Friday’s Mystery eBooks
To the Tome of Murder
by Lauren Elliott
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Three weeks before Thanksgiving, bookshop owner Addie Greyborne already has a full plate—and a killer on her case . . .
Addie’s determined to turn a seemingly ordinary November in coastal Greyborne Harbor into one for the books. The windows of her shop display carefully curated works by American writers, including a rare selection of traditional holiday recipes from the influential 19th-century publication Godey’s Ladies Magazine. And then there’s the town’s Civil War-era themed cooking and baking competition, with a hefty cash prize and free publicity going to the winning dish . . .
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(A Beyond the Page Bookstore Mysteries)
Nobody
by Creston Mapes
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Murdered Vegas Homeless Man a Millionaire in Disguise?
Reporter Hudson Ambrose hears an early morning call on his police scanner about an injured person at a bus stop on Las Vegas Boulevard and rushes to the scene. His world is blown off its axis when he discovers a murdered homeless man with a bankbook in his pocket showing a balance of almost one million dollars.
Should Hudson wait for the police, knowing the case will get lost in reams of red tape, or swipe the bankbook and take the investigation—and perhaps a chunk of the money—into his own hands?
New York to Dallas
by J. D. Robb
Rating: 4.6 #ad
#1 New York Times bestselling author J. D. Robb presents an intense and terrifying case for New York homicide cop Eve Dallas: one that will take her all the way to the city that named her – and plunge her into the nightmares of her childhood…
When a monster named Isaac McQueen – taken down by Eve back in her uniform days – escapes from Rikers, he has two things in mind. One is to take up where he left off, abducting young victims and leaving them scarred in both mind and body. The other is to get revenge on the woman who stopped him all those years ago.
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(In Death Mysteries)
The Killer in the Snow
by Alex Pine
Rating: 4.2 #ad
The first fall of snow can be fatal… A year has passed since DI James Walker cracked his biggest case yet, and he’s hoping for peace and quiet this festive season.
But across the fells, a local farmer returns home on Christmas Eve to find footsteps in the fresh snow that lead down to his unused basement – and no footsteps leading away. Days later, his body is found, alongside those of his wife and daughter. Without a neighbour for miles, there are no witnesses and little evidence. And the crime scene has strange echoes of another terrible murder committed at the farmhouse, twenty years earlier…
To Die For
by Joyce Maynard
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Local weather reporter Suzanne Maretto craves nothing more than to transcend life at her suburban cable television news station and follow in the footsteps of her idol: Barbara Walters. When she concludes that her unglamorous husband is getting in the way of her dream of stardom, the solution seems obvious: Get rid of him. She seduces a fifteen-year-old admirer, Jimmy, and persuades him to do her dirty work. Mission accomplished, Suzanne takes to the airwaves in her new role as grieving widow, in search of a TV deal. If that means selling Jimmy down the river, she’s ready.
Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams
by Philip K. Dick
Rating: 4.5 #ad
From the iconic author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, stories that inspired the original dramatic series.
Though perhaps most famous as a novelist, Philip K. Dick wrote more than one hundred short stories over the course of his career, each as mind-bending and genre-defining as his longer works. Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams collects ten of the best. In “Autofac,” Dick shows us one of the earliest examples (and warnings) in science fiction of self-replicating machines. “Exhibit Piece” and “The Commuter” feature Dick exploring one of his favorite themes: the shifting nature of reality and whether it is even possible to perceive the world as it truly exists.
My MacArthur
by Cindy Fazzi
Rating: 4.2 #ad
The year is 1930. The place: Manila. Douglas MacArthur is the most powerful man in the Philippines, a United States colony. He’s fifty years old, divorced, and he falls in love at first sight with a ravishing young Filipino woman. He writes her a love note on the spot. Her name is Isabel Rosario Cooper, an aspiring movie actress. One glance at his note and she thinks of him as my MacArthur.
MacArthur pursues his romantic obsession even though he’s breaking numerous taboos. She reciprocates his affection because he could open doors for her financially struggling family. That MacArthur happens to be handsome compensates for the fact that he’s as old as her father.
Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
Ice Cream Murder
by Leighann Dobbs
Rating: 4.5 #ad
When millionaire Regis Banks drops dead at his own party, everyone assumes it was from natural causes – after all, the man was celebrating his one-hundredth birthday…. Everyone except Lexy Baker’s amateur sleuth grandmother, Nans, and her three friends, that is. When it turns out that Regis’ death might have been caused by more than just old age, Nans refuses to let the trail grow cold – especially after a local reporter trying to get a scoop threatens to write an article blaming the death on Lexy.It doesn’t take long before Nans and Lexy are up to their eyeballs in suspects. And when those suspects start dropping like flies, Lexy and Nans have to step up their game before the killer claims their next victim.
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(Lexy Baker Cozy Mysteries)
Better Off Dead
by Lee Child , Andrew Child
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Digging graves had not been part of my plans when I woke up that morning.
Reacher goes where he wants, when he wants. That morning he was heading west, walking under the merciless desert sun—until he comes upon a curious scene. A Jeep has crashed into the only tree for miles around. A woman is slumped over the wheel. Dead? No, nothing is what it seems.
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(A Jack Reacher Mysteries)
The Anodyne Necklace
by Martha Grimes
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A spinster whose passion was bird-watching, a dotty peer who pinched pennies, and a baffling murder made the tiny village of Littlebourne a most extraordinary place. And a severed finger made a ghastly clue in the killing that led local constables from a corpse to a boggy footpath to a beautiful lady’s mansion.
But Richard Jury refused, preferring to take the less traveled route to a slightly disreputable pub, the Anodyne Necklace. There, drinks all around loosened enough tongues to link a London mugging with the Littlebourne murder and a treasure map that would chart the way to yet another chilling crime.
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(Richard Jury Mysteries)
The Plague Stones
by James Brogden
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Fleeing from a traumatic break-in, Londoners Paul and Tricia Feenan sell up to escape to the isolated Holiwell village where Tricia has inherited a property. Scattered throughout the settlement are centuries-old stones used during the Great Plague as boundary markers. No plague-sufferer was permitted to pass them and enter the village. The plague diminished, and the village survived unscathed . . .
Since then, the village trustees have insisted on an annual ancient ceremony to renew the village boundaries. But then a misguided act by the Feenans’ son sends the village into a frenzy, reminding everyone that there’s a reason traditions have been stuck to so rigidly—and that all acts of betrayal, even those committed centuries ago, have dire consequences.
Hunter Bates
by Frank Wheeler
Rating: 5.0 #ad
When Hunter’s estranged brother, Archer, shows up on the ranch unannounced, he thinks it’s their chance to patch things up. But his brother isn’t alone. Tyson Blood and his gang are masquerading as ranchers looking for new land. The truth is far darker and more deadly. The governor of Texas is passing through Tightwater in a couple weeks, and Blood plans to kidnap and ransom the man.
He’ll kill anyone who gets in his way, including Archer’s wife and infant daughter. Hunter swears to his brother he won’t let that happen. With the help of local saloon girl, Cat Berry, who has her own secret ties to Blood’s past, they set out to stop him before anyone else gets hurt.
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(Westward Saga Western)
In Self Defense
by Debra Webb
Rating: 4.5 #ad
When a tireless newswoman becomes the story… she could lose everything—starting with the family business.
To get the scoop on two grisly murders, newspaper publisher Audrey Anderson needs help from Winchester sheriff Colton Tanner—the gorgeous cowboy who betrayed their teenage love. But Audrey fears that finding the killer will mean exposing the family secret she desperately needs to stay buried. She’ll do whatever she has to in order to protect those she loves. No matter what happens…or how hot things get with Colt.
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(A Winchester, Tennessee Thriller)
Destiny in the Ashes
by William W. Johnstone
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Ben Raines and his army won a war on two fronts, bringing law, peace and prosperity to the Southern United States of America. But SUSA’s northern northern neighbor and erstwhile enemy, the United States, is still in chaos. And when a ferocious invader attacks the soft and crippled nation, Raines has no choice but to act!
Courageous warlord Abdullah El Farrar has risen up from the humiliated regions of the oil-rich Near East—unleashing a stunning attack against the once proud northern United States. No One in the Southern United States is surprised that USA cannot defend its own land. But with northern citizens defecting by thousands to El Farrar’s forces, Raines can see the handwriting on the wall: his brave armies must go to war—to save their enemy from itself.
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(Ashes Mysteries)