FREE/BARGAIN - Mystery, Suspense, Thriller - 2016

[sufue]

Open Road seems to have three price points in the US:

$1.99 - short term special sale (which, to their credit, they do a fair amount of, sometimes even blocks of books in a series)
$4 - $6 - some backlist that they have had out for a long time in their editions
$7 - $10 - newer titles (to them) just issued, even if very old backlist in the paper world

I tend to wait for a good coupon (aaaah, for the days of multi-tabbing at Kobo) or for the short term special sales to fill in backlist titles since I'm usually looking to replace DTB, and I won't spend more than about $3 ($4 max for really favorite books) to replace a paper book.

Otherwise, to read or re-read, a lot of their titles are available at the three public libraries I belong to, or I get my old DTB scanned and read as pdf (resulting in no income to Open Road).

The series I'd really like to get titles in right now is their recently released and coming editions of the Mr. and Mrs. North series by Richard and Frances Lockridge, but at $10-ish each, I'll be waiting for the $1.99 sales, especially since I already have pdf scans of almost all.

[mitford13]

Maybe it's more the literary fiction, but they do have several hundred at the 14.99 price as well.
Their sales are still pretty good but not as broad and I buy far fewer than I used to.

[sufue]

Originally Posted by mitford13

Maybe it's more the literary fiction, but they do have several hundred at the 14.99 price as well.
Their sales are still pretty good but not as broad and I buy far fewer than I used to.

Ouch! I guess I'm rewarded for reading too much genre fiction . Some of their recent mystery ebook series to come out: Catherine Aird, RN Morris, Edward Sklepowich, William F Buckley's mysteries, Richard and Frances Lockridge, Ellis Peters - all came out (or were, at least by the time I noticed them) in the $8 - $10 range.

[Fbone]

Courier by Terry Irving is FREE again for those who missed it last year. Exhibit A/Angry Robot 2013. GR 4.09

http://smile.amazon.com/Courier-Free...y+Terry+Irving

[sufue]

The Jennifer Marsh Mysteries Box Set Books 1-3 has recently dropped from $5.98 to $0.99 at Amazon US. This somewhat obviously contains the first three books in Judy Fitzwater's Jennifer Marsh series:

• Dying to Get Published (per SYKM, this was a finalist for the 1998 Agatha Award for Best First Novel)
• Dying to Get Even
• Dying for a Clue

The first title in this series, Dying to Get Published, is free right now at Amazon US, but the other two are $2.99 each right now, so this box set still works out to be a good price.

box set link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AYIHEE2

Spoiler:

The first three books in the popular, funny, cozy Jennifer Marsh Mystery Series are collected, for the first time, in one volume: Dying to Get Published, Dying to Get Even, and Dying for a Clue. Follow the adventures of aspiring mystery writer Jennifer Marsh as she solves her first crimes.

Dying to Get Published, an Agatha Award nominee, introduces Jennifer, a writer so desperate to get published she finds herself in a twisted tale of how deadly the publishing business can be. Her second adventure lands her as the key witness for the prosecution of a dear friend accused of murdering her husband. The third involves an adopted college student desperate to find her true identity and people willing to kill to keep it secret.

On hand to help are Jennifer's wacky writer friends, a rich and possibly demented old lady who prefers solving crimes to her weekly bridge games, and investigative newspaper reporter Sam Culpepper who's as attracted to Jennifer as much as he is to the crimes she's embroiled in. And, of course, there's Muffy, Jennifer's faithful greyhound offering love and support.

link for free title Dying to Get Published: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004GB0MG6

Spoiler:

Judy Fitzwater's comic mystery tour de force, originally published by Ballantine Books, is finally available in electronic format.

Jennifer Marsh is a mystery writer with a stack of eight unpublished manuscripts and rejection letters to match filling her closet. She's sure that if she can just get famous for something, someone will have to publish her books. Why not murder?

