Free/Bargain Suspense/Mystery/Thriller April 2013

[NightBird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

This is a terrific book by a terrific writer. I'm going to repurchase this just for the short story.

Yes - I don't believe the version I have has the short story either.

[NightBird]

Originally Posted by sufue

Although the book and the movie are pretty different IMS. It's been a while since I read the book, but I remember it as darker than the movie, which is really pretty humorous, even with an underlying more serious message.

I would imagine so with Walter Matthau in it. lol

Another $1.99er from Open Road:

The Hog Murders by William L. DeAndrea.

In the Edgar Award–winning first title of the Niccolo Benedetti series, the celebrated detective hunts a serial killer who is terrorizing a small town

In the upstate New York town of Sparta, six people die in three weeks. At first the incidents seem accidental: A highway sign drops onto a car full of teenage girls, an old man falls down a set of stairs, and a boy is struck by a sheet of ice that had been building on his garage. But after each case a note turns up. Someone called “Hog” claims responsibility for each death, and taunts the police to catch him before he strikes again.

The deaths have everybody talking, and the local police department is eventually forced to share the case with famous Italian detective Niccolo Benedetti and his protégé, would-be cop turned private investigator Ron Gresham. A painter, ladies’ man, and rule-bending genius, Benedetti views every case as a chance to probe the nature of evil. And with his “analyze and imagine” method, he’ll pursue the killer both to stop him and to study him.

[mitford13]

Thanks for all the great tips today, NightBird - I bought Wilsig's first book (Mindfulness and Murder--still TBR) a while back, love having the next one free...

HarperCollins marked this one down to $2.99:

California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker

Still haven't read any of his books, but I've seen this one cited several times as being v. good if you're interested in Orange County/SoCal history

[NightBird]

Originally Posted by mitford13

Thanks for all the great tips today, NightBird - I bought Wilsig's first book (Mindfulness and Murder--still TBR) a while back, love having the next one free...

HarperCollins marked this one down to $2.99:

California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker

Still haven't read any of his books, but I've seen this one cited several times as being v. good if you're interested in Orange County/SoCal history

YW! I put Mindfulness and Murder on my wishlist in case the freebie is good.

Gone, Baby Gone by Dennis Lehane is $3.99. It was reduced to $1.99 in 2010, but if you missed it then, this is still a good price. I personally think this is his best book: Topnotch writing, a complex story with some real moral dilemmas, and a shocking ending.

Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda McCready, abducted from her bed on a warm, Indian summer night. They meet her stoned-out, strangely apathetic mother, her loving aunt and uncle, the mother's dangerous drug-addled friends, and two cops who've found so many abused or dead children they may be too far over the edge to come back. Despite enormous public attention, rabid news coverage, and dogged police work, the investigation repeatedly hits a brick wall. Then a second child disappears....As the two detectives intensify their search, they encounter a media more interested in sensationalizing the abductions than solving them, a midnight ransom drop that explodes into a firefight, a city seething with secrets and rage, and a faceless power determined to keep the children lost forever.

[BelleZora]

Here's a Horror/Mystery/Humor cross genre freebie today: Suckers by J.A. Konrath and Jeff Strand. Both are entertaining, funny writers.

Masters of the comedy thriller genre, J.A. Konrath and Jeff Strand, team up for the humorous horror novella Suckers.

Strand's perpetually unlucky character Andrew Mayhem, star of the novels Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary), Single White Psychopath Seeks Same, and Casket For Sale (Only Used Once), sets off on a simple mission at the request of his wife: Get some spaghetti sauce.

On his way to the store he meets Konrath's obnoxious private eye Harry McGlade, co-star of the Lt. Jack Daniels thrillers Whiskey Sour, Bloody Mary, Rusty Nail, Dirty Martini, Fuzzy Navel, and Cherry Bomb.

Horrific violence, bad jokes, and lots of name calling soon ensues. Some sex, too, but not between the main characters.

Originally, published as a very expensive limited-edition hardcover, Suckers is now available as a super cheap ebook.

But the fun doesn't stop there.

Also included in this ebook are six other Mayhem and McGlade stories, many of them rare and long out of print.

Whelp Wanted - JA Konrath
Poor Career Choice - Jeff Strand
Taken to the Cleaners - JA Konrath
A Bit of Halloween Mayhem - Jeff Strand
The Necro File - JA Konrath
The Lost (For a Good Reason) Adventure of Andrew Mayhem - Jeff Strand

US
UK
CA

[Apache]

Originally Posted by BelleZora

Here's a Horror/Mystery/Humor cross genre freebie today: Suckers by J.A. Konrath and Jeff Strand. Both are entertaining, funny writers.



