FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[GA Russell]

Baby, Would I Lie? - Donald E. Westlake - $1.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CMMWBQC

[ZodWallop]

The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart is $0.99 at Amazon US.

Rinehart's first novel, it was adapted to the stage play and two films titled The Bat. The 1959 version starred Agnes Moorhead and Vincent Price. It is in the public domain and is a hoot. Very much recommended.

The first novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart, America’s queen of crime

This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous.

So says Rachel Innes, the spinster in question and one of the most remarkable heroines in American crime fiction. With the irresistible encouragement of her niece Gertrude and nephew Halsey, whom she raised after her brother’s death, Rachel ignores her better judgment and rents Sunnyside, a sprawling Elizabethan mansion owned by a bank president, for the summer.

The first night passes peacefully. In the morning, the entire staff quits. Late the third night, a sinister figure lurks outside the patio window and Rachel hears a heavy crash on the circular staircase at the east end of the house. The fourth night brings a dead body.

From there, things only get worse. The dead man turns out to be Arnold Armstrong, ne’er-do-well son of the owner of Sunnyside. Aunt Rachel has never seen him before, but Gertrude and Halsey knew him all too well. When the investigating detective directs his attention to her niece and nephew, Aunt Rachel decides to solve the murder herself—and walks straight into a web of deceit and treachery so intricate she might never find her way out.

[Paperbackstash]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart is $0.99 at Amazon US.

Rinehart's first novel, it was adapted to the stage play and two films titled The Bat. The 1959 version starred Agnes Moorhead and Vincent Price. It is in the public domain and is a hoot. Very much recommended.

I own the book in paperback and had no idea it was a Vincent Price movie. Very cool, will have to check the film out

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart is $0.99 at Amazon US.

Rinehart's first novel, it was adapted to the stage play and two films titled The Bat. The 1959 version starred Agnes Moorhead and Vincent Price. It is in the public domain and is a hoot. Very much recommended.

Originally Posted by Paperbackstash

I own the book in paperback and had no idea it was a Vincent Price movie. Very cool, will have to check the film out

Incidentally, after the play The Bat was a hit, Rinehart also wrote a novelization of the play.

Reading through the synopsis of The Circular Staircase, I don't think it is especially close to the play/movie. Though Miss Cornilia renting a large old country mansion from a banker is definitely the same.

[sufue]

Death on Deadline is the second in Robert Goldsborough's enjoyable IMO continuation of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin series. It is a rare Open Road/Mysterious Press price drop to something reasonable in the UK, at £0.99.

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009VR4SSS

Spoiler:

To save his favorite newspaper, Nero Wolfe steps into the crossfire of a tabloid war.

Master sleuth Nero Wolfe’s small circle of friends is limited to his assistant, Archie Goodwin; his chef, Fritz; and Lon Cohen, the head man at the New York Gazette. Cohen knows more about the city’s power structure than any man in Manhattan, and for years, he happily passed Wolfe information in return for the odd exclusive scoop. But now Cohen needs Wolfe’s help, for the Gazette is ailing and the vultures have begun to circle. Scottish newspaper magnate Ian MacLaren plans to gut the paper and turn it into a sex-filled conservative rag. Standing in his way is the company’s chief shareholder, Gazette heir Harriet Haverhill. But when the aged Ms. Haverhill dies in an apparent suicide, no one remains to resist the Scot’s advances except Wolfe. MacLaren may be fierce, but when the cause is just, Nero Wolfe knows how to play dirty too.

[sufue]

$4.99 is not a great sale price, but eReaderIQ doesn't show it any cheaper since 2014, and I like this book...so....

The Fly on the Wall is one of two non-series fiction works by Tony Hillerman. It was published, per SYKM, around the same time as Hillerman published his first Leaphorn mystery. I remember reading it in DTB and really liking it, and then I got it in ebook from Fictionwise (IMS) and really liked it a second time around. And I just reread it again now for fun, and found that parts of it are still pretty apt.

It's a political thriller, but also almost feels like a police procedural, albeit with a reporter doing the investigation, and quite different than the Leaphorn/Chee books, although a little bit of it is set in New Mexico. Anyway, as mentioned above, it has dropped to $4.99 at Kindle US.

link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC11VU

Spoiler:

Ace reporter John Cotton is a fly on the wall -- seeing all, hearing all, and keeping out of sight. But the game changes when he finds his best friend's corpse sprawled on the marble floor of the central rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Suddenly Cotton knows too much about a scandal centered around a senatorial candidate, a million-dollar scam, and a murder. And he hears the pursuing footsteps of powerful people who have something to hide ... and a willingness to kill to keep their secrets hidden.

