Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
April Fool Dead
by Carolyn Hart
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Someone is playing a rather nasty April Fool’s prank on mystery bookstore owner Annie Darling. A felonious forger on the idyllic — if rarely tranquil — South Carolina island of Broward’s Rock has made it appear as if Annie is accusing some of her neighbors of murder. In the wink of a bloodshot eye, the Darling name is mud . . . and then the Broward’s Rock body count starts mysteriously increasing. And now it’s up to Annie to follow the well-hidden trail of the vicious trickster — or a secret slayer’s next lethal “joke” may very well be on her!
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(Death on Demand Mysteries)
50 States
by Richard R Becker
Rating: 4.6 #ad
An Idaho farmer who aches for absolution after a tragedy is given one more chance at redemption. Two runaways cross paths in a Tennessee bus station with only one ticket between them. A family sees looters racing toward their home as they escape an Oregon wildfire. A young couple takes a reckless turn off a state highway in Utah and find themselves in a nightmarish government biohazard area.
These and 46 more shorts make up an anthology that will surprise readers with each new thought-provoking story as they skip across different genres, moods, and states of mind. Together, they provide a character-driven sampling of the American experience over the last 60 years — the kind and the cruel, the heroic and criminal — in unpredictable and suspenseful ways.
The Private Patient
by P. D. James
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Cheverell Manor is a beautiful old house in Dorset, which its owner, the famous plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell, uses as a private clinic. When the investigative journalist, Rhoda Gradwyn, arrives to have a disfiguring facial scar removed, she has every expectation of a successful operation and a peaceful week recuperating. But the clinic houses an implacable enemy and within hours of the operation Rhoda is murdered. Commander Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate a case complicated by old crimes and the dark secrets of the past.
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(Adam Dalgliesh Mysteries)
The Escape
by D.C. Brockwell
Rating: 4.3 #ad
They say humans utilise a mere ten percent of their brains’ potential. Disgraced neurosurgeon Klaus Jancke believes this unused brain matter holds the key to supernatural powers.
The Notorious Six are the UK’s most evil serial killers, incarcerated at HMP Longstone, Gwynedd, Wales. They are Dr. Jancke’s test subjects, and the neurosurgeon has just made a breakthrough.
Using powers bestowed upon him by Jancke, Freeman Gander, his younger brother, Mitchell and Freeman’s psychotic girlfriend, Autumn Hacker (who was once one of the Ganders’ victims) break out of Longstone Prison and decide to pay someone special a ‘visit’.
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(The Last Hope)
Birthday Party Murder
by Leslie Meier
Rating: 4.3 #ad
The town of Tinker’s Cove is looking forward to the celebration marking former librarian Julia Ward Howe Tilley’s ninetieth birthday. Lucy Stone, Miss Tilley’s closest friend, dreamed up the party idea—around the same time she decided she’s not getting old without a fight. Noticing crow’s feet and a potential jelly belly, she’s resolved to exercise more and purchase some heavy-duty wrinkle cream, asap!
That sounds like a plan—until Lucy realizes her daughter’s fourteenth birthday bash, a coed sleepover, may turn her hair white overnight. What was she thinking?
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(A Lucy Stone Mysteries)
So Cold the River
by Michael Koryta
Rating: 4.3 #ad
It started with a beautiful woman and a challenge. As a gift for her husband, Alyssa Bradford approaches Eric Shaw to make a documentary about her father-in-law, Campbell Bradford, a 95-year-old billionaire whose past is wrapped in mystery. Eric grabs the job even though there are few clues to the man’s past — just the name of his hometown and an antique water bottle he’s kept his entire life.
In Bradford’s hometown, Eric discovers an extraordinary history — a glorious domed hotel where movie stars, presidents, athletes, and mobsters once mingled, and hot springs whose miraculous mineral water cured everything from insomnia to malaria…
Vicious Cycle
by Terri Blackstock
Rating: 4.7 #ad
When fifteen-year-old Lance Covington finds an abandoned baby in the backseat of a car, he knows she’s the newborn daughter of a meth addict he’s been trying to help. But when police arrest him for kidnapping, Lance is thrust into a criminal world of baby trafficking and drug abuse.
His mother, Barbara, looks for help from Kent Harlan—the man she secretly, reluctantly loves and who once helped rescue her daughter from a mess of her own.
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(Intervention Mysteries)
The Broker
by John Grisham
Rating: 4.3 #ad
It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world’s most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis.
Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive—there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
Death Comes to London
by Catherine Lloyd
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Murder makes a debut on the London social scene in this Regency-era mystery by the author of Death Comes to the Village.
With the reluctant blessings of their father, the rector of Kurland St. Mary, Lucy Harrington and her sister Anna leave home for a social season in London. At the same time, Lucy’s special friend Major Robert Kurland is summoned to the city to accept a baronetcy for his wartime heroism.
Amidst the dizzying whirl of balls and formal dinners, the focus shifts from mixing and matchmaking to murder when the dowager Countess of Broughton, the mother of an old army friend of Robert, drops dead…
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(Kurland St. Mary Mysteries)
Arcane
by Sever Bronny
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Fourteen-year-old Augum apprentices under a mysterious mentor in the forbidden art of magic. He is joined by Bridget and Leera, two passionate and quirky girls willing to give a lonely orphan like Augum a chance. Together they dare to train as warlocks.
But Augum’s mentor turns out to be none other than Anna Atticus Stone, a legendary warlock—and she possesses a mythical artifact. When a warlord suddenly turns up demanding that artifact, the group is plunged into a harrowing adventure, one in which Augum will have to use his newly learned spells to try to save the only thing he has left . . . a friendship forged in fire.
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(The Arinthian Line Mysteries)
Ranger Protection
by Lynn Shannon
Rating: 4.5 #ad
When Dr. Tara Sims is robbed, she fights back to protect her daughter and nearly pays with her life. She’s rescued by Texas Ranger Grady West. Her childhood friend is now a handsome lawman, but Tara refuses to acknowledge the chemistry sparking between them. With a little girl to raise and a growing medical practice, she has no room in her life for romance.
Grady suspects the vicious assault wasn’t a random act. What he can’t figure out is why anyone would attack the single mother. He vows to protect Tara and her little girl while keeping his growing feelings for them out of the equation. Getting romantically involved with his sister’s best friend is more hazardous than hunting criminals.
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(Texas Ranger Heroes Mysteries)
Woman In Scarlet
by Karen L. Adams
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Karen Adams’ dream became possible the day the RCMP finally included women in what was then, an unashamed boy’s club. When Karen joined the very first group of female RCMP recruits at age 22, she never anticipated the indelible mark this would leave on the landscape of Canada’s iconic police force and the women who came after her. Karen, least of all.
Fueled by equal measures of naiveté and a relentless pursuit of excellence to win the respect of her fellow officers, Karen found her passion in life despite a hostile work environment, both inside and outside the RCMP. Her story pulses with excitement as she recounts her initial forays into drug busts, surveillance and undercover missions–all the while suffering silently with PTSD after a physical assault perpetrated by a trusted member of the vaunted force she strived so hard to become part of.
“An engaging, no-frills account of the challenges and rewards of being a female Mountie.” ~ KIRKUS REVIEW
The Girl and the Deadly End
by A.J. Rivers
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Small towns have secrets. The dark mysteries of Emma’s life are ready to be told.
It has been more than a year since Emma Griffin stumbled upon a clue behind the dangerous secrets of her past. Now, she has the answers at her fingertips. The only question is will she survive long enough to find them?
As Greg struggles to recover, Emma keeps watch over him. She’s desperate for answers, answers locked inside him. And she will do whatever it takes to keep him safe.
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(Emma Griffin® FBI Mysteries)
The Disappearance of Alistair Ainsworth
by Leonard Goldberg
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Joanna and the Watsons receive an unexpected visitor to 221b Baker Street during a nocturnal storm. A rain-drenched Dr. Alexander Verner arrives with a most harrowing tale.
Verner has just returned from an unsettling trip to see a patient who he believes is being held against his will. Joanna quickly realizes that Verner’s patient is a high-ranking Englishman who the Germans have taken captive to pry vital information about England’s military strategies for the Great War. The man is revealed to be Alistair Ainsworth, a cryptographer involved in the highest level of national security.
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(The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes Mysteries)
Logan Caine: Blood on the Uncompahgre
by C. Wayne Winkle
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Following their escape from the Utes that resulted in the death of Katy’s parents, Logan and Joshua get her to Taos. Naturally, she is mourning.
Her friend begins telling her that Logan is not good for her. Katy, in her sadness and loss, questions her feelings. She rejects Logan when he tries to talk to her. Senor Ruiz hires Logan and Joshua to establish a trading post for him. Through a series of misfortunes, they get the job done.