US
UK
CA

Thanks for this one.
Apache

[NightBird]

Free from Post Mortem Press: Mixed Messages by Patricia Gligor.

It is estimated there are at least twenty to thirty active serial killers in the United States at any given time. There’s one on the loose on the west side of Cincinnati. It’s the week of Halloween and Ann Kern struggles with several issues. Her primary concern is her marriage which, like her west side neighborhood, is in jeopardy. Her husband is drinking heavily and his behavior toward her is erratic. One minute, he’s the kind, loving man she married and, the next minute, he’s cold and cruel. Ann dismisses a psychic’s warning that she is in danger. But, when she receives a series of ominous biblical quotes, she grows nervous and suspicious of everyone, including her own husband. As the bizarre and frightening events unfold, Ann discovers a handmade tombstone marked with her name, pushing her close to the edge. Will she be the Westwood Strangler’s next victim?

[caleb72]

Bloodline by Mark Billingham is currently $4.99 at Amazon (US).

A killer is on the loose. The victims: children whose mothers can't protect them.

The past is coming back to haunt the people of London: a murderer is targeting the children of victims of Raymond Garvey, an infamous serial killer from London's past.

When Murder Squad veteran Detective Tom Thorne, who solves the London Police Department's most difficult cases, is called into what seems like, for once, an ordinary domestic murder, he thinks he's caught a break. A woman has been murdered by someone she knows. A positive pregnancy test found on the floor beside her. Thorne plans to question the husband, arrest him and return home to deal with his own deteriorating personal life.

But when a mysterious sliver of bloodstained X-ray that was found clutched in the victim's fist is replicated at other crime scenes around the city, Thorne realizes that this is not a simple case. As the bits of X-ray begin to come together to form a picture, it becomes clear that the killer knows his prey all too well and is moving through a list that was started long ago.

As Thorne attempts to protect those still alive, nothing and nobody are what they seem. Not when Thorne is dealing with one of the most twisted killers he has ever hunted.

Amazon (US): LINK

[Mort1997]

Originally Posted by NightBird

Free from Post Mortem Press: Mixed Messages by Patricia Gligor.

UK link
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mixed-Messag...atricia+Gligor

[Mort1997]

Free today on Amazon- The Amber Rooms (The Saskia Brandt Series Book Three) - Ian Hocking

It is the night of September 5th, 1907, and the Moscow train is approaching St Petersburg. Traveling first class appears to be a young Russian princess and her fiancé. They are impostors. In the luggage carriage are the spoils of the Yerevan Square Expropriation, the greatest bank heist in history. The money is intended for Finland, and the hands of a man known to the Tsarist authorities as The Mountain Eagle--Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.


UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Amber-Saskia...I1L7CYTI96GOQR

US
http://www.amazon.com/Amber-Saskia-B...ds=ian+hocking

[NightBird]

Pulp thriller Honey in His Mouth by Lester Dent is $3.99, down from $7.99, from Hard Case Crime. Lester Dent was the creator of the Doc Savage series.

What would you do if you were a DEAD RINGER for a DICTATOR?

If you were small-time grifter Walter Harsh, recovering in a hospital with a broken arm, you’d listen to a proposition that could net you a cool $50,000 for impersonating the South American strongman you resemble. You’d pay attention when the dictator’s sultry mistress started putting the moves on you. And in the dead of night, when no one was watching, you might just hatch a plot to get it all for yourself: the money, the girl, and the stash of stolen loot she’s conspiring to spirit out of the country…

[Mort1997]

Free today on Amazon - A jarful of angels - Babs Horton

The remote town in the Welsh valleys was a wonderful, magical- but sometimes dangerous place in which to grow up. It was there that Iffy, Bessie, Fatty and Billy experienced a plague of frogs one summer,stumbled upon a garden full of dancing statues, found a skull with its front teeth missing- and discovered just what it was that mad Carty Annie was collecting so secretly in those jars of hers. But at the end of that long, hot summer of 1963,one of the four children disappeared.
Over thirty years later, retired detective Will Sloane, never able to forget the unsolved case, returns to Wales to resume his search for the truth. His investigation will draw him into a number of interlocking mysteries,each one more puzzling than the last.

Uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/A-Jarful-of-...I13954XG4O05G0

US

http://www.amazon.com/A-Jarful-of-An...ds=Babs+horton

[caleb72]

Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardottir is available for $4.99 at Amazon (US) if you like Scandinavian crime/mysteries.

