Friday’s Mystery eBooks
Hot to Trot: An Agatha Raisin Mystery
by M. C. Beaton, R.W. Green
Rating: 4.5 #ad
When Private Detective Agatha Raisin learns that her friend and one-time lover Charles Fraith is to be married to a mysterious socialite, Miss Mary Brown-Field, she sees it as her duty to find out what she can about the woman. Coming up empty, Agatha—out of selfless concern for Charles, of course—does the only sensible thing she can think of: she crashes their wedding, which ends in a public altercation. Nursing a hangover the next morning, she gets a phone call from Charles, with even more disturbing news: Mary has been murdered.
Agatha takes on the case, and quickly becomes entrenched in the competitive equestrian world, in which Mary had been enmeshed—as well as the victim’s surprisingly violent past.
Check out:
(Agatha Raisin Mysteries)
The Other Daughter
by Lisa Gardner
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Twenty years ago, Melanie Stokes was abandoned in a Boston hospital, then adopted by a wealthy young couple. Gifted with loving parents, a doting brother, and an indulgent uncle, Melanie has always considered herself lucky. Until the first cryptic, threatening note arrives: “You Get What You Deserve.”
Melanie has no memory of her life before the adoption. Now someone wants her to remember it all—even the darkest nightmare the Stokes family ever faced: the murder of their first daughter. As Melanie pursues every lead and chases every shadow in search of her real identity, two seemingly unrelated events from her past will come together in a dangerous explosion of truth.
In Name Only
by Carol Kilgore
Rating: 4.6 #ad
No home. No family. No place to hide. For Summer Newcombe, that’s only the beginning.
The night Summer escapes from a burning Padre Island eatery and discovers the arsonist is stalking her, is the same night she meets Fire Captain Gabriel Duran. As much as she’s attracted to Gabe, five years in the Federal Witness Security Program because of her father’s testimony against a mob boss have taught her the importance of being alone and invisible.
No matter how much she yearns for a real home, Summer relinquished that option the night she killed the man who murdered her father. But Gabe breaks down her guard and places both of them in danger.
The Old Scrapbook
by Dennis Higgins
Rating: 4.4 #ad
The Old Scrapbook is real. The characters within its pages were real as well. This story is an attempt to fill in the blanks of their actual relationship. Bet and Ray met, fell in love, and got engaged until a war separated them, World War II.
Seventy years later, the old scrapbook was found, and the mysteries involved rediscovered.
I became obsessed with the scrapbook and what could have become of the young woman, Bet, who created it. I felt that woman was somehow guiding me as I wrote the story. That’s how I felt from the beginning, like I was led to that war-time scrapbook by an unseeing hand that I could feel something from its pages.
Murder Is Best Served Bloody
by Rod Kackley
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Violent. Forceful. Gritty. Henry Branson’s Great American Dream has turned into a nightmare. But it is not his fault. Henry did his best. The people who ruined his dream are going to pay.
Henry believes in the American Dream and knows he can prove to his father and the young millennials who laugh at him just how good he is by starting his own software company.
But it all goes south. What should be a feel-good story of an entrepreneur and his American dream, turns into a crime and suspense story, noir pulp fiction for the twenty-first-century.
The Great Silence
by Doug Johnstone
Rating: 4.1 #ad
The discovery of a human foot in an Edinburgh park, the inexplicable circumstances of a dying woman, and the missing daughter of Jenny’s violent ex-husband present the Skelf women with their most challenging – and deadly – cases yet…
Keeping on top of the family funeral directors’ and private-investigation businesses is no easy task for the Skelf women, and when matriarch Dorothy discovers a human foot while walking the dog, a perplexing case presents itself … with potentially deadly results.
Daughter Jenny and grand-daughter Hannah have their hands full too: The mysterious circumstances of a dying woman lead them into an unexpected family drama, Hannah’s new astrophysicist colleague claims he’s receiving messages from outer space, and the Skelfs’ teenaged lodger has yet another devastating experience.
Check out:
(The Skelfs Mysteries)
The Maid By Mistake Rescue
by Jo Grafford
Rating: 5.0#ad
Brand New Release from Amazon Bestselling Author Jo Grafford.
A mistaken identity followed by an accidental attraction… Whoever said two wrongs can’t make a right must not have been in love.
Anxious to put a recent bad break-up behind him, Police Detective Noah Zeller jumps at the chance to sharpen his search and rescue skills at the world-class Disaster City Search and Rescue Academy. The only downside is that the missing heiress case he’s currently working will have to go on the back burner for a few weeks. Or so he thought. Until a sassy-mouthed maid provides a clue that busts his case wide open…
Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
Deception, Denial & Murder
by Christa Nardi
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A domineering co-worker, a flirtatious neighbor, and a dead body make for many questions and awkward situations.
