FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[sufue]

If you've somehow missed the omnibus of the first nine Skip Langdon titles by Julie Smith when it has been free, here's an omnibus of the first five titles for free at Kindle US.

Smith's titles go free a lot, so I'm pretty sure there will be chances to pick up the rest of the series sometime if the future if you like the first five.

Skip Langdon Vol. 1-5: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J3WXN49

Spoiler:

An Edgar Award-winning murder mystery and four thrilling sequels at a killer price!

Save over 50% on five Skip Langdon Mysteries!

Follow the remarkably bold, smart, and refreshingly human homicide detective Skip Langdon through the twists and turns of a New Orleans teeming with crooked cops, mob encroachment, and southern kinships gone awry. The resourceful former debutante-turned-rookie cop investigates the shooting of a prominent Uptown socialite at Mardi Gras, tracks a terrifying serial killer, searches for a runaway teen - a person of interest in the stabbing of the well-loved director of the famed New Orleans Jazzfest, weaves her way through the tangled cyberspace web of a pre-Facebook virtual community, and caps it all off by unraveling the murder of a legendary restauranteur and the kidnapping of his family.

“Gritty, witty, & mesmerizing! Langdon is a splendid female heroine.” –People Magazine

"Like a good Grisham: taut, fast, and thrilling. But with a lot more heart and soul.” -The Clarion-Ledger

"The real star of this superb effort is New Orleans, which has never seemed more dangerous or alluring—or less easy." -Publishers Weekly

NEW ORLEANS MOURNING
It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and civic leader and socialite Chauncy St. Amant has been crowned Rex, King of Carnival. But his day of glory comes to an abrupt and bloody end when a parade-goer dressed as Dolly Parton guns him down. Is the killer his aimless, promiscuous daughter Marcelle? Homosexual, mistreated son Henry? Helpless, alcoholic wife Bitty? Or some unknown player? Turns out the king had enemies...

AXEMAN'S JAZZ
What's the perfect killing field for a murderer? A place where he (or maybe she) can learn your secrets from your own mouth and then make friends over coffee. A supposedly "safe" place where anonymity is the norm. The horror who calls himself The Axeman has figured it out and claimed his territory—he's cherry-picking his victims in the 12-Step programs of New Orleans.

JAZZ FUNERAL
Skip Langdon just happens to be on hand when Ham Brocato, director of New Orleans Jazzfest, is discovered dead on the kitchen floor in the middle of his own party the evening before the Fest. To complicate the already murky case, the victim's sixteen-year-old blues musician sister has disappeared, and Skip suspects that if the young woman isn't the murderer, she's in mortal danger from the person who is. Melody's dangerous yet exhilarating journey tugs at the heart and raises the pulse rate.

DEATH BEFORE FACEBOOK
It’s a chilly November in 1994, and thirty-one-year-old Geoff Kavanagh surreptitiously splits his time between science fiction novels and cyberspace in his parents’ dilapidated, overgrown, uptown New Orleans mansion. Until his mother finds him dead from a suspicious fall off a ladder. Maybe he should never have posted about seeing his father murdered …

HOUSE OF BLUES
Sugar Hebert arrives home from a ten-minute errand to find her husband shot to death and the rest of her family missing—including her daughter Reed, heir apparent to the Hebert restaurant dynasty, and Reed's eleven-month-old daughter.

Fans of Ace Atkins, Tana French, Sue Grafton, and Marcia Muller will love Skip Langdon’s pluck and charm in this bountiful bundle, which includes the first five books in the series.

Note: Death Before Facebook was previously published as New Orleans Beat

[sufue]

Thou Shell of Death (apa just Shell of Death)is the second in the Nigel Strangeways series by Nicholas Blake. It has dropped to $0.99 at Kindle US.

link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JHRFP58

Spoiler:

That will give you over three weeks to settle your affairs, say your prayers, and eat a hearty Christmas dinner. I shall kill you, most probably, on Boxing Day.

In the lead up to Christmas, Fergus O’Brien, World War One flying ace turned introspective recluse, suspects someone is out for his blood. Having received three threatening letters promising his death, O’Brien takes his fate into his own hands.

Inviting all the prime suspects to a Christmas party at his grand country home, O’Brien enlists private investigator Nigel Strangeways to help suss out the culprit.