She'll find a target so mean that she'd actually be doing the world a favor by bumping him or her off. And she knows just the person:
Penney Richmond, a high-powered literary agent who's made it her job to ruin people's lives. All Jennifer has to do is frame herself, do the deed, and come out with an iron-clad alibi, and she'll be well on her way to getting a three book deal. So what if she chickens out at the last minute? A vegetarian good girl who rescued a greyhound could never actually kill someone. But when Penney is found murdered and the police think Jennifer did it, she’d better find the real murderer before she goes away... for life.

Along with her eccentric writer's group, spunky old ladies with a nose for sleuthing, her neurotic greyhound, and a sexy, sarcastic reporter named Sam, Jennifer embarks on a journey filled with danger, deception, and disguises that could leave her Dying to Get Published...

[sufue]

The Thin Woman is the first in the Ellie Haskell series by Dorothy Cannell. It has recently dropped to $1.99 at Kindle US.

link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007IM1818

Spoiler:

Terrified by the prospect of a weekend with her snobby relatives, overweight Ellie Simons decides to distract attention from her personal and professional failings by arriving with an adoring boyfriend in tow. Unfortunately, no such person exists. Enter Bentley T. Haskell, a devilishly handsome escort who willingly agrees to play the part—for a fat fee. But Ellie and Bentley get far more than a miserable visit with relatives when a weekend with Ellie’s eccentric family suddenly turns very, very deadly.

[sufue]

A bunch of books by Tim Myers, in several of his series, have dropped to $2.99, and the first in series to $0.99. His books go on sale a lot, so the $2.99 may or may not be a good price point. I'm going to list the first in series books at $0.99 here, and also provide a link for his books between $2.00 and $3.00. The link also picks up a few other books (like short story collections), but that way if you want to follow up, you at least have something.

Invitation to Murder is the first in the Cardmaking series.
link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003UV8ZCG

Spoiler:

New York Times Bestselling Author and Agatha Award Nominee!

First Published by Penguin/Signet/NAL!

Carolyn Hart calls it, "Great Fun."

Book 1 of the Cardmaking Mysteries

Jennifer Shane takes a leap of faith and opens her own card shop, Custom Card Creations. She hires her sassy aunt Lillian, but business is off to a slow start until the phone rings. Jennifer hopes it's an order, but instead, she hears a woman pleading for her life. Jennifer enlists her brother's aid, who also happens to be the town sheriff, to help her find out who dialed the wrong number!

Innkeeping with Murder is the first in the Lighthouse Inn series.
link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005JK6KRS

Spoiler:

New York Times Bestselling Author and Agatha Award Nominee!

First Published by Penguin/Berkley/Prime Crime!

Lighthouse Inn Mystery #1

Innkeeper Alex Winston owns Hatteras West, an exact replica of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. When one of Alex's guests is found dead at the top of the lighthouse, at first no one is sure what killed him. But a series of 'accidents' soon after show that someone is targeting Alex's Inn for mayhem, trying to do more than just put him out of business.

At Wick's End is the first in the Candlemaking series.
link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005JJZGUG

Spoiler:

New York Times Bestselling Author and Agatha Award Nominee!

First Published by Penguin/Berkley/Prime Crime!

Candlemaking Mystery #1

Harrison Black is stunned when he learns that his Great Aunt Belle has been murdered. The shock runs even deeper when an attorney informs him that he's inherited At Wick's End, a candleshop housed in the River's Edge complex. As he learns the art of candlemaking, Harrison also tries his hand at solving her murder.

Dead Men Don't Lye is the first in the Soapmaking series.
link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003WEAJE8

Spoiler:

New York Times Bestselling Author and Agatha Award Nominee!

First Published by Penguin/Berkley/Prime Crime!

