FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[sufue]

A big batch (28!!!) of price drops to £0.99 on titles by Anne Perry at Kindle UK. Mostly Charlotte and Thomas Pitt, but also some holiday titles, William Monk, and other series. I noticed some later titles in the Pitt series that don't go on sale in the US often, if at all. (Open Road in the US only seems to have the rights to earlier titles, and the later ones in the US are a big six...or five...or whatever it is now...)

There are too many to list individually but here is a link for all: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/?...eyword=-leslie

[sufue]

A Delicate Truth is a non-series title by John Le Carré, and one of a few Le Carré titles I didn't have. So I'm happy to see that it is a UK Kindle Daily Deal at £0.99.

link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Delicate-Tr...dp/B00AWJYJVA/

Spoiler:

A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony, Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, and a private defence contractor who is also his close friend. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's Private Secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it.

Suspecting a disastrous conspiracy, Toby attempts to forestall it, but is promptly posted overseas. Three years on, summoned by Sir Christopher Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely watched by Probyn's daughter Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and his duty to the Service.

If the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, how can he keep silent?

[Little.Egret]

Endeavour, Free


Trial at Monomoy by John Masters


In Cape Cod the temperature was 18 below zero.
A relentless blizzard was creating snowy white mountains of up to twenty feet in height.
This was the kind of storm that stripped a man of all social and moral conventions...stripped him down to the basic, selfish instinct of survival.
Most of the Monomoy folk gathered in the Longships Hotel, hoping for refuge.

Power, fuel, water and communications were giving out.
The tide was coming so fast it threatened to wash the town into the bay.
And the Longships itself was smack in the path of the raging ocean.

First published in the United Kingdom in 1964 by Bengal-Rockland Inc.

John Masters (1914-83) was born in Calcutta. Educated at Wellington and Sandhurst, he returned to India in 1934 to join the Gurkha Rifles. In 1944 he commanded a brigade of Chindits in Burma. Retiring from the army in 1948, Masters then went to America, where he wrote a series of novels set in British India including Bhowani Junction (1954) filmed 1956

https://www.amazon.com/Trial-at-Mono...dp/B0117SDF8M/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trial-at-Mo...dp/B0117SDF8M/

https://www.amazon.ca/Trial-at-Monom...dp/B0117SDF8M/

[Wearever]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Endeavour, Free


Trial at Monomoy by John Masters


In Cape Cod the temperature was 18 below zero.
A relentless blizzard was creating snowy white mountains of up to twenty feet in height.
This was the kind of storm that stripped a man of all social and moral conventions...stripped him down to the basic, selfish instinct of survival.
Most of the Monomoy folk gathered in the Longships Hotel, hoping for refuge.

Power, fuel, water and communications were giving out.
The tide was coming so fast it threatened to wash the town into the bay.
And the Longships itself was smack in the path of the raging ocean.

First published in the United Kingdom in 1964 by Bengal-Rockland Inc.

John Masters (1914-83) was born in Calcutta. Educated at Wellington and Sandhurst, he returned to India in 1934 to join the Gurkha Rifles. In 1944 he commanded a brigade of Chindits in Burma. Retiring from the army in 1948, Masters then went to America, where he wrote a series of novels set in British India including Bhowani Junction (1954) filmed 1956

https://www.amazon.com/Trial-at-Mono...dp/B0117SDF8M/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trial-at-Mo...dp/B0117SDF8M/

https://www.amazon.ca/Trial-at-Monom...dp/B0117SDF8M/

Thanks for this , Little, Egret !

[sufue]

Rather Be the Devil is the most recent in the John Rebus series by Ian Rankin. It has previously been on sale a couple of times in the US. I just noticed it is a UK Kindle Daily Deal today at £0.99 - it may have been on sale in the UK before - I don't watch Kindle UK a whole lot...

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01CI1UQV6/

Spoiler:

'Britain's No.1 crime writer' Mirror

* * * * *

A CASE THAT WON'T DIE

John Rebus can't close the door on the death of glamorous socialite Maria Turquand. Brutally murdered in her hotel room forty years ago, her killer has never been found.

