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The Taken: A Hazel Micallef Mystery by Inger Ash Wolfe from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is $2.80 (US Kindle)

Book Description:

Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef is having a bad year. After major back surgery, she has no real option but to move into her ex-husband’s basement and suffer the humiliation of his new wife bringing her meals down on a tray. As if that weren’t enough, Hazel’s octogenarian mother secretly flushes Hazel’s stash of painkillers down the toilet.

It’s almost a relief when Hazel gets a call about a body fished up by tourists in one of the lakes near Port Dundas. But what raises the hair on the back of Micallef ’s neck is that the local paper has just published the first installment of a serialized story featuring such a scenario. Even before they head out to the lake with divers to recover the body, she and DC James Wingate, leading the police detachment in Micallef ’s absence, know they are being played. But it’s not clear who is pulling their strings and why, nor is what they find at the lake at all what they expected. It’s Micallef herself who is snared, caught up in a cryptic game devised by someone who knows how to taunt her into opening a cold case, someone who knows that nothing will stop her investigation.

The second novel featuring Hazel Micallef, “a compelling, unlikely hero” (EntertainmentWeekly), is a stunning and suspenseful exploration of the obsessive far reaches of love, confirming Inger Ash Wolfe as one of the best mystery writers today.

The Driver by Alexander Roy from HarperCollins is $1.99 (US Kindle)

Book Description:

The riveting memoir of a life lived at the right-hand edge of the speedometer.

Alex Roy’s father, while on his deathbed, hints about the notorious, utterly illegal cross-country drive from Los Angeles to New York of the 1970s, which then inspired his young son to enter the mysterious world of underground road rallies. Tantalized by the legend of the Driver—the anonymous, possibly nonexistent organizer of the world’s ultimate secret race—Roy set out to become a force to be reckoned with. At speeds approaching 200 mph, he sped from London to Morocco, from Budapest to Rome, from San Francisco to Miami, in his highly modified BMW M5, culminating in a new record for the infamous Los Angeles to New York run: 32:07.

Sexy, funny, and shocking, The Driver is a never-before-told insider’s look at an unbelievably fast and dangerous society that has long been off-limits to ordinary mortals.

A Stranger’s Game (Bitter Creek Novels) by Joan Johnston from HarperCollins is $2.99 (US Kindle)

Book Description:

From New York Times bestselling author Joan Johnston comes a dazzling new Bitter Creek novel that features all of the passion and intrigue in Texas high society that her readers know and love, mixed with an explosive, spine- tingling tale of murder, wrongful imprisonment, and a woman who counts no cost too high to see a killer brought to justice.
FBI Special Agent Breed Grayhawk has the hottest sex in his life with a stranger who calls herself Grace Smith, only to discover early the next morning that her real name is Merle Raye Finkel — and she’s a convicted double murderer who broke her parole a year ago and disappeared. Now she’s his prime suspect in a terrorist threat against the U.S. president.

Grace Caldwell is determined to find the killer who framed her for the murder of her father and stepmother — and make him pay. She burgles the home of her #1 suspect and nets a surprising haul: a hot-pink, silk-covered diary — the record of a sex-addicted wife’s adventures — which suggests that Grace’s #1 suspect is a serial killer. But her theft has been caught on tape, and the man she’s been chasing becomes the hunter…with Grace as his prey.

With just five days until the president arrives in Austin, Texas, the last thing the FBI needs is a serial killer on the prowl…and a terrorist suspect who will stop at nothing to clear her name. The clock is ticking down, and Agent Grayhawk is racing time to discover the truth about his dangerous lover.

Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland by James St. James from Simon & Schuster is $3.99 (US Kindle)

Description:

Murder Was Never So Much Fun!

When Disco Bloodbath was first published, it created a storm of controversy for its startlingly vivid, strikingly fresh, and outrageously funny depiction of the hedonistic world of the New York City club kids, for whom nothing was too outré — including murder. Nominated for the Edgar Award for best true-crime book of the year, it also marked the debut of an audaciously talented writer, James St. James, who himself had been a club kid and close friend and confidant of Michael Alig, the young man convicted of killing the drug dealer known as Angel.

Now the book has been brought to the screen as Party Monster, with Macaulay Culkin playing killer Michael Alig and Seth Green as author/celebutante James St. James.

Diary of a Player by Brad Paisley with David Wild from Howard Books/Simon and Schuster is $4.99 (US Kindle)

Book Description:

The Story of a Life with Strings Attached

Brad Paisley is one of country music’s leading men—admired as a recording artist, a performer, a songwriter, and a guitar slinger. This was not always so. In Diary of a Player, Paisley for the first time fully retraces his entire musical and personal journey to date. And it all began with a loving grandfather who gave eight-year-old Brad Douglas Paisley a Sears Danelectro guitar—the Christmas gift that would alter Brad’s life forever. In Brad’s own words, we read his emotional tribute to his late great “Papaw,” Warren Jarvis, who sparked his dream come true:

When I was eight I got a gift from my grandpa. No coincidence that around that time I also got an identity. See, no matter how I have changed, learned, and evolved as a person, the guitar has been a major part of it, and really the only constant. A crutch, a shrink, a friend, love interest, parachute, flying machine, soapbox, canvas, liability, investment, jackpot, tease, a sage, a gateway, an addiction, a recovery, a temptress, a church, a voice, veil, armor, and lifeline. My grandpa knew it could be many of these things for me, but mostly he just wanted me to never be alone. He said if I learned to play, anything would be manageable, and life would be richer. You can get through some real tough moments with that guitar on your knee. When life gets intense, there are people who drink, who seek counseling, eat, or watch TV, pray, cry, sleep, and so on. I play.

Calder Born, Calder Bred by Janet Dailey from Pocket Books/Simon and Schuster is $2.99 for US Kindle

Book Description:

Ty Calder was a stranger to the mighty empire that was his legacy — the ranchlands that rose to meet the Montana skies. He learned the ways of ranch life from young Jessy, who knew the land her own heart.

But Ty worshiped dark, glamorous Tara, scion of the new “corporate West,” of vast power and big money. Tara lured Ty on, greedy to be mistress of the Calder kingdom. Yet when her world rushed in to plunder the fortune beneath the prairies, it was Jessy who fought for Ty, defying death to save a birthright that was Calder Born, Calder Bred.