(Book 1 in the Soapmaking Mysteries & IMBA National Bestseller)

Ben Perkins is the family and business troubleshooter for Where There's Soap, a family-owned boutique and small scale production shop the creates and sells all things Soap related. When one of the store's suppliers is doused with Lye and dies, Ben soon finds out that one of his sisters was dating the man, and worse yet, it had just ended badly. Ben must deal with his ex-girlfriend and police officer Molly Wilkes, as well as a new woman in his life as he tries to solve the supplier's murder.

Books in Myers' (many) later series don't seem to be on sale - perhaps the rights haven't reverted to him.

link for Myers titles between $2 and $3: http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/?sea...ubject=mystery

[sufue]

Twelve Inspector Maigret books by Georges Simenon are the deal of the day at 99p today at Amazon UK.

link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/?s...on&price=0-100

[GA Russell]

The Black Marble - Joseph Wambaugh - $1.99
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00658EPSE

[sufue]

The Garden is a non-series title by Gillian Linscott. It's a US Kindle Countdown deal at $0.99 for about 3/4 more of a day (sorry, just noticed it...).

I've not read this title, but have read and enjoyed many of the books in Linscott's Nell Bray historical/suffragette series.

link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012B9H9WY

Spoiler:

'Gillian Linscott writes like a rewarding angel' - Sunday Times

Holders Hope. Herefordshire.

In the long summer of the Edwardian age, the roots of a great garden are laid.

But it's beauty and calm are deceptive - for this is a home with a secret.

For two generations the lives of two families are bound up with the garden.

The Allegri family, mine owners with the money to pay for it.

The Thomas family, mine workers from the Welsh valleys, whose care and skill help to shape it.

Three children – an unhappy rich girl, a musician and a boy dreaming of revolution – meet in the garden and share a secret that will affect the rest of their lives.

Over some of the most turbulent years of Britain’s history, through the First World War and the industrial strife and poverty of the 1920s, the garden grows, suffers and is almost destroyed by the forces that created it.

It waits, lost and overgrown, for a man from the twenty-first century with his own secret who will finally solve its mystery and bring a hope of its rebirth.

The Garden is a brilliantly moving story of family, hope, love and secrets.

GILLIAN LINSCOTT is the author of the award winning series about the suffragette detective NELL BRAY.

[sufue]

Bear is Broken is the first in the Leo Maxwell series by Lachan Smith. Per SYKM, it won the 2014 Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel.

It has recently dropped to $2.18 at Kindle US.

link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009SAV110

Spoiler:

A Kirkus Reviews and Deadly Pleasures Best Book of the Year; Winner of the 2014 Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel

Leo Maxwell grew up in the shadow of his older brother Teddy, a successful yet reviled criminal defense attorney. As children, their father was jailed for their mother's murder, and Teddy was left to care for Leo, who eventually followed him into the legal profession.

The two are at lunch one day when Teddy is shot in the head--in public, in cold blood. As Teddy lies in a coma, Leo realizes that the search for his brother's shooter falls upon him and him alone, as his brother had enemies not only on the street but in the police department as well. As he begins to examine the life of a brother he barely knew, Leo quickly finds that the list of possible suspects is much larger than he could have imagined.

The deeper Leo digs into Teddy's life, the more questions arise: about Teddy and his ex-wife and about the murder that tore their family apart all those years ago. And somewhere, the person who shot his brother is still on the loose, and there are many who would happily kill Leo to keep it that way.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by sufue

The Garden is a non-series title by Gillian Linscott. It's a US Kindle Countdown deal at $0.99 for about 3/4 more of a day (sorry, just noticed it...).

I've not read this title, but have read and enjoyed many of the books in Linscott's Nell Bray historical/suffragette series.

link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012B9H9WY

Thanks for the Nell Bray recommendation Sufue! I hadn't come across her before.

I see that Book 2, Hanging on the Wire, is cheapish in any of the usual Kobo countries that people might use. I bought my version in Sth Africa, because for me it was the cheapest. I paid AUD3.82 (tax included). (From memory it's GBP1.99.)

I also note that Kobo has a lot of this series priced more cheaply than Amazon!

