Free and Bargain Mystery/Suspense/Thriller Ebooks September 2012

[NightBird]

Wrong Man Running by Alan Hruska from Thomas & Mercer is $.99.

At the beginning of this compelling novel, Rick Corinth— driven careerist, brilliant prosecutor, and the heir apparent to the district attorney’s job in Manhattan—is assigned a case involving a series of increasingly sadistic rapes. When the victims, all prominent women at the acme of their careers, begin identifying Corinth as their assailant, he takes flight.
No one who knows him well believes him capable of committing such shocking crimes, including his ex-wife. His children, made to suffer at school, are hurt and confused. And yet the evidence against him keeps mounting. When his ex-wife is herself sexually attacked, she in turn pegs Corinth as the culprit.
Attorney-turned-novelist Alan Hruska’s Wrong Man Running is the story of Corinth’s frantic search to find the man he thinks framed him and the psychological challenges of confronting the possibility that he might be liable for the heinous rapes several women have claimed he committed. Sharp and haunting, Hruska masterfully ratchets up the suspense in this deftly written novel, penning a taut legal thriller in the vein of Scott Turow and John Grisham.

[kg3]

FREE at Amazon US:

The Abduction of Mary Rose - Joan Hall Hovey [Mystery/Suspense]

-Author has been published by Zebra, etc.

Book Description:
Following the death of the woman she believed to be her mother, 28-year-old Naomi Waters learns from a malicious aunt that she is not only adopted, but the product of a brutal rape that left her birth mother, Mary Rose Francis, a teenager of Micmac ancestry, in a coma for 8 months.

Dealing with a sense of betrayal and loss, but with new purpose in her life, Naomi vows to track down Mary Rose's attackers and bring them to justice. She places her story in the local paper, asking for information from residents who might remember something of the case that has been cold for nearly three decades.

She is about to lose hope that her efforts will bear fruit, when she gets an anonymous phone call. Naomi has attracted the attention of one who remembers the case well.

But someone else has also read the article in the paper. The man whose DNA she carries.

And he has Naomi in his sights.

[NightBird]

The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson, classic noir, is $2.99 from agency publisher, Hachette, so should soon come down everywhere. So far just at Amazon, B&N, and Kobo.

Everyone in the small town of Central City, Texas loves Lou Ford. A deputy sheriff, Lou's known to the small-time criminals, the real-estate entrepreneurs, and all of his coworkers--the low-lifes, the big-timers, and everyone in-between--as the nicest guy around. He may not be the brightest or the most interesting man in town, but nevertheless, he's the kind of officer you're happy to have keeping your streets safe. The sort of man you might even wish your daughter would end up with someday.

But behind the platitudes and glad-handing lurks a monster the likes of which few have seen. An urge that has already claimed multiple lives, and cost Lou his brother Mike, a self-sacrificing construction worker fell to his death on the job in what was anything but an accident. A murder that Lou is determined to avenge--and if innocent people have to die in the process, well, that's perfectly all right with him.

In THE KILLER INSIDE ME, Thompson goes where few novelists have dared to go, giving us a pitch-black glimpse into the mind of the American Serial Killer years before Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, and Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho, in the novel that will forever be known as the master performance of one of the greatest crime novelists of all time.

[NightBird]

Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer is $1.99 again if you missed it as the Kindle Daily Deal last year.

Internationally acclaimed, prize-winning thriller writer Deon Meyer has been heralded as the “King of South African Crime.” In Thirteen Hours, morning dawns in Cape Town, and for homicide detective Benny Griessel it promises to be a very trying day. A teenage girl’s body has been found on the street, her throat cut. She was an American—a PR nightmare in the #1 tourist destination in South Africa. And she wasn’t alone. Somewhere in Cape Town her friend, Rachel Anderson, an innocent American, is hopefully still alive.

On the run from the first page of Thirteen Hours, Rachel is terrified, unsure where to turn in the unknown city. Detective Griessel races against the clock, trying to bring her home safe and solve the murder of her friend in a single day. Meanwhile, he gets pulled into a second case, the murder of a South African music executive. Griessel’s been sober for nearly six months—156 days. But day 157 is going to be tough. A #1 best seller in South Africa, winner of the 2011 Boeke Prize Fanatics Choice Award, and a finalist for the CWA International Dagger, Thirteen Hours is an atmospheric, intensely gripping novel

[NightBird]

A Skeleton in the Closet by Judith Ivie from Mainly Murder Press is free again. Also free at Amazon UK.

