FREE/BARGAIN - Mystery, Suspense, Thriller - 2016

[sufue]

Two titles by Patricia Wentworth have dropped to $1.99 at Kindle US. The Miss Silver title is also on sale and couponable at Kobo US.

Miss Silver Comes to Stay is the 16th (blurb) or 15th (SYKM) in the Miss Silver series.
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005E834ZQ
Kobo US: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/eb...omes-to-stay-1

Spoiler:

On vacation in a tiny village, Miss Silver investigates a murder with a decades-old motive
The citizens of Melling are perfectly ordinary—exactly the sort one finds in just about every cozy English village—and to a certain person they might even appear boring. But to Miss Silver, people are always interesting. It has been some years since she gave up work as a governess to become a detective, and her interest in people has served her well. She comes to Melling on vacation—a long postponed visit to an old school chum—but Miss Silver’s business is murder, and her vacations never last long.

The town’s prodigal son has returned, wealthy and without nostalgia for the village of his birth. He intends to sell his manor house and be done with Melling forever. But Melling has not finished with him.

Danger Calling is a title in the Benbow Smith series (blurb) or a non-series title (SYKM).
link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BXW8GCW

Spoiler:

Clandestine operative Benbow Smith recruits a former Secret Service agent to bring down an enemy of the free world in this thriller from the author of the Miss Silver Mysteries

Lindsay Trevor, a junior partner in a publishing firm, boards a train headed for Waterloo Station. He is contemplating his future as a soon-to-be-married man when the stranger seated across from him asks if he’s willing to die for his country.

Trevor was taken prisoner during World War I, and after his escape, he was recruited by Britain’s Secret Service. But that was twelve years ago. The last thing he wants now is to risk his life again—or is it?

Operative Benbow Smith is betting that Trevor wants back in the game. And when an unfortunate series of events changes the direction of his life, the former SS agent signs on. With Lindsay Trevor declared officially dead, the victim of a fatal accident, he’s free to impersonate another man. Soon the agents are enmeshed in a spiraling web of blackmail, intrigue, and murder, fighting a predatory criminal who is a master of deceit and manipulation.

Danger Calling is the 2nd book in the Benbow Smith Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

[sufue]

Both (per SYKM) thiller-ish looking Thomas Kell titles by Charles Cumming have dropped to $2.99 at Kindle US.

A Foreign Country, #1
link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00779RJ9M

Spoiler:

From the internationally acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author of The Trinity Six, comes a compelling tale of deceit and betrayal, conspiracy and redemption

On the vacation of a lifetime in Egypt, an elderly French couple are brutally murdered. Days later, a meticulously-planned kidnapping takes place on the streets of Paris. Amelia Levene, the first female Chief of MI6, has disappeared without a trace, six weeks before she is due to take over as the most influential spy in Europe. It is the gravest crisis MI6 has faced in more than a decade. Desperate not only to find her, but to keep her disappearance a secret, Britain's top intelligence agents turn to one of their own: disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell. Tossed out of the Service only months before, Kell is given one final chance to redeem himself - find Amelia Levene at any cost. The trail leads Kell to France and Tunisia, where he uncovers a shocking secret and a conspiracy that could have unimaginable repercussions for Britain and its allies. Only Kell stands in the way of personal and political catastrophe.

A Colder War, #2
link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY019SG

Spoiler:

Internationally acclaimed as "a premier writer of espionage thrillers" (USA Today), Charles Cumming is "among the most skillful spy novelists" (Washington Post) and "a worthy successor to the masters…like John le Carré and Len Deighton" (Chicago Sun-Times). Now, with A COLDER WAR, Cumming returns with MI6 agent Tom Kell (A Foreign Country), in a tour de force that will dazzle readers and critics alike.

A top-ranking Iranian military official is blown up while trying to defect to the West. An investigative journalist is arrested and imprisoned for writing an article critical of the Turkish government. An Iranian nuclear scientist is assassinated on the streets of Tehran. These three incidents, seemingly unrelated, have one crucial link. Each of the three had been recently recruited by Western intelligence, before being removed or killed.

Then Paul Wallinger, MI6's most senior agent in Turkey, dies in a puzzling plane crash. Fearing the worst, MI6 bypasses the usual protocol and brings disgraced agent Tom Kell in from the cold to investigate. Kell soon discovers what Wallinger had already begun to suspect—that there's a mole somewhere in the Western intelligence, a traitor who has been systematically sabotaging scores of joint intelligence operations in the Middle East.