But amid the falling snow and cutting wind, a murderer lurks in Dower House. Nigel must work quickly to uncover the secrets of O’Brien’s past to catch the criminal before it’s to late…

[sufue]

The Rich Detective is a non-series title by by H. R. F. Keating. It has dropped to $0.99 at Kindle US.

link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077DCY118

Spoiler:

After returning from a holiday in Spain, Detective Inspector Bill Sylvester is assigned a case that no one else wants. An elderly woman has died in a retirement home and an anonymous tipster has cried foul play. But with no evidence, no suspects, and no real motive for murder, the case seems over before it's begun.

Sylvester’s superiors demand he drop the case, but he can’t seem to let it go.

When he receives a call saying he’s won the lottery in Spain, Bill is uneasy about his new funds and the life he should be leading; but it also allows him to quit the force – and investigate on his own.

How far will Sylvester go to solve the case… and just how much is he willing to sacrifice for justice?

[sufue]

Some titles I noticed in the UK Kindle 12 Days of Christmas sale, which ends Jan 1, 2019. Most of the titles in the sale are £0.99 each.

DI Geraldine Steel: The Early Cases Omnibus includes the first three titles (Cut Short, Road Closed and Dead End) in Leigh Russell's Geraldine Steel series - a nice price if you want to give the series a try. Several other titles in the series are £0.99 too: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/?...price-asc-rank

Death of a Hollow Man is the 2nd in the Tom Barnaby/Midsomer Murders series by Caroline Graham: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Hollo...dp/B01INHVZ5A/

Strong Poison and The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, both Lord Peter titles by Dorothy L Sayers: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/?...price-asc-rank

The second and third titles in the Victorian series by Robin Paige (pen name for Susan Wittig Albert), Death at Gallows Green and Death at Daisy's Folly: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/?...price-asc-rank

Trophy Hunt and Savage Run in the Joe Pickett series by CJ Box. Link picks up a Pickett short story too: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/?...price-asc-rank

continued....

[sufue]

...continued

A couple of titles in the Cotswold series by Rebecca Tope, A Cotswold Killing and Peril in the Cotswolds: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/?...price-asc-rank

The Beekeeper's Apprentice is the first in the Laurie R. King's excellent (IMO) Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beekeepers-...dp/B006WB7JOG/

A bunch of titles in the Cornwall series by Janie Bolitho: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/?...price-asc-rank

Death in Dark Glasses is the third in the Inspector Littlejohn series by George Bellairs: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Glass...dp/B078XG76MN/

Death of a Red Heroine is the first in the Inspector Chen series by Qiu Xiaolong. I read the first few titles in this series back in DTB days, and really liked them. link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Red-H...dp/B006CUXQNK/

The Whitstable Pearl Mystery is the first in the Whitstable Pearl series by Julie Wassmer: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whitstable-...dp/B00T6L14G8/

[Apache]

The Inspector Chen series by Qiu Xiaolong is a great series. I am eagerly waiting to see if he writes another in the series.
Apache

[sufue]

Today's Big Deal at Kindle UK is 15 titles by Mary Higgins Clark for £0.99 each. Link to the sale: https://www.amazon.co.uk/b/ref=s9_ac...d_i=5400977031

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Kieran Seymour

Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal is a 99p Daily Deal at Amazon UK

I loved Day of the Jackal.

[sufue]

Me too. Re-read it not too long ago, and still great...

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I loved Day of the Jackal.

[GA Russell]

I liked The Day of the Jackal so much that I do not have any interest in reading current thrillers.

[sufue]

While looking for other things, I noticed that The Abyssinian Proof, which is the second in Jenny White's Kamil Pasha series, has dropped to £0.99 at Kindle UK. I've read and liked all three titles in this series.

link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006W2V1R6

Spoiler:

19th-century Istanbul: a conspiracy to steal an ancient reliquary; a secret which could change the world.

The Ottoman Empire is plagued by thefts of antiquities from mosques and churches that, within days, appear for sale in Europe. Among them is a reliquary, presumed lost for four hundred years and around which an elaborate and mysterious sect has grown.

In Istanbul, magistrate Kamil Pasha is under pressure to break the smuggling ring amid rising tensions between Christians and Muslims. He confronts a mysterious adversary who will stop at nothing to get the reliquary first. With the Balkans aflame and Kamil's personal life in upheaval, the search into the old neighbourhoods where Istanbul's crime rings reside may cost Kamil not only his position but also his life.