3rd in the Kate Lawrence mystery series
set in historic Old Wethersfield, Connecticut

Everyone has a skeleton or two in their pasts, but the one that turns up at 185 Broad Street in Old Wethersfield is all too real. Afraid that the discovery of a corpse on their property might put off potential buyers, the elderly owners of the historic Victorian house turn to Wethersfield realtor and reluctant amateur sleuth Kate Lawrence to solve their problem.

As if that weren’t enough to contend with, Kate and her longtime love Armando are moving in together. Kate’s partner Strutter has a secret that sends everyone reeling. Best friend Margo sets her cap for a local police officer. And every last one of them is being threatened by an anonymous poison pen.

Join Kate and her friends as all of the skeletons--figurative and literal--come crashing out of the closets to challenge the three women as never before.

[NightBird]

A Means of Escape by Joanna Price from small UK publisher Aston Bay Press is free. Also free at Amazon UK.

A grizzly and cold November morning. Detective Sergeant Kate Linton is called on Glastonbury Tor where a young woman has been strangled. Twelve holes are found at the scene, surrounded by wax, evidence of garden flares - the only connection to two other unsolved cases. When another young woman and a TV celebrity go missing, Linton is in a race against time to find the serial killer before he strikes again. But, when her journalist ex-boyfriend is singled out as a chief suspect, Linton feels that events are heading a bit too close to home. A Means of Escape presents an intricate, gripping mystery plot, combined with a focus on the heroine's personal life as she juggles an unwelcome attraction for her good-looking and charismatic superior with her efforts to become closer to her estranged family. A Means of Escape is the first in a series of psychologically driven crime novels.

[NightBird]

A Deadly Change of Power by Gina Cresse is free. #3 in the Devonie Lace Mysteries. Originally published by Avalon in 2002. Also free at Amazon UK.

Devonie has just returned from a glorious honeymoon with her husband, Craig. He is eager for their life to begin, uncomplicated by Devonie's knack for stumbling into mysteries and her determination to solve them. After a quick stop at the hospital where he works, Devonie witnesses a man trying to smother a patient. It turns out that the patient is an amnesiac, found by a fisherman in the ocean with no explanation.

Naturally, Devonie wants to help this woman. When the woman's memory returns, she tells Devonie that her name is Ronnie and she is the sister of a racecar driver. She was supposed to go with him and others to Cabo San Lucas on vacation but was left behind. Soon, Devonie discovers that she is also an inventor and has discovered a way to make cars run without gasoline. As Devonie digs deeper into Ronnie's life she becomes the target of the people who tried to kill Ronnie for her inventions and her car designs.

[NightBird]

Another freebie from Endeavor Press.

Black Ice by Colin Dunne. Also free at UK.

If you've never come to in the middle of the night to find yourself approximately halfway between New York and Moscow, right up on top of the world, standing outside a block of flats wearing nothing other than a ladies' silk dressing-robe - and that decorated with large scarlet kisses - allow me to describe the sensation. Confused. That's the word, I think. Confused, and cold around the knees'.

Stranded in Iceland,journalist turned spy Sam Craven wakes up to the greatest adventure of his career.

Sent to Reykjavik to track down the model Solrun, in whom British intelligence have taken a sudden interest, Craven finds himself caught up in a vast power-play between two superpowers on the brink of war - and with only his wits to rely on.

Trying to stay alive, and one step ahead of a band of ruthless killers, Sam is skating on black ice. One slip and he's dead.

[NightBird]

A Choice of Nightmares by Lynn Kostoff is a repeat freebie from New Pulp Press. UK. Previously published by Crown in 1991.

Robert Staples is on the verge of finally making it as a second-rate actor when his agent asks him to deliver a package. Staples promptly loses the package, forcing him into the heart of a bloody and highly lucrative drug-running operation. Pulled in all directions by desperate men, sociopaths, and a sexually alluring woman, Robert soon finds himself embracing the explosive lifestyle. Fast-moving and sharply written, A Choice of Nightmares is a modern-day roman noir about drugs and money, and the passions they ignite.

[NightBird]

A Death in Mexico by Jonathan Woods is free from New Pulp Press.

A voluptuous artists’ model is murdered, her mutilated body dumped in the central plaza of a colonial Mexican town. Inspector Hector Diaz’s murder investigation takes him deep into the town’s gringo expat colony, a modern Mexico corrupted by greed and drugs and the byways and dead-ends of love and lust. Recalling Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union in it’s dark humor, moody atmosphere and sense of place, A Death in Mexico is a gritty and gripping quest for revenge and redemption.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff by Don Bruns is free from Oceanview.