[sufue]

The Ghost Fields is the 7th and penultimate (at the moment) title in the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle US.

link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LZ7GSTY

Spoiler:

“Ruth is a terrific character: unglamorous, smart, down-to-earth and completely believable.” — San Jose Mercury News

“Readers will look forward to learning more about [Ruth Galloway].” — USA Today

It’s a blazing hot summer in Norfolk when a construction crew unearths a downed American fighter plane from World War II with a body inside. Forensic archeologist Ruth Galloway determines that the skeleton couldn’t possibly be the pilot, and DNA tests identify the man as Fred Blackstock, a local aristocrat long presumed dead — news that seems to frighten his descendants. Events are further complicated by a TV company that wants to make a film about Norfolk’s deserted air force bases, the so-called ghost fields, which the Blackstocks have converted into a pig farm. As production begins, Ruth notices a mysterious man loitering at Fred Blackstock’s memorial service. Then human bones are found on the family’s pig farm and the weather quickly turns. Can the team outrace a looming flood to find the killer?

“Ruth Galloway is a captivating amateur sleuth — an inspired creation. I identified with her insecurities and struggles, and cheered her on.” — Louise Penny

“An uncommon, down-to-earth heroine whose acute insight, wry humor, and depth of feeling make her a thoroughly engaging companion.” — Erin Hart

[sufue]

Early Bird/Open Road is having another Late Afternoon Bird sale - this time on several cozy mystery titles. All have dropped to $1.99, almost certainly for today only. Per Early Bird's email, they are available at all the usual retailers...my mind boggles at the thought of doing 8 books x 5 retailers = 40 links, so I'll just list the authors/titles, and you can go find at your retailer of choice. (Note: if you have any valid coupon codes left, these should be couponable at Kobo US...)

• Dark Nantucket Noon, Homer Kelly #2, by Jane Langton
• The Woman Who Fell from Grace, Stewart “Hoagy” Hoag #4, by David Handler
• The Luck Runs Out, Peter and Helen Marsh Shandy #2, by Charlotte MacLeod
• Miss Withers Regrets, Hildegarde Withers #10, by Stuart Palmer
• The Long Good Boy, Rachel Alexander And Dash #6, by Carol Lea Benjamin
• Cook the Books, Chloe Carter #5, by Jessica Conant-Park
• Madness in Maggody, Maggody #5, by Joan Hess
• Miss Silver Comes to Stay, Miss Silver #15 or #16, by Patricia Wentworth, see this post for details

[Wearever]

Originally Posted by sufue

The Ghost Fields is the 7th and penultimate (at the moment) title in the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle US.

link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LZ7GSTY

I have this one, good deal. Love this series.

[BetterRead]

Two novels in the Peculiar Crimes Unit series by Christopher Fowler are currently $2.99 at Amazon US, Kobo, B&N, and Google.

Full Dark House (#1)

Spoiler:

Edgy, suspenseful, and darkly comic, here is the first novel in a riveting mystery series starring two cranky but brilliant old detectives whose lifelong friendship was forged solving crimes for the London Police Department's Peculiar Crimes Unit. In Full Dark House, Christopher Fowler tells the story of both their first and last case—and how along the way the unlikely pair of crime fighters changed the face of detection.

A present-day bombing rips through London and claims the life of eighty-year-old detective Arthur Bryant. For his partner John May, it means the end of a partnership that lasted over half-a-century and an eerie echo back to the Blitz of World War II when they first met. Desperately searching for clues to the killer's identity, May finds his old friend's notes of their very first case and becomes convinced that the past has returned...with a killing vengeance.

It begins when a dancer in a risque new production of Orpheus in Hell is found without her feet. Suddenly, the young detectives are plunged in a bizarre gothic mystery that will push them to their limits—and beyond. For in a city shaken by war, a faceless killer is stalking London's theaters, creating his own kind of sinister drama. And it will take Arthur Bryant's unorthodox techniques and John May's dogged police work to catch a criminal whose ability to escape detection seems almost supernatural--a murderer who even decades later seems to have claimed the life of one of them...and is ready to claim the other.

Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart (#11)

Spoiler:

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST MYSTERIES OF THE YEAR BY THE SEATTLE TIMES • London’s wiliest detectives, Arthur Bryant and John May, are on the case in this fiendishly clever mystery. And when a cemetery becomes the scene of a crime, neither secrets—nor bodies—stay buried.

Romain Curtis sneaks into St. George’s Gardens one evening with his date, planning to show her the stars. A centuries-old burial ground, the small, quiet park is the perfect place to be alone. Yet the night takes a chilling turn when the two teenagers spy a strange figure rising from among the tombstones: a corpse emerging from the grave. Suffice it to say that wherever there’s a dead man walking, Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit are never far behind.