[sufue]

Palace of Justice is the second in the Aristide Ravel series by Susanne Alleyn. It has dropped to £0.99 at Kindle UK. I've read and quite enjoyed this series.

link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00PM4RRQE

Spoiler:

Louis XVI is in his grave, and Marie-Antoinette is on her way to trial. Paris is hungry, restless, and fearful in the autumn of 1793, and the guillotine’s blade is beginning to fall daily on the necks of enemies of the French Republic. Not even members of the republican government are safe from the threat of the Revolutionary Tribunal, where the only sentence for the guilty is death.

In this atmosphere of distrust and anxiety, police agent Aristide Ravel, while coming to terms with personal tragedy, must stop a ruthless killer who is terrorizing the city. Ravel soon learns, however, that hunting a murderer who strikes at random and leaves headless corpses on the streets, paralleling the ever more numerous victims of the guillotine, is a task that will lead him to dark, painful secrets and echoes from an even darker past.

[sufue]

And yet another holiday-themed title...although this one is coming pretty late. Luckily e-books don't need to be shipped .

Aunt Dimity's Christmas, by Nancy Atherton, Aunt Dimity series #5, $1.99

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0063OCY6U
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/aun...ty-s-christmas

Spoiler:

The fifth installment in the bestselling and beloved Aunt Dimity series. Watch out for Nancy Atherton's latest, Aunt Dimity and the King's Ransom, coming in July 2018 from Viking!

Lori can hardly wait for Christmas this year: lean times are over, the cottage Aunt Dimity willed her is more beautiful than ever, her nine-month-old twins, Will and Rob, are thriving, and she and husband Bill have never been happier. Determined to make this Christmas the best ever, Lori embarks on a round of shopping, holly-cutting, angel-cookie making, and more. When fat snow flakes begin drifting down outside of the window, Lori feels all her holiday wishes are about to come true. But the next day, beneath the lilac bushes now covered by freshly fallen snow, Lori makes a disturbing discovery: the body of a mysterious stranger--a tramp--barely alive.

While the nearby village of Finch continues with its seasonal preparations, including rehearsals for the Christmas Eve Nativity play, Lori puts her plans on hold and teams up with Julian Bright--a devilishly attractive Roman Catholic priest--to search out the stranger's identity. Their journey takes them from abandoned World War II airfields to homeless shelters, places where the Christmas star shines dimly, if at all. As Lori unveils the tragic secret that led the stranger to her door, she confronts painful truths about herself and discovers the real meaning of a perfect family Christmas.

[ZodWallop]

James Scott Bell's Your Son Is Alive is free at Amazon US. It may be self published and I haven't read it yet. But the synopsis sounds very good, the reviews praise it and the price is right. I snagged a copy, anyway.

Dylan and Erin Reeve have lived with a gaping emotional wound ever since their five-year-old son, Kyle, was kidnapped in broad daylight.

And never found.

Though the shadow of their loss hangs heavy, Dylan and Erin have managed to get on with their lives, even finding bits of happiness along the way.

Until one night when a crayon-scrawled note is slipped under Dylan Reeve's door.

All it says is, Your son is alive.

Could it be true?

Or is it a sick game played by somebody out for money? Or something else?

But what?

And why now?

As clues begin to emerge—both agonizing and expectant in their implications—Dylan and Erin Reeve know they have to play this out to the end. Because it's their last chance—and their only hope—to find the son they lost all those years ago.

[sufue]

Big Sister is the most recent (2018 for the English translation, 2016 for the original Norwegian) in the Varg Veum series by Gunnar Staalesen. It has dropped to $0.99 at Kindle and Kobo US (coupon/VIPable).

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CZWT6MV
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/big-sister-8

Spoiler:

Varg Veum receives a surprise visit in his office. A woman introduces herself as his half-sister, and she has a job for him. Her god-daughter, a 19-year-old trainee nurse from Haugesund, moved from her apartment in Bergen two weeks ago. Since then no one has heard anything from her. She didn't leave an address. She doesn't answer her phone. And the police refuse to take her case seriously. Veum's investigation uncovers a series of carefully covered-up crimes and pent-up hatreds, and the trail leads to a gang of extreme bikers on the hunt for a group of people whose dark deeds are hidden by the anonymity of the Internet. And then things get personal.