responsible?
A SERIAL KILLER WITH A VENGEANCE As Matilda’s team race to find her, they’re alerted to a body found in an abandoned car on the outskirts of Sheffield. With forensics scouring the woodland for clues, the last thing they expect is for the body count to rise.
Son of the Desert
by William Black
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Missie Pickard is dead. Main street has burned. And the outlaw that pulled the trigger has disappeared into the scorched Arizona desert. The townspeople demand justice.
When young miner Miles McLean returns home to find his town in ruins, he wants justice as much as anybody. Miles must find Willy Helm, the murderous bank robber seen fleeing the scene of the crime…
Willy Helm. He’ll kill for money and he’ll kill for fun. Nobody has come close enough to collect the bounty on his head.
As Miles searches alone in the sweltering desert, he finds himself entangled in bloody Apache wars and savage frontier towns. Allies seem far between. Until he crosses path with Lucie Pickard, Missie’s sister.
Lucie thinks she is bringing Missie home. But instead, she has to bury her. Now she wants revenge.
The Scarpetta Factor
by Patricia Cornwell
Rating: 4.3 #ad
It is the week before Christmas. A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta—despite her busy schedule and her continuing work as the senior forensic analyst for CNN—to offer her services pro bono to New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of unexpected and unsettling events, culminating in an ominous package—possibly a bomb—showing up at the front desk of the apartment building where she and her husband, Benton, live. Soon the apparent threat on Scarpetta’s life finds her embroiled in a surreal plot that includes a famous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappearance of a beautiful millionaire with whom her niece, Lucy, seems to have shared a secret past.
The Justice of Kings
by Richard Swan
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Action, intrigue, and magic collide in this epic fantasy following Sir Konrad Vonvalt, an Emperor’s Justice, who is a detective, judge, and executioner all in one—but with rebellion and unrest building, these are dangerous times to be a Justice . . .
The Empire of the Wolf simmers with unrest. Rebels, heretics, and powerful patricians all challenge the power of the Imperial throne.
Only the Order of Justices stands in the way of chaos. Sir Konrad Vonvalt is the most feared Justice of all, upholding the law by way of his sharp mind, arcane powers, and skill as a swordsman. At his side stands Helena Sedanka, his talented protégé, orphaned by the wars that forged the Empire.
The Watchmaker’s Hand
by Jeffery Deaver
Rating: 4.5 #ad
BRAND NEW RELEASE
When a New York City construction crane mysteriously collapses, causing mass destruction and injury, Rhyme and Sachs are on the case. A political group claims responsibility for the sabotage and threatens another attack in twenty-four hours, unless its demands are met. The clock is ticking.
Then a clue reveals to Rhyme that his nemesis, known as the Watchmaker, has come to town to fulfill his promise of murdering the criminalist. Now Rhyme and Sachs have to dodge his brilliant scheme to destroy them both, while racing against time to stop the construction site terrorists.
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
The Skeleton Makes a Friend
by Leigh Perry
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Georgia Thackery is feeling pretty good about her summer job teaching at prestigious Overfeld College, and she’s renting a rustic cabin right by a lake for herself, her daughter, Madison, and her best friend, Sid the Skeleton. Together again, the trio are enjoying the quiet when a teenager named Jen shows up looking for her friend. Georgia doesn’t recognize the name, but she learns that the person Jen was looking for is actually Sid.
Sid reveals that he and Jen are part of a regular online gaming group that formed locally, and one of their members has gone missing. Sid admits that he might have bragged about his investigative prowess, enough so that Jen wants him to find their missing player.
Miss Silver Deals with Death
by Patricia Wentworth
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Maud Silver, governess-turned-sleuth, investigates a case of blackmail in a once-grand London apartment house.