As the PCU investigates the sighting, a second urgent matter requires their unusual brand of problem-solving. Seven ravens have gone missing from their historic home in the Tower of London, and legend has it that when the ravens disappear, England will fall. Bryant has been tasked with recovering the lost birds, but when Romain is suddenly found dead, the two seemingly separate mysteries start to intertwine and point to a plot more sinister than anyone could ever imagine.

Soon Bryant and May find themselves immersed in London’s darkest lore, from Victorian-era body snatchers, to arcane black magic, to the grisly myth behind Bleeding Heart Yard, a courtyard long associated with murder. And as the body count spikes and more coffins are unearthed, they will have to dig deep to catch a killer and finally lay these cases to rest.

A collection of short stories, London's Glory: The Lost Cases of Bryant & May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit, is also available for $1.99.

Spoiler:

Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit are London’s craftiest and bravest detectives—and there’s no better pair to solve the city’s most confounding crimes. In this riveting eBook collection of mystery short stories, available together for the first time, Christopher Fowler takes Bryant and May on a series of twisting adventures and brings readers behind the scenes of his beloved novels.

[AnemicOak]

Joyland (Hard Case Crime Book 112) by Stephen King - $1.99

Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever.

[sufue]

And now at $0.99 at Kindle US. This title usually doesn't go on sale for very long, so grab it if you want it.

Originally Posted by sufue

The Mayfair Affair is one of the titles in the EXTREMELY-confusing-to-figure-out-the-order Charles and Melanie Fraser/Suzanne and Malcolm Rannoch series by Tracy/Teresa Grant. This title has recently dropped from $4.99 to $2.99.

Apparently the author decided to continue the series when she left her original publisher, but had to change the names of the characters. Then to make matters worse, she doesn't write the books in anything approaching calendar order. And her website differs from SYKM differs from the blurbs. So I am not going to even try to speculate on what position this title takes in the series, but I've read many and enjoyed all that I have read.

link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TKIT6QW

[sufue]

DEAD...If Only is the fourth in the Alvarez Family series by Heather Haven. It's a US Kindle Countdown deal at $0.99 for about 3 3/4 more days.

link: https://www.amazon.com/DEAD-Alvarez-...dp/B00NDZK5X6/

Spoiler:

A man who should be dead isn't and Lee Alvarez's very pregnant sister-in-law, Vicki, is about to be charged with a murder he recently committed in the Big Easy. Aided by the rest of the Alvarez Family, Palo Alto's favorite P.I. kicks the Voodoo in the Who Do throughout New Orleans. With only three days to clear Vicki's name, a child is kidnapped, two more people wind up dead, a hurricane hits, and the clock never stops ticking....

BTW, as I've mentioned before, the first in this series, Murder is a Family Business, is part of a "box set", Sleuthing Women: 10 First-in-Series Mysteries, which is itself only $0.99, so if you want to try the first one first, you can do that and get nine other titles as a bonus . Info in this previous post: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho....php?p=3350195.

[Mort1997]

Free on Amazon UK - Arrest the Bishop? by Winnifred Peck

Spoiler:

He caught the back of a chair, staggered and groaned. There was a heavy crash and fall, and the parson lay motionless and livid, while lilies from a vase fell, like a wreath, across his chest.

The Rev. Ulder, everyone agreed, was the parish priest from hell. In addition to tales of drunkenness and embezzlement, the repellent cleric had recently added blackmail to his list of depravities. There was scandal in the district, plenty of it, and Ulder had the facts. Until, that is, a liberal helping of morphia, served to him in the Bishop’s Palace, silenced the insufferable priest – for good.

Was it the Bishop himself who delivered the fatal dose? Was it Soames, the less-than-model butler? Or one of a host of other inmates and guests in the house that night, with motives of their own to put Ulder out of the way? Young Dick Marlin, ex-military intelligence and now a Church deacon, finds himself assisting Chief Constable Mack investigate murder most irreverent.

UK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arrest-Bish...362247031_f_59

US
https://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Bishop...362247031_f_59

Au
https://www.amazon.com.au/Arrest-Bis...362247031_f_59

Can
https://www.amazon.ca/Arrest-Bishop-...362247031_f_59

[GA Russell]

The Light of Day (Topkapi) - Eric Ambler - $1.99
https://www.amazon.com/Light-Day-Eri...dp/B005PRJOXW/

[sufue]

Rehearsing for Murder, apa Peckover Joins the Choir, is the seventh in the Inspector Peckover series by Michael Kenyon.