Meanwhile, Edinburgh's dark heart is up for grabs. Young pretender Darryl Christie may have staked his claim on the city's underworld - but has criminal mastermind and Rebus' long-time adversary, Big Ger Cafferty, really settled down to a quiet retirement? Or is he hiding in the shadows until Edinburgh is once more ripe for the picking?

Old Enemies. New Crimes. Rebus may be off the force, but he certainly isn't off the case.

* * * * *

[sufue]

How the Light Gets In is the 9th in the much-awarded/nominated Chief Inspector Gamache serie by Louise Penny. It has dropped to $2.99 at Kindle US.

link: https://www.amazon.com/How-Light-Get...dp/B00AQUTNIE/

Spoiler:

The #1 New York Times Bestseller

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." —Leonard Cohen

Christmas is approaching, and in Québec it's a time of dazzling snowfalls, bright lights, and gatherings with friends in front of blazing hearths. But shadows are falling on the usually festive season for Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Most of his best agents have left the Homicide Department, his old friend and lieutenant Jean-Guy Beauvoir hasn't spoken to him in months, and hostile forces are lining up against him. When Gamache receives a message from Myrna Landers that a longtime friend has failed to arrive for Christmas in the village of Three Pines, he welcomes the chance to get away from the city. Mystified by Myrna's reluctance to reveal her friend's name, Gamache soon discovers the missing woman was once one of the most famous people not just in North America, but in the world, and now goes unrecognized by virtually everyone except the mad, brilliant poet Ruth Zardo.

As events come to a head, Gamache is drawn ever deeper into the world of Three Pines. Increasingly, he is not only investigating the disappearance of Myrna's friend but also seeking a safe place for himself and his still-loyal colleagues. Is there peace to be found even in Three Pines, and at what cost to Gamache and the people he holds dear?

How the Light Gets In is the ninth Chief Inspector Gamache Novel from Louise Penny.

One of Publishers Weekly's Best Mystery/Thriller Books of 2013
One of The Washington Post's Top 10 Books of the Year
An NPR Best Book of 2013

[sufue]

For The Love of Old Bones is a collection of historical mystery short stories by Michael Jecks. It has dropped to $0.99 at Kindle US.

link: https://www.amazon.com/Love-Old-Bone...dp/B01C8WSPM2/

Spoiler:

‘highly recommended’ – Lee Child

Death and deceit stalk the bleak moorlands of medieval Devonshire in this captivating collection of short stories from the acclaimed author Michael Jecks.

THE CORONER’S TALE
In the remote Devonshire town of Crediton, a young girl is found dead in an alleyway, raped and murdered. As the local Bailiff and a visiting knight investigate the crime, it comes to light that the bailiff holds an incriminating secret – one that has the potential to place this agent of the government on the wrong side of the law.

FOR THE LOVE OF OLD BONES
A group of monks journeying from Launceston Abbey across the wild wastelands of Dartmoor are waylaid by brigands. During the brawl, their abbot is put to death at the blade of a knife, but the murderer neglected to steal his money filled purse. When the local bailiff discovers that the group are conducting a holy relic overseas to France, he begins to suspect that there are murkier motivations at play.

THE AMOROUS ARMOURER
A blacksmith is found dead in his lodgings, the door locked from the inside. As the town’s meticulously minded bailiff goes about his investigation, a veritable rogue’s gallery of culprits drift in and out of focus - but the guilty party is the least suspect of all.

A CLERICAL ERROR
One of the king’s forresters lies dead in a gully on the moor, his head smashed in with a rock, and the only witness to the murder being the forrester’s loyal mastiff, who stands vigil over his master’s body. As the list of suspects increases with every local rivalry which comes to light, the outcome of the case will surprise all involved.

DANCE OF DEATH
1348, the year of the Great Death. Refugees flood into the city of Exeter from the plague-ravaged countryside surrounding the city. A man and a young boy from the village of Rookford arrive separately, yet both share knowledge of a horrifying secret and come to the realisation that even in these times of turmoil, the past is inescapable.