Vandeleur House was great once. The home of a prominent court painter, its ballroom and parlors hosted the brightest of the Victorian era. Now divided into eight flats, it is an apartment building whose glorious façade conceals a nest of diabolical intrigue. There is Maude, a young woman who was crossing the Atlantic when her steamer was struck by a Nazi torpedo. She survived; her husband did not. Then there’s Ivy, a sleepwalking maid with a curious past.
Witness in Death
by J. D. Robb
Rating: 4.7 #ad
When a famous thespian is killed right before her eyes, New York detective Eve Dallas takes a new place in crime as both officer and witness to murder in this novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling In Death series.
The opening night of the revival of Agatha Christie’s “Witness for the Prosecution” at New York’s New Globe Theater turns from stage scene to crime scene when the leading man is stabbed to death right on center stage. Now Eve Dallas has a high-profile celebrity homicide on her hands…
Lord Valentine’s Castle
by Robert Silverberg
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Valentine, a drifter who remembers nothing except his name, finds himself on the fringes of a great city. Joining a motley troupe of jugglers and acrobats, he travels with them across the magical planet of Majipoor. All the while, he hopes to meet someone who can help him retrieve his past.
Then Valentine begins to dream—and to receive messages in those dreams. Messages that tell him he is a lord, a king turned out of his castle. Now his travels have a purpose: to return to his home, discover what enemy took his memory, and claim the destiny that awaits him.
Spearhead
by Adam Makos
Rating: 4.8 #ad
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, LOS ANGELES TIMES, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER
“A band of brothers in an American tank . . . Makos drops the reader back into the Pershing’s turret and dials up a battle scene to rival the peak moments of Fury.” – The Wall Street Journal
From the author of the international bestseller A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel—and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.
The Munich Girl
by Phyllis Edgerly Ring
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Anna Dahlberg grew up eating dinner under her father’s war-trophy portrait of Eva Braun. Fifty years after the war, she discovers what he never did—that her mother and Hitler’s mistress were friends. The secret surfaces with a mysterious monogrammed handkerchief, and a man, Hannes Ritter, whose Third Reich family history is entwined with Anna’s.
Plunged into the world of the “ordinary” Munich girl who was her mother’s confidante—and a tyrant’s lover—Anna finds her every belief about right and wrong challenged. With Hannes’s help, she retraces the path of two women who met as teenagers, shared a friendship that spanned the years that Eva Braun was Hitler’s mistress, yet never knew that the men they loved had opposing ambitions.
For My Own Good
by Vanessa Garbin
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Cocooned in her home, and wracked with guilt, a young mother tries to get her life back on track… Mary is on medication but it is making her forgetful.
She has been ever since her nine-month-old baby was injured whilst in her care.Mary can’t remember the details but fortunately the infant is fine now. Her husband is way over-protective, making her stay in the house and take on a nanny.
Mary knows it’s for her own good. She couldn’t bear the thought of anything else happening to her beloved child.
Accidentally Wonderful
by Michelle Zuriel
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A struggling single father discovers life’s tiny miracles in this wonderous debut novel from up-and-coming author Michelle Zuriel.
A moment’s mistake on the job lands dedicated police officer Avinoam Shaked with four months of community service to be served at his local day center. Still shaken by the accident, Avinoam’s mixed feelings about the center dissipate as he gets to know its caregivers and residents whose lives it has changed:
Young and upbeat Julie, looking for some small refuge from her psychotic episodes and relapses; Orna, the manager of the day center, who struggles to maintain both its day-to-day operations and her crumbling marriage; and Jonathan, Avinoam’s disabled son, whose condition is not the sole cause of their distant, fragile relationship.
Where’s Chuckawalla Bill’s Cabin?
by Kevin Heaton
Rating: 4.3 #ad
How does one become so hopelessly lost, even after considerable planning and preparation? The answer to that question is recovered here in this true tale of despair, & perseverance. From the moment his ill-fated hike begins, you will see what the author sees, & feel what he feels as, step by step, his precarious situation becomes increasingly desperate. Heaton is not likely to make it out of the desert alive, but you will find yourself hoping against hope that he does.