Endeavour Press seem to be doing new titles for most/all of this series - I wonder if somehow the titles were "owned" in a different way than the texts, or if they just think the new titles will be better marketing. I think I would be more likely to be intrigued by Peckover Joins the Choir, which at least seems as if it could set up some pretty amusing situations, rather than by the blander-sounding, at least to me, Rehearsal for Murder, but that's JMTCW.

In any case, Rehearsing is a US Kindle countdown deal at $0.99 for about 6 1/2 more days. We've now had most of this series as Countdown deals, IMS...

link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G3VAFE0

Spoiler:

“A very valuable addition to the classic British detective genre” – The New York Times

A spate of high-value art thefts is terrorising Europe…

For every article that has gone missing, the Sealeigh choir – a travelling choir from a small village on the Ken coast – have held a concert nearby.

Chief Inspector Henry Peckover and Detective Constable Jason Twitty are sent to become the choir’s newest recruits as part of an undercover investigation, but playing the part of professional singers and avoiding suspicion is no easy task.

The routine of rehearsals and choir gossip is challenging and Peckover struggles to manage with Twitty’s flamboyant nature, fearing he will scupper the investigation.

The entire choir is under suspicion and the two policemen cannot afford to become distracted.

A ruthless criminal is in close proximity, concealing treasured art and they must be discovered before someone realises that Peckover and Twitty are not really who they claim to be…

By the time the choir arrives in Ghent for their next concert, Peckover has discovered tantalizing information about several of its members.

The investigation is now an international operation and together with French Sergeant Pépin and Flemish Inspector Spaak, Peckover must work on the preliminary report from Scotland Yard to close the case.

But before they discover the thief, the body of one of the choir members is found in the cathedral and Peckover and Twitty find themselves heading up a murder enquiry...

Can they find the culprit before another body is discovered?

Rehearsing for Death is the latest Inspector Peckover mystery, following on from No Mercy, Cradling Death, The Man At The Wheel and Zigzag.

[sufue]

Friends in High Places is the ninth in the Guido Brunetti series by Donna Leon. Per SYKM, this was the 2000 Silver Dagger Award winner. (And it's a great series...)

link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0097CWN16

Spoiler:

In Friends in High Places, Commissario Brunetti is visited by a young bureaucrat investigating the lack of official approval for the construction of Brunetti’s apartment years before. What began as a red tape headache ends in murder when the bureaucrat is later found dead after a mysterious fall from a scaffold. Brunetti starts an investigation that will take him into the unfamiliar and dangerous areas of drug abuse and loan-sharking, and will reveal, once again, what a difference it makes in Venice to have friends in high places.

[GA Russell]

Painted Black - Greg Kihn - $1.99
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q5UWNZE

[sufue]

A Spectacle of Corruption is the second in the Benjamin Weaver historical series by David Liss. I haven't read this, but did read and very much like the first in the series, A Conspiracy of Paper, which (per SYKM) won a ton of awards a while back. So I'm excited to see this one drop to $1.99 at Kindle US.

link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC1B2O

Spoiler:

Benjamin Weaver, the quick-witted pugilist turned private investigator, returns in David Liss’s sequel to the Edgar Award–winning novel, A Conspiracy of Paper.

Moments after his conviction for a murder he did not commit, at a trial presided over by a judge determined to find him guilty, Benjamin Weaver is accosted by a stranger who cunningly slips a lockpick and a file into his hands. In an instant he understands two things: Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to see him condemned to hang—and another equally mysterious agent is determined to see him free.

So begins A Spectacle of Corruption, which heralds the return of Benjamin Weaver, the hero of A Conspiracy of Paper. After a daring escape from eighteenth-century London’s most notorious prison, Weaver must face another challenge: how to prove himself innocent of a crime when the corrupt courts have already shown they want only to see him hang. To discover the truth and clear his name, he will have to understand the motivations behind a secret scheme to extort a priest, uncover double-dealings in the unrest among London’s dockworkers, and expose the conspiracy that links the plot against him to the looming national election—an election with the potential to spark a revolution and topple the monarchy.

Unable to show his face in public, Weaver pursues his inquiry in the guise of a wealthy merchant who seeks to involve himself in the political scene. But he soon finds that the world of polite society and politics is filled with schemers and plotters, men who pursue riches and power—and those who seek to return the son of the deposed king to the throne. Desperately navigating a labyrinth of politicians, crime lords, assassins, and spies, Weaver learns that, in an election year, little is what it seems and the truth comes at a staggeringly high cost.

Once again, acclaimed author David Liss combines historical erudition with mystery, complex characterization, and a captivating sense of humor. A Spectacle of Corruption offers insight into our own world of political scheming, and it firmly establishes David Liss as one of the best writers of intellectual suspense at work today.