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ $2.99 in the US only from St. Martin's Press' Minotaur imprint (apparently a division of the Penguin Random House, which sells it under a different imprint in Canada):

Operation Napoleon: A Thriller by award-winning Icelandic crime author Arnaldur Indriðason (SYKM, Wikipedia) whose Detective Erlendur mysteries I've quite enjoyed. This is a standalone mystery/action/maybe-conspiracy thriller which ties back the obligatory WWII case pitting the Icelanders against the Nazis with some modern-day developments involving the US military (which historically occupied Iceland during the war and then maintained an airbase for a long time afterwards) and a woman on a quest for her missing brother, who vanished mysteriously in the course of whatever they were doing.

Prepare for blockbuster action in the vein of Clive Cussler and Alistair Maclean

A mesmerizing international thriller that sweeps from modern Iceland to Nazi Germany. In 1945, a German bomber crash-lands in Iceland durign a blizzard. Puzzlingly, there are both German and American officers on board. One of the senior German officers claims that their best chance of survival is to try to walk to the nearest farm. He sets off, a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, only to disappear into the white vastness.

Flash forward to the present. The U.S. Army is clandestinely trying to remove the wreck of an airplane from an Icelandic glacier. A young Icelander, Elias, inadvertently stumbles upon the excavation and then promptly disappears. Before he vanishes, though, he manages to contact his sister, Kristin. She embarks on a thrilling and perilous adventure, determined to discover the truth of her brother's fate. Kristin must solve the riddle of Operation Napoleon, even if it means losing her own life.

Arnaldur Indridason has proven himself to be a master of the mystery genre with his critically acclaimed Inspector Erlunder series, which has sold more than 6 million copies. Now, world-class writing and nonstop action meet in this spellbinding page-turner, which catapults Arnaldur Indridason to the top ranks of international thriller writers.

[Demingy]

Brother Cadfael’s Penance from The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael is $1.99 at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LUZNZB0...058080_TE_M1DP). This leaves just two more for me to complete the collection. ��

[maddz]

9 Ngaio Marsh Inspector Alleyn titles are currently 99p on Amazon.co.uk:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ngaio%20Mar...price-asc-rank

Grave Mistake
Clutch of Constables
Singing in the Shrouds
Off With His Head
Artists in Crime
Swing, Brother, Swing
Died in the Wool
Death at the Dolphin
Last Ditch

Black Beech and Honeydew (her autobiography) is £1.49, A Man Lay Dead is £2.49, and then the titles go to £3.49 and up.

I spotted this when Grave Mistake appeared in my recommendations list - I have a complete collection of rather tatty paperbacks which I can now start replacing; hopefully the rest of the series will get reduced.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by maddz

9 Ngaio Marsh Inspector Alleyn titles are currently 99p on Amazon.co.uk:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ngaio%20Mar...price-asc-rank

Grave Mistake
Clutch of Constables
Singing in the Shrouds
Off With His Head
Artists in Crime
Swing, Brother, Swing
Died in the Wool
Death at the Dolphin
Last Ditch

Black Beech and Honeydew (her autobiography) is £1.49, A Man Lay Dead is £2.49, and then the titles go to £3.49 and up.

I spotted this when Grave Mistake appeared in my recommendations list - I have a complete collection of rather tatty paperbacks which I can now start replacing; hopefully the rest of the series will get reduced.

I've yet to read anything by her.

Which one would you suggest to start with reading?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I've yet to read anything by her.

Which one would you suggest to start with reading?

They're all standalones - doesn't really matter which order you read them in (although I always prefer to read a series in order as a matter of principle). I've read all her books - they're all good. Marsh was a theatre director as well as an author, and many of her books are set in the theatrical world.

[Dr. Drib]

Thanks, Harry.

I'll find the least expensive one and get it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Thanks, Harry.

I'll find the least expensive one and get it.

They are a little formulaic, but no more so than, say, Agatha Christie. They won't make you think too deeply, but are an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

[maddz]

In terms of the internal chronology:

Grave Mistake #30
Clutch of Constables #25
Singing in the Shrouds #20
Off With His Head (Death of a Fool) #19
Artists in Crime #6
Swing, Brother, Swing #15
Died in the Wool #13
Death at the Dolphin (Killer Dolphin) #24
Last Ditch #29

So, best to start with Artists in Crime, and make sure you read Last Ditch at the end before Grave Mistake. As HarryT said, they’re all stand-alone, but as the cast develops and changes are made, it’s best to read them more or less in order. They’re also set in real time to a large extent.