[sufue]

The Little Sister is the fifth in Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe series. It has dropped to $2.99 at Kindle US and Kobo US. It's normally priced at $9-ish and up, so if you want it, grab it!

This was part of an Chandler omnibus that was on sale in the UK a while back, so if you travel, check carefully before you buy...

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBFM4S
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-little-sister-3

Spoiler:

Crime fiction master Raymond Chandler's fifth novel featuring Philip Marlowe, the "quintessential urban private eye" (Los Angeles Times).

In noir master Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister, a movie starlet with a gangster boyfriend and a pair of siblings with a shared secret lure private eye Philip Marlowe into the less than glamorous and more than a little dangerous world of Hollywood fame. Chandler's first foray into the industry that dominates the company town that is Los Angeles.

[sufue]

Again $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US. Links below are still good...

Originally Posted by sufue

Sara Paretsky's 17th V.I. Warshawski title, Brush Back, was on sale a year or so ago at Kindle UK. Now it has dropped in price to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TY3ZO2I
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/brush-back-2

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by sufue

The Little Sister is the fifth in Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe series. It has dropped to $2.99 at Kindle US and Kobo US. It's normally priced at $9-ish and up, so if you want it, grab it!

This was part of an Chandler omnibus that was on sale in the UK a while back, so if you travel, check carefully before you buy...

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBFM4S
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-little-sister-3

Thank you! I think Playback is now the only Raymond Chandler book I'm missing in ebook format (not counting the many bootlegs available on Amazon).

[ZodWallop]

Koko by Peter Straub is on sale for $1.99 at Amazon US.

Likely his best book after Ghost Story. Four Vietnam vets tracking a former brother-in-arms that may have become a serial killer. Highly recommended.

The book is listed as the first in a trilogy. Really, it stands alone. He later wrote other novels that feature some of the characters from Koko, but they aren't quite direct sequels.

Bestselling author Peter Straub's Koko is a gripping psychological thriller in which horror and paranoia are indistinguishable from reality.
Koko. Only four men knew what it meant. Now they must stop it. They were Vietnam vets-a doctor, a lawyer, a working stiff, and a writer. Very different from each other, they are nonetheless linked by a shared history and a single shattering secret. Now, they have been reunited and are about to embark on a quest that will take from Washington, D.C., to the graveyards and fleshpots of the Far East to the human jungle of New York, hunting someone from the past who has risen from the darkness to kill and kill and kill.

[sufue]

Hopefully Playback will go on sale sometime .

Or if you visit Canada someday, you can download from Faded Page...

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Thank you! I think Playback is now the only Raymond Chandler book I'm missing in ebook format (not counting the many bootlegs available on Amazon).

[GA Russell]

Strawberry Shortcake Murder (Hannah Swensen #2) - $1.99
https://www.amazon.com/Strawberry-Sh...dp/B00DB790SM/

paperback - $5.95
https://www.hamiltonbook.com/strawbe...der-paperbound

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

Strawberry Shortcake Murder (Hannah Swensen #2) - $1.99
https://www.amazon.com/Strawberry-Sh...dp/B00DB790SM/

paperback - $5.95
https://www.hamiltonbook.com/strawbe...der-paperbound

Poor Strawberry Shortcake. She was kind of annoying, but she didn't deserve such an ignominious end.

[PurpleStar]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Poor Strawberry Shortcake. She was kind of annoying, but she didn't deserve such an ignominious end.

Not that Strawberry Shortcake but hahaha that was funny.

[sufue]

The Other End of the Line is the next to last in the excellent IMO Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle US as part of the Daily Deal, matched at Kobo US. It's a bit unusual to see these price drops on fairly recent titles in this series in the US - they seem to happen much more often in the UK. But in any case, I'm happy!

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Other-Line-In...dp/B07M82PQCC/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...nd-of-the-line

Spoiler:

A WASHINGTON POST BEST MYSTERY OF 2019
A BEST BOOK OF 2019, NPR's Book Concierge

A wave of refugees has arrived on the Sicilian coast, and Inspector Montalbano and his team have been stationed at port, alongside countless volunteers, to receive and assist the newcomers. Meanwhile, Livia has promised their presence at a friend's wedding, and the inspector, agreeing to get a new suit tailored, meets the charming master seamstress Elena Biasini. But while on duty at the dock one late night, tragedy strikes, and a woman is found gruesomely murdered. Between managing the growing crowds at the landing, Montalbano delves into the world of garments, in the company of an orphaned cat, where he works to weave together the loose threads of the unsolved crimes and close the case.