As HR Specialist and trauma counselor, Stacie Maroni is used to dealing with difficult situations. When her night out is derailed by the discovery of a body outside a local watering hole, she’s glad she’s not involved. But when the police investigate and close friends are cast as potential suspects, Stacie will do whatever it takes to identify the true culprit, even if it creates waves with the men in her life, her father included. The suspect list is slim and she’s grasping at straws.
Check out:
(A Stacie Maroni Mysteries)
Adam’s Witness
by J.C. Paulson
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Where does justice end and vengeance begin? When newspaper journalist Grace Rampling learns that the Pride Choir has been banned from performing in the cathedral, she rushes to the church to get some answers.
Instead, she literally stumbles onto a grisly crime scene: the bishop is lying in a pool of his own blood before the altar. Suddenly, Grace is no longer the observer and reporter. She finds herself central to the case — not only as the key witness, but a suspect and even potential victim.
Lead investigator Detective Sergeant Adam Davis is thrown by the fierce attraction he feels toward Grace that, if acted upon, could throw the entire case into jeopardy.
Check out:
(Adam and Grace Mysteries)
Magic Triumphs
by Ilona Andrews
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Kate has come a long way from her origins as a loner taking care of paranormal problems in post-Shift Atlanta. She’s made friends and enemies. She’s found love and started a family with Curran Lennart, the former Beast Lord. But her magic is too strong for the power players of the world to let her be.
Kate and her father, Roland, currently have an uneasy truce, but when he starts testing her defenses again, she knows that sooner or later, a confrontation is inevitable. The Witch Oracle has begun seeing visions of blood, fire, and human bones. And when a mysterious box is delivered to Kate’s doorstep, a threat of war from the ancient enemy who nearly destroyed her family, she knows their time is up.
Check out:
(Kate Daniels Mysteries)
The Eclipse Dancer
by Laura Koerber
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Andy thought of flying. She imagined the air under her arms, her hair lifting and floating. She felt her heartbeat separate from the faraway beat and form its own rhythm: light, quick, a dancing thrum. When she opened her eyes, her yard was dusky and her mood had lightened. She let her gaze drift across the darkening landscape. Andy’s heart filled with exultation. She raised her arms, fanned out her fingers, and arched her feet until she was on her toes. She was assaulted by memories.
Her mother was dying, and Danny had been dead for years. Her daughter was in Minneapolis, and Alana was up in the North Woods someplace. All of her childhood friends–the fairies, Hairy, Mr. Tolliver, and Kenshi–were gone. Is it true that childhood is never overcome?
Bloody Bones
by Laurell K. Hamilton
Rating: 4.8 #ad
For the first time in trade paperback: the fifth novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series from Laurell K. Hamilton.
When Branson, Missouri, is hit with a death wave ‘four unsolved murders’ it doesn’t take an expert to realize that all is not well. But luckily for the locals, Anita Blake is an expert in the kinds of preternatural goings-on that have everyone spooked. And she’s got an ‘in’ with the creature that can make sense of the slayings-the sexy master vampire known as Jean-Claude.
Check out:
(Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Mysteries)
The Pine Barrens Stratagem
by Ken Harris
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Private Investigator Steve Rockfish needs cash, like yesterday. The bad news is that yesterday, a global pandemic raged, and Maryland was headed toward a lockdown that would ultimately lead to cheating spouses no longer “working late,” and hence a lack of new clients.
Rockfish’s luck changes when a Hollywood producer reaches out, but the job is two states away and involves digging up information on a child trafficking ring from the 1940s. What he uncovers will be used to support the launch of a true crime docuseries. He grabs a mask, hand sanitizer and heads for South Jersey…
From Beyond the Stars
by Dakota Ryder Hatch
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Would you trust an alien slime? Cassius was the first to witness it fall from the sky . . . but its crash landing wasn’t an accident. Novae was shot down. And now, the aliens that did it are searching for him. Their father, Overlord Cerebrum, hungers after the blob’s flesh and will stop at nothing to obtain the living slime.
If Cassius doesn’t get Novae off the planet and back to his home above, the world will become a warzone. People will die – his friends will perish – and any survivors will have their brains hijacked and become slaves to the faceless tyrant looming over the planet…
Thawed to Death
by Stephanie Parker McKean
Rating: 4.2 #ad
There’s non-stop laughter and suspense as 60-year-old antique “picker” Zoey Thunderbird explores the local ghost house and discovers a body in a freezer. She knows it was murder – no one deliberately thaws themselves to death – but she doesn’t know that her search for truth will endanger her life. Killers don’t want to get caught.
Her quest to catch a killer introduces Zoey to strange crime motifs – everything connected with the murder has a tendency to vanish, and the apparent killer seems to have an affinity for sitting in her lap…
He Started It
by Samantha Downing
Rating: 3.9 #ad
Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan haven’t all been together in years. And for very good reasons – we’ll get to those later. But when their wealthy grandfather dies and leaves a cryptic final message in his wake, the siblings and their respective partners must come together for a cross-country road trip to fulfill his final wish and – more importantly – secure their inheritance.
But time with your family can be tough. It is for everyone…