It's official: stumbling, bumbling James Lessor and Skip Moore are licensed private investigators. Now, that's some scary stuff.It could take time to get Moore or Less Investigations off the ground, so James takes a job with a traveling carnival show. But this show has a dubious reputation, having had a string of accidents and at least one death in the past year. When they're hired to investigate what's caused the carnival chaos, James and Skip set into motion a dizzying, roller coaster chain of events.After a terrifying trip on the Dragon Tail ride, a not-so-fun dust-up in Freddy's Fun House, and a host of threats, James and Skip realize they'll get anything but cooperation from this cantankerous cast of carnies.But when a carnival worker is murdered, James and Skip will have to act fast-because they might be next in line.For James and Skip, the only thing sweeter than the smell of corndogs and fried dough will be the sweet smell of success-but in this case, success means getting out alive.

[mitford13]

Free cozy on Amazon (previously free back in January):

The Main Line is Murder (Ginger Barnes Main Line Mysteries) by Donna Huston Murray

When her husband becomes head of a school on Philadelphia’s tony Main Line, Ginger Barnes learns that small private schools need volunteers like the national debt needs taxes. She also learns that murder on the campus can kill the school’s reputation in a heartbeat. Gin’s Mop Squad job allows her to investigate without arousing suspicion, but can she expose the murderer in time to save the school–and her family’s new home–without exposing herself? If she succeeds, will her good deed go unpunished?

[kg3]

FREE at Amazon US:

Blood Games (The Garreth Mikaelian Mystery Series - #3) - Lee Killough [Paranormal/Police Procedural]

-Author has been published by Daw, Ballantine, Tor, Del Rey, etc.

-This book was previously published in 2001 by Meisha Merlin Publishing.

-This book is listed both in Mystery/Thrillers and Horror on Amazon, I wasn't sure if I should post it in the Mystery or Horror thread. I chose Mystery because the title says it's a "Mystery Series"

"This police procedural with a supernatural twist is one surprise after another; expect that readers will enjoy the tale." -- The Midwest Book Review, May 2001

From Lee Killough, the author of BloodWalk, Meisha Merlin presents the new Garreth Mikaelian vampire novel Blood Games Garreth Mikaelian has an enemy... Time. He thought he knew all about being a vampire. After all, he has had fifteen years in the life to learn. But now he discovers that while Time ignores him, he cannot ignore it. Around him everyone he knows is aging: fellow officer and periodic lover Maggie Lebekov, friends, parents. His own son now looks more like a brother. The price of his existence, he realizes, is standing rooted while Time carries everything away from him. But suddenly he has more urgent matters to worry about. Baumen's comfortable peace is shattered by sudden death and a lethal trio playing ever escalating blood games. Garreth finds himself racing time to learn whether the trio's leader is the vampire he appears to be and find a way to deal with him. Garreth must locate the suspects before other law enforcement officers do, to be sure they are captured alive... because if not yet vampires, they have drunk vampire blood and if killed will rise again even more deadly, and unstoppable.

[icedtea]

Free at Smashwords - Dandy Detects: A Victorian San Francisco story by M. Louisa Locke

It's 1879, San Francisco swelters under a heat wave and Barbara Hewitt, a reserved school-teacher, uncovers a mystery with the help of a dog named Dandy. This short story is set in the gas-lit Victorian world created by Locke in her historical mystery, Maids of Misfortune.

Maids of Misfortune was previously free for Kindle.

[ClareK]

Thank you, icedtea - it's great to find something that's not just for a Kindle!

[mitford13]

Just noticed that Elizabeth Haynes' first book is down to 99p on Amazon UK. Haven't been reading too many thrillers lately, but keep seeing her name. And, wow, she's got 788 reviews...4.5 stars...

Into the Darkest Corner on Amazon UK

Catherine has been enjoying the single life for long enough to know a good catch when she sees one. Gorgeous, charismatic, spontaneous - Lee seems almost too perfect to be true. And her friends clearly agree, as each in turn falls under his spell. But there is a darker side to Lee. His erratic, controlling and sometimes frightening behaviour means that Catherine is increasingly isolated. Driven into the darkest corner of her world, and trusting no one, she plans a meticulous escape. Four years later, struggling to overcome her demons, Catherine dares to believe she might be safe from harm. Until one phone call changes everything. This is an edgy and powerful first novel, utterly convincing in its portrayal of obsession, and a tour de force of suspense.