At a university in Reykjavík, the body of a young German student is discovered, his eyes cut out and strange symbols carved into his chest. Police waste no time in making an arrest, but the victim's family isn't convinced that the right man is in custody. They ask Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, an attorney and single mother of two, to investigate. It isn't long before Thóra and her associate, Matthew Reich, uncover the deceased student's obsession with Iceland's grisly history of torture, execution, and witch hunts. But there are very contemporary horrors hidden in the long, cold shadow of dark traditions. And for two suddenly endangered investigators, nothing is quite what it seems . . . and no one can be trusted.

Amazon (US): LINK

[caleb72]

The first three books of the Douglas Brodie series by Gordon Ferris set in Glasgow is discounted at the moment at Amazon (US).

The Hanging Shed - $3.34

A read-it-in-one-sitting, action-packed, gritty, and atmospheric crime novel set on the tough streets of 1946 Glasgow

The last time Douglas Brodie came home it was 1942 and he was a dashing young warrior in a kilt. Now, the war is over, but victory's wine has soured and Brodie's back in Scotland to try and save childhood friend Hugh Donovan from the gallows. Everyone thought Hugh was dead, shot down in the war. Perhaps it would have been kinder if he had been killed. The man who returns from the war is unrecognizable: mutilated, horribly burned. Hugh keeps his own company, only venturing out for heroin to deaden the pain of his wounds. When a local boy is found raped and murdered, there is only one suspect. Hugh claims he's innocent but a mountain of evidence says otherwise. Despite the hideousness of the crime, ex-policeman Brodie feels compelled to try and help his one-time friend. Working with advocate Samantha Campbell, Brodie trawls the mean streets of the Gorbals and the green hills of western Scotland in their search for the truth. What they find is an unholy alliance of troublesome priests, corrupt cops, and Glasgow's deadliest razor gang, happy to slaughter to protect their dark and dirty secrets. As time runs out for the condemned man, the murder tally of innocents starts to climb. When Sam Campbell disappears, it's the last straw for Brodie, and he reverts to his wartime role as a trained killer. It's them or him.

Amazon (US): LINK


Bitter Water - $3.34

Glasgow's melting. The temperature is rising and so is the murder rate. Douglas Brodie, ex-policeman, ex-soldier and now newest reporter on the Glasgow Gazette, has no shortage of material for his crime column.But even Brodie baulks at his latest subject: a rapist who has been tarred and feathered by a balaclava-clad group. Brodie soon discovers a link between this horrific act and a series of brutal beatings.As violence spreads and the body count rises, Brodie and advocate Samantha Campbell are entangled in a web of deception and savagery. Brodie is swamped with stories for the Gazette. But how long before he and Sam become the headline?

Amazon (US): LINK


Pilgrim Soul - $5.99

From the author of The Hanging Shed comes the third instalment in the Douglas Brodie series. It's 1947 and the worst winter in memory: Glasgow is buried in snow, killers stalk the streets - and Douglas Brodie's past is engulfing him. It starts small. The Jewish community in Glasgow asks Douglas Brodie, ex-policeman turned journalist, to solve a series of burglaries. The police don't care and Brodie needs the cash. Brodie solves the crime but the thief is found dead, butchered by the owner of the house he was robbing. When the householder in turn is murdered, the whole community is in uproar - and Brodie's simple case of theft disintegrates into chaos. Into the mayhem strides Danny McRae - Brodie's old sparring partner from when they policed Glasgow's mean streets. Does Danny bring with him the seeds of redemption or retribution? As the murder tally mounts, Brodie discovers tainted gold and a blood-stained trail back to the concentration camps. Back to the horrors that haunt his dreams. Glasgow is overflowing with Jewish refugees. But have their persecutors pursued them? And who will be next to die?

Amazon (US): LINK

[NightBird]

Now You See Me by S. J. Bolton is $2.99 from Macmillan. First in her Lacey Flint series.

One night after interviewing a reluctant witness at a London apartment complex, Lacey Flint, a young detective constable, stumbles onto a woman brutally stabbed just moments before in the building’s darkened parking lot. Within twenty-four hours a reporter receives an anonymous letter that points out alarming similarities between the murder and Jack the Ripper’s first murder—a letter that calls out Lacey by name. If it’s real, and they have a killer bent on re-creating London’s bloody past, history shows they have just five days until the next attempt.

No one believes the connections are anything more than a sadistic killer’s game, not even Lacey, whom the killer seems to be taunting specifically. However, as they investigate the details of the case start reminding her more and more of a part of her past she’d rather keep hidden. And the only way to do that is to catch the killer herself.

Fast paced and completely riveting, S. J. Bolton’s Now You See Me is a modern gothic novel that is nothing less than a masterpiece of suspense fiction.