Free and Bargain Mystery/Suspense/Thriller Ebooks September 2012

[kg3]

-Nightbird, thanks for the info. about the Chris Wiltz titles. When Book #1 was free in June it was a couple days before I joined MR so I missed it, now I'll be able to get that one plus the others.

[kg3]

FREE at Amazon:

The Unprintable Big Clock Chronicle (Big Clock - #1) - Jill Winters [Humorous Cozy Mystery]

Amazon US---Amazon UK

-The author has been published by NAL Trade (Penguin), Onyx (Penguin), etc.

Fans of breezy, page-turning mysteries will fall in love with Jill Winters' clever new series featuring Caitlyn Rocket, grad student and part-time newspaper reporter.

Amid the bells, carolers, and holiday parties that fill the snowy pocket of Big Clock, Minnesota, a crime has been committed in the town's famous clock tower--and if not for the impulsive wager between Rocket and her boss, the bizarre tangle of events might never be discovered...

After doing The Chronicle's grunt work for the last six months, Rocket is ready to move out of her cobwebbed cubby hole in the corner. A nearby office robbery gives her a perfect opportunity to prove herself to the managing editor of the newspaper, Ian Beller. How hard could it be to look into the crime? According to her boss, all she has to do is find some leads. Before long she discovers that the small company she's investigating is a hotbed of secrets and grudges... and if she looks hard enough, she'll find a winding trail of clues that lead to murder.

THE UNPRINTABLE BIG CLOCK CHRONICLE is the first in a four-book series. With a fresh, lively voice and spunky young heroine, Winters' Big Clock series is sure to appeal to readers of all ages.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by kg3

FREE at Amazon:

The Unprintable Big Clock Chronicle (Big Clock - #1) - Jill Winters [Humorous Cozy Mystery]

Amazon US---Amazon UK

-The author has been published by NAL Trade (Penguin), Onyx (Penguin), etc.

This one looks really good, putting it on my TBR!

[Marrella]

Originally Posted by mitford13

FYI - Padgett has also been offering the individual Bo Bradley books as freebies every once in a while. Think I may actually have the full set now - just not sure when they'll hit the top of the TBR stack!
You may want to add them to an ereaderiq wishlist if you're interested in picking them up again...

I have collected two of them when they were free but I seem to have missed the rest. Sometimes not all the books that are free at Amazon US are also free at Amazon DE, even though it is often the case. I'll have a look at ereaderiq, thanks.

[mitford13]

Originally Posted by NightBird

Another freebie from Gina Cresse today - A Deadly Change of Luck

One more free today from Gina Cresse (on Amazon):

A Deadly Change of Heart (Devonie Lace Series


--Also, thanks for the Sweeney information, Nightbird

[mitford13]

Another repeat freebie in I. J. Parker's Akitada series (on Amazon):

Rashomon Gate

Akitada, a minor official in the Ministry of Justice, toils at his dull career when a former professor begs him to look into a case of blackmail at the Imperial University. He is quickly drawn into a web of gossip and rivalry before being sidetracked by the murder of a young woman belonging to the lower classes and the disappearance of young student’s high-ranking grandfather. He and his faithful servant Tora pursue both cases eagerly, but the body count rises, and danger stalks them. When Akitada loses his heart to a young woman and wins her against all odds, a murderer has marked him as the next victim.

[mitford13]

Another Michael A. Smith repeat freebie on Amazon:

Secrets

Frank Montgomery and his family love their life in the placid suburb of Lake View. Members of the seven households on Horseshoe Drive form an extended family. Like any family, they occasionally play practical jokes on each other. But the harmless pranks suddenly turn ugly, even obscene. Feelings become heated, alliances form, fingers are pointed--until a brutal murder ends the life of the prime suspect. Frank digs deep into his neighbors' lives and discovers that motives for the murder abound. Secrets reveals a dark side of suburbia. It's enough to make you wonder about your neighbors. Who are they really? What are they up to? Are you watching them? Are they watching you?

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by kg3

-Nightbird, thanks for the info. about the Chris Wiltz titles. When Book #1 was free in June it was a couple days before I joined MR so I missed it, now I'll be able to get that one plus the others.

The first book, The Killing Circle, is now free.

[kg3]

An additional Michael A. Smith title FREE again at Amazon:

Lightning's Child - Michael A. Smith

Amazon US---Amazon UK

[NightBird]

Here's s freebie for you paranormal/cozy mystery lovers - previously published by Hilliard & Harris - The Chef Who Died Sauteing (Ariel Quigley Mystery and Cookbook Series) by Susan Smily and Honora Finkelstein. Includes recipes.

This edition of the novel includes the complete "Killer Cookbook #1, Recipes to Accompany The Chef Who Died Sautéing." (There is a link in the Kindle edition to a free PDF download of the cookbook.)