[Little.Egret]

Trick Question: A Hard-Boiled New Orleans Legal Thriller (The Tubby Dubonnet Series): #3 by Tony Dunbar. Free.

Medical lab janitor Cletus Busters is caught red-handed in a restricted area with the frozen head of Dr. Whitney Valentine, one of the lab's most prestigious researchers. Busters won't say much, except that he's innocent. But given his conspicuous record and past as a voodoo guru, all signs point to life in prison.

Calling Tubby Dubonnet!

With the trial less than a week away, Busters' lawyer has made exactly two motions - heading to the bar for several rounds of Wild Turkey and begging Tubby for help. Meanwhile, Tubby's taken on a new client - a female boxer with an abusive boyfriend - and also has to referee the romantic entanglements of his ex-wife and three teenage daughters.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AR5H53I/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AR5H53I/
http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00AR5H53I/

[sufue]

After I'm Gone is a non-series title by Laura Lippman. Per SYKM, it won the 2015 Anthony Award for Best Mystery. It has dropped to $1.99 at Amazon US as one of today's daily deals.

link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DB2YMTY

Spoiler:

Laura Lippman, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Most Dangerous Thing, I’d Know You Anywhere, and What the Dead Know, returns with an addictive story that explores how one man’s disappearance echoes through the lives of the wife, mistress, and daughters he left behind.

When Felix Brewer meets Bernadette “Bambi” Gottschalk at a Valentine’s Dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative—if not all legal—businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But on the Fourth of July, 1976, Bambi’s comfortable world implodes when Felix, newly convicted and facing prison, mysteriously vanishes.

Though Bambi has no idea where her husband—or his money—might be, she suspects one woman does: his mistress, Julie. When Julie disappears ten years to the day that Felix went on the lam, everyone assumes she’s left to join her old lover—until her remains are eventually found.

Now, twenty-six years after Julie went missing, Roberto “Sandy” Sanchez, a retired Baltimore detective working cold cases for some extra cash, is investigating her murder. What he discovers is a tangled web stretching over three decades that connects five intriguing women. And at the center is the missing man Felix Brewer.

Somewhere between the secrets and lies connecting past and present, Sandy will find the truth. And when he does, no one will ever be the same.

[sufue]

The Third Gate is a title in the Jeremy Logan series by Lincoln Child. SYKM lists it as the second in the series, although the Kindle US blurb implies it's the first:

In the hands of master storyteller Lincoln Child, The Third Gate breaks new ground and introduces a fascinating new protagonist to the thriller world.

In any case, it has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle US.

link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004S3HWJ2

Spoiler:

Under the direction of famed explorer Porter Stone, an archaeological team is secretly attempting to locate the tomb of an ancient pharaoh who was unlike any other in history. Stone believes he has found the burial chamber of King Narmer, the near mythical god- king who united upper and lower Egypt in 3200 B.C., and the archaeologist has reason to believe that the greatest prize of all—Narmer’s crown—might be buried with him. No crown of an Egyptian king has ever been discovered, and Narmer’s is the elusive “double” crown of the two Egypts, supposedly pos*sessed of awesome powers.

The dig itself is located in one of the most forbidding places on earth—the Sudd, a nearly impassable swamp in north*ern Sudan. Amid the nightmarish, disorienting tangle of mud and dead vegetation, a series of harrowing and inexpli*cable occurrences are causing people on the expedition to fear a centuries- old curse. With a monumental discovery in reach, Professor Jeremy Logan is brought onto the project to investigate. What he finds will raise new questions . . . and alarm.

In the hands of master storyteller Lincoln Child, The Third Gate breaks new ground and introduces a fascinating new protagonist to the thriller world.

I love historical/archaeological mysteries, but really dislike ones with paranormal woo-woo, and this one looks as if it might have that. It also looks a bit more thriller-ish than mystery-ish. Has anyone read and can advise?