[sufue]

Four books by Lia Matera, several of whose books were finalists for various awards back in the 1980's-1990's, are $0.99 right now. These are all Simon & Schuster titles, so $0.99 is a pretty good price.

Havana Twist is, according to SKYM and the cover photo, the seventh and last in the Matera's Willa Jansson series, although the Kobo and Amazon websites say it's an Earl Swagger mystery.
US Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/havana-twist
US Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Havana-Twist-E...dp/B00AK78V90/

Spoiler:

Edgar-nominated author Lia Matera’s seventh Willa Jansson mystery is packed with “a riveting plot, realistic Havana settings, reawakened romance, and flavorful characters…a winner.” (Library Journal)

Attorney Willa Jansson’s mother has never balked at breaking the law, especially not for a good cause. So when Willa learns her mother has flouted federal regulations and gone off to Cuba, she figures it's just a harmless pilgrimage to lefty Graceland. But when her mother doesn’t return with the rest of her peacenik tour group, Willa fears her mother’s bleeding heart may finally have gotten her into more trouble than she can get herself out of.

But when Willa risks her career and passport by rushing to Cuba to retrace her mother’s steps, she finds that nothing there is quite as it seems. Following clues to neighborhoods tourists never see, through secret tunnels beneath the street, and into the finest luxury hotels, Willa is manipulated, misled, and nearly arrested. And in the meantime, newfound reporter friends—or are they CIA agents?—disappear as suddenly and inexplicably as her mother did. In a deadly game of cat and mouse, Willa follows her mother’s trail from Havana to Mexico City, from California back to Havana…all the while keeping barely one step ahead of two angry governments and at least one ruthless killer.

Designer Crimes is the fifth and last in the Matera's Laura Di Palma series.
Kobo US: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/designer-crimes
Kindle US: http://www.amazon.com/Designer-Crime...dp/B00AYIDUTG/

Spoiler:

They say that living well is the best revenge. But attorney Laura Di Palma may not have the opportunity to find out.

Her former boss, Steven Sayres, keeps trying to torpedo her new solo law practice and when his slanders cost Laura her most important client, she's pushed over the brink. This lawyer decides to sue. But before her case has even begun, labor lawyer Jocelyn Kinsley is shot before her eyes. Uttering the dying words "Designer crimes," Kinsley offers Di Palma the only clue to her slaying—and with it Laura's own best hope for survival. With the help of private detective Sandy Arkelett, Laura's friend and former lover, she does some computer hacking and finds an intriguing message hidden in Kinsley's cryptic words: Is someone designing custom crimes specifically to target bosses on behalf of the employees they wronged? Meanwhile, Laura is also defending a high school friend accused of murder, but trouble follows close on her heels and before long she is attacked and arrested. Living well just might be the best revenge, but survival becomes Laura's first order of business. Unfortunately, her detours off the high road could cost her more than just her career.

Last Chants is the fifth in the Willa Jansson series.
US Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/last-chants
US Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Chants-Wi...dp/B00BOVCI0E/

Spoiler:

San Francisco lawyer Willa Jansson is back in this “accomplished, compelling” (Publishers Weekly) fifth entry in the series by Edgar-nominated author Lia Matera.

When Willa Jansson inexplicably spots an old family friend, eccentric mythologist Professor Arthur Kenna, seemingly holding a stranger at gunpoint in downtown San Francisco, she has no choice but to take action, snaring the elderly professor and spiriting him away to a cabin in the mountains to hide him from the police until she can get to the bottom of the situation. Arthur, it seems, stands accused of the murder of his assistant, a shaman who was participating in an unusual computer experiment just before he was gruesomely disemboweled at the legendary magnetic “power spot” at Bowl Rock. As Willa and her PI friend Edward Hershey desperately search the crime scene for clues that will clear the professor’s name, they encounter a series of characters as wild and strange—and potentially deadly—as the woods itself.

Star Witness is the sixth in the Willa Jansson series.
US Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/star-witness-1
US Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Star-Witness-W.../dp/B00AYIDUT6

Spoiler:

The sixth Willa Jansson mystery by Edgar-nominated author Lia Matera is “another winner in an outstanding series.” (Booklist).

Just when attorney Willa Jansson is about to take a little time off from her job at a San Francisco multimedia firm, a friend calls in a favor. Suddenly Willa’s off to Santa Cruz to solve what she hopes will be a simple case of vehicular manslaughter and felony hit-and-run. But Willa is about to discover that nothing about this case—or the town where it occurred—is quite as it seems.

Alan Miller’s sports car went over an embankment and onto the coastal highway below, landing atop another car and killing its driver. But there are no tire tracks, no witnesses, and Miller’s injuries aren’t consistent with a car crash. Unable to recall where he was just after the accident, Miller's memory is jogged under hypnosis—a recollection so far-fetched that Willa knows it will never stand up in court. All of a sudden, seemingly idyllic Santa Cruz is rife with dangerous secrets, and Willa must outrun helicopters, snipers, reporters, and her own interfering mother, all while trying to maintain her credibility and her career by making the jury buy her client’s out-of-this-world alibi—provided she can keep the witnesses alive long enough to testify.