The Chef Who Died Sautéing takes place in Alexandria, Virginia. Our heroine—Ariel Quigley—is a young English instructor who talks to ghosts and has precognitive dreams. In the first book she finds herself embroiled in an abortive bombing, a suspicious death, a car accident that is no accident, and a hurricane. (Is nature a terrorist agent?) She does Tarot readings for fun, but learns a lot about the people around her from the cards. And in the course of unraveling the clues she also learns the truth about the death of a slave who died before the Civil War—from the ghost herself.

ETA: The cookbook link doesn't work. On searching at the website I only found the TOC of the cookbook with links for 5 free recipes:

Killer Cookbook #1:Recipes to Accompany The Chef Who Died Sautéing

[NightBird]

Pre-order for 10/2/2012. Not Dead Enough by Peter James for $2.99. (MacMillan)

The third novel in the award-winning Detective Superintendent Roy Grace crime series.

On the night Brian Bishop murdered his wife, he was sixty miles away, asleep in bed at the time. At least, that's the way it looks to Detective Superintendent Roy Grace who is called in to investigate the kinky slaying of beautiful young Brighton socialite, Katie Bishop. Soon, Grace starts coming to the conclusion that Bishop has performed the apparently impossible feat of being in two places at once. Has someone stolen his identity, or is he simply a very clever liar? As Grace digs deeper behind the facade of the Bishops' outwardly respectable lives, it starts to become clear that all is not at all as it first seemed. And then he digs just a little too far, and suddenly the fragile stability of his own troubled, private world is facing destruction...

Amazon

B&N

BOB

[sufue]

Originally Posted by NightBird

Hmmm - I guess I better hurry up and read my freebie and see if I should get all these, too.

Y'all are such a bad influence!

I read (or re-read) three of these Lesley Cookman/Libby Sarjeant books (post #84) over the weekend, and found them to be sort of cute cozies with just a light bit of a "paranormal" thing, although they really mostly pre-date the trend for paranormal. They don't have lots of werewolves or vampires or anything like that. I'm usually really annoyed by paranormal stuff, but found this okay - kind of like the Nancy Atherton/Aunt Dimity books - just a light touch. I'm not super super recommending these, as I have for some other series, but if you like UK cozy village style mysteries, they're good.

If you want a bit more detail, but still not really a spoiler, although I'll hide it anyway:

Spoiler:

The "paranormal" element is really just one character who has what the Irish might call "a touch of the sight" - or at least so far in the first three books that's all it is. Not obnoxious, IMO, although it does let the author cheat a bit in guiding what the characters do and what leads they investigate...

I had bought all the 99 cent ones I didn't already have, thinking the price might go away, and planning to return some of them if I didn't like them, but after reading the three, I am planning to keep and read the rest over time, whenever I'm up for some non-demanding light reading.

I just checked and all are still 99 cents, at least for me in the US, on the main Amazon site.

[sunnysmiles]

Free in UK TOO

[Synamon]

The Ninth Day by Jaimie Freveletti is free at Google Play.

In less than nine days, terror crosses the border . . .

Hiking in Arizona, biochemist Emma Caldridge inadvertently interrupts the operations of dangerous traffickers in human cargo—and is chased south into the arms of millionaire drug merchants. Suddenly a prisoner of Mexico’s most feared cartel, Emma makes a shocking discovery in the marijuana fields outside Ciudad Juarez: plants rotting with a flesh-eating toxin that causes a truly horrible death within nine days of exposure. And there is no antidote.

The cartel believes that U.S. agents contaminated the plants, and, determined to make their enemy pay, they prepare to spread their lethal product across America. Emma Caldridge searches desperately for a cure, but time is running out more quickly than she anticipated. For Emma herself has been infected—and, barring a miracle, she will die before the terrible dawning of . . .

[NightBird]

Originally Posted by sufue

I read (or re-read) three of these Lesley Cookman/Libby Sarjeant books (post #84) over the weekend, and found them to be sort of cute cozies with just a light bit of a "paranormal" thing, although they really mostly pre-date the trend for paranormal. They don't have lots of werewolves or vampires or anything like that. I'm usually really annoyed by paranormal stuff, but found this okay - kind of like the Nancy Atherton/Aunt Dimity books - just a light touch. I'm not super super recommending these, as I have for some other series, but if you like UK cozy village style mysteries, they're good.

If you want a bit more detail, but still not really a spoiler, although I'll hide it anyway:

Spoiler:

The "paranormal" element is really just one character who has what the Irish might call "a touch of the sight" - or at least so far in the first three books that's all it is. Not obnoxious, IMO, although it does let the author cheat a bit in guiding what the characters do and what leads they investigate...

I had bought all the 99 cent ones I didn't already have, thinking the price might go away, and planning to return some of them if I didn't like them, but after reading the three, I am planning to keep and read the rest over time, whenever I'm up for some non-demanding light reading.

I just checked and all are still 99 cents, at least for me in the US, on the main Amazon site.

Thanks for your summary. Very helpful, as always.