MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - FREE/BARGAIN - Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

ATDrake · 07-04-2016, 07:55 PM

Some recently-discounted non-couponable mystery bargains to consider while Kobo US' 4x bonus super points promo for the holiday lasts (also available in Canada, where unfortunately we only get 5x points on a selected list, none of which these are on; but in cases where the prices are the same, the exchange rate means we "save" some 25%); price-matched in the usual other stores.

@ $0.99-$2.99, books #2-5 + 1 short story of Rory Clement's (SYKM) John Shakespeare mystery series set in Tudor England starring a fictional older brother of the playwright, from HarperCollins' Witness imprint: linkage for the lot.

#2 is a Historical Dagger Award winner, and #3 and #5 were also finalists. I picked some of these up during a previous sale and liked what I read of #1, and sufue has read further into the series and recommended them as well. Back then, there were gaps in the discounting for all the volumes in the series, so if you happened to miss a few, now is a good time to fill.
@ $2.99 each, Lucifer's Tears & Helsinki White by the late James Thompson (SYKM), #2-3 in his Inspector Vaara series set in northern Finland and moving to Helsinki (Thompson was an expat who lived in Helsinki), starring an increasingly morally compromised cop, out from HarperCollins. We've previously received the double Edgar/Anthony Best First Novel award-finalist 1st-in-series of this free, and I really enjoyed it when I read it, enough to buy and read the 2nd on sale and get the 3rd & 4th out of the library to mainline right after and put it on my wishlist to buy the rest of when they went on sale (which has now happened for one more volume, and hopefully the last will drop, too ), and recommend it if it seems like it might be your sort of thing.

I'll warn that the series is a bit on the gory/violent side for Nordic Noir, but IMHO it's a rather interesting character study depiction of well-meaning but not particularly do-gooding people trying to dig themselves out of a moral hole as well as modern Finnish societal & crime issues (I find it an interesting contrast with Leena Lehtolainen's (SYKM, Wikipedia) Maria Kallio mystery series, which are originally 1990s works out in translation from AmazonCrossing and incidentally also on sale for #1-5 at $1.99 per @ Amazon, and which I also recommend).

Although the author meant to continue the series before he died and was clearly setting up the potential for future storylines, the four books that did get written wrap up the main character development and overarching multi-book plot storyarc, so there are no cliffhangers or other major points left dangling, in case you were wondering.
@ $2.99 US/$3.99 CAD, Mark of the Lion by Suzanne Arruda (SYKM, Wikipedia), 1st in her Jade del Cameron mystery series set in 1920s British East Africa before it became the Kenya Colony, out from the the Random Penguin House's New American Library imprint. This is one of my favourite series and I was disappointed when they discontinued it after 6 books (though it turns out the author has been self-publishing sequels). I own these in paperback, and have been tracking the ebook prices for years, but never really expected any to drop below $10 CAD. This is the cheapest I've ever seen any volume of them offered, and accordingly, I'm snapping this up.

This first novel is a little on the shaky finding its footing side, but it's a reasonably decent mystery adventure and the rest of the novels in the series are solid tales, which I highly recommend if you happen to like Beryl Markham (of West with the Night fame) and Out of Africa, and wish to read the murder-solving adventures of a feisty independent aviatrix during the post-WWI era with plots mostly centred around proto-Kenyan society and culture (both colonist and native). The author also has a rather nice blog where she did write-ups on some of the historical details she researched and incorporated into the books.

Also, x-link to the General/Historical Fiction megathread, where some historical novels by popular historical mystery authors Michael Jecks (Knight Templar and Medieval Murderers mysteries) & Barbara Hambly (Benjamin January mysteries and James Asher Vampire spy thrillers), are on sale for just $1.99 each if you wanted to give their non-mystery works a try.

07-04-2016, 07:55 PM	#833
ATDrake Wizzard Posts: 11,517 Karma: 33048258 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Roundworld Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia	Some recently-discounted non-couponable mystery bargains to consider while Kobo US' 4x bonus super points promo for the holiday lasts (also available in Canada, where unfortunately we only get 5x points on a selected list, none of which these are on; but in cases where the prices are the same, the exchange rate means we "save" some 25%); price-matched in the usual other stores. @ $0.99-$2.99, books #2-5 + 1 short story of Rory Clement's (SYKM) John Shakespeare mystery series set in Tudor England starring a fictional older brother of the playwright, from HarperCollins' Witness imprint: linkage for the lot. #2 is a Historical Dagger Award winner, and #3 and #5 were also finalists. I picked some of these up during a previous sale and liked what I read of #1, and sufue has read further into the series and recommended them as well. Back then, there were gaps in the discounting for all the volumes in the series, so if you happened to miss a few, now is a good time to fill. @ $2.99 each, Lucifer's Tears & Helsinki White by the late James Thompson (SYKM), #2-3 in his Inspector Vaara series set in northern Finland and moving to Helsinki (Thompson was an expat who lived in Helsinki), starring an increasingly morally compromised cop, out from HarperCollins. We've previously received the double Edgar/Anthony Best First Novel award-finalist 1st-in-series of this free, and I really enjoyed it when I read it, enough to buy and read the 2nd on sale and get the 3rd & 4th out of the library to mainline right after and put it on my wishlist to buy the rest of when they went on sale (which has now happened for one more volume, and hopefully the last will drop, too ), and recommend it if it seems like it might be your sort of thing. I'll warn that the series is a bit on the gory/violent side for Nordic Noir, but IMHO it's a rather interesting character study depiction of well-meaning but not particularly do-gooding people trying to dig themselves out of a moral hole as well as modern Finnish societal & crime issues (I find it an interesting contrast with Leena Lehtolainen's (SYKM, Wikipedia) Maria Kallio mystery series, which are originally 1990s works out in translation from AmazonCrossing and incidentally also on sale for #1-5 at $1.99 per @ Amazon, and which I also recommend). Although the author meant to continue the series before he died and was clearly setting up the potential for future storylines, the four books that did get written wrap up the main character development and overarching multi-book plot storyarc, so there are no cliffhangers or other major points left dangling, in case you were wondering. @ $2.99 US/$3.99 CAD, Mark of the Lion by Suzanne Arruda (SYKM, Wikipedia), 1st in her Jade del Cameron mystery series set in 1920s British East Africa before it became the Kenya Colony, out from the the Random Penguin House's New American Library imprint. This is one of my favourite series and I was disappointed when they discontinued it after 6 books (though it turns out the author has been self-publishing sequels). I own these in paperback, and have been tracking the ebook prices for years, but never really expected any to drop below $10 CAD. This is the cheapest I've ever seen any volume of them offered, and accordingly, I'm snapping this up. This first novel is a little on the shaky finding its footing side, but it's a reasonably decent mystery adventure and the rest of the novels in the series are solid tales, which I highly recommend if you happen to like Beryl Markham (of West with the Night fame) and Out of Africa, and wish to read the murder-solving adventures of a feisty independent aviatrix during the post-WWI era with plots mostly centred around proto-Kenyan society and culture (both colonist and native). The author also has a rather nice blog where she did write-ups on some of the historical details she researched and incorporated into the books. Also, x-link to the General/Historical Fiction megathread, where some historical novels by popular historical mystery authors Michael Jecks (Knight Templar and Medieval Murderers mysteries) & Barbara Hambly (Benjamin January mysteries and James Asher Vampire spy thrillers), are on sale for just $1.99 each if you wanted to give their non-mystery works a try. Last edited by ATDrake; 07-04-2016 at 08:23 PM.