FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by sufue

Another title in the Dead End Job series by Elaine Viets has gone free at Kindle US and UK. Catnapped! is #13 in the series, and was previously free as part of an omnibus of later titles in the series, but here it is again if you missed the omnibus, or just like having them individually without having to split the omnibus yourself !

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079THNYR4
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B079THNYR4



Oh yeah, and for moderators who may not be familiar with this series, this was previously conventionally published by Signet.

Ought these to be read in order? Or doesn't it matter?

[sufue]

There is an overarching story arc of sorts for the characters, that runs through multiple books, so if you care about that sort of thing, I'd try to read them mostly in order. If you mostly read just for the mystery itself, then it doesn't matter so much - the mysteries themselves are self-contained.

I read maybe the first half of the series back when they first came out in paperback, which meant I read them in order naturally, and so I didn't have that issue. But I've recently read a few of the later ones out of order, as they've become available in e-book and it didn't bother me. Of course, I already sort of knew the general background, and I'm not much of a story-arc person in mystery series to start with. (For some reason, I do like story arcs in science fiction/fantasy and romance, but don't care too much in mysteries...)

So, YMMV, but hopefully that helps a little bit...

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Ought these to be read in order? Or doesn't it matter?

[sufue]

Now $1.99 in the US. Still the most recent in the series..

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F1446RQ
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07F1446RQ
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-deadly-divide

Originally Posted by sufue

A Deadly Divide is the most recent (2019) in the Esa Khattak/Rachel Getty series by Ausma Zehanat Khan. It has dropped to £0.99 at Kindle UK. Per SYKM, the first title in this series won/was a finalist for several "Best First" awards...

link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07WC3PW9N

[Tarana]

Night Moves By Jonathan Kellerman $2.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Alex Delaware series

[sufue]

A Maigret Christmas: And Other Stories is a bit more than half-way through the Inspector Maigret series by Georges Simenon. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079KTZN4M
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B079KTZN4M
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-maigret-christmas-1

Spoiler:

In this delightful holiday-themed collection of nine short stories, Inspector Maigret must solve a series of little mysteries—just in time for Christmas morning

Christmas mysteries abound in this light-hearted holiday collection of Jules Maigret’s exploits: In one, an otherwise sensible little girl insists that she has seen Father Christmas, a statement alarming to her neighbors, Monsieur and Madame Maigret. Then, a choirboy helps the inspector solve a crime while he lies in bed with a cold; another boy, pursued by a criminal, ingeniously leaves a trail to help Maigret track him. Many of these stories feature observant and resourceful children, frightened yet resolute, who bring out a paternal streak in the childless Maigret.

The rapport between the inspector and these youthful heroes imparts a delightful freshness to this holiday collection. A Maigret Christmas is a cornucopia for fans of Maigret and mysteries alike.

[sufue]

The Trespasser is the sixth and most recent (2016) in the Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Trespasser-No...dp/B01COJUFIQ/
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/Trespasser-...dp/B01COJUFIQ/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-trespasser-30

Spoiler:

In bestselling author Tana French’s newest “tour de force” (The New York Times), being on the Murder Squad is nothing like Detective Antoinette Conway dreamed it would be. Her partner, Stephen Moran, is the only person who seems glad she’s there. The rest of her working life is a stream of thankless cases, vicious pranks, and harassment. Antoinette is savagely tough, but she’s getting close to the breaking point.

Their new case looks like yet another by-the-numbers lovers’ quarrel gone bad. Aislinn Murray is blond, pretty, groomed-to-a-shine, and dead in her catalog-perfect living room, next to a table set for a romantic dinner. There’s nothing unusual about her—except that Antoinette’s seen her somewhere before.

And that her death won’t stay in its neat by-numbers box. Other detectives are trying to push Antoinette and Steve into arresting Aislinn’s boyfriend, fast. There’s a shadowy figure at the end of Antoinetteʼs road. Aislinnʼs friend is hinting that she knew Aislinn was in danger. And everything they find out about Aislinn takes her further from the glossy, passive doll she seemed to be.

Antoinette knows the harassment has turned her paranoid, but she can’t tell just how far gone she is. Is this case another step in the campaign to force her off the squad, or are there darker currents flowing beneath its polished surface?

[ZodWallop]

The Eight by Katherine Neville is $1.99 at Amazon US. I've not yet read the book, but it was one of those books I perpetually ran across in bookstores.

The “fascinating” #1 international bestseller of a quest across centuries by two intrepid women to reunite the pieces of a powerful, ancient chess set (Los Angeles Times Book Review).

A fabulous, bejeweled chess set that belonged to Charlemagne has been buried in a Pyrenees abbey for a thousand years. As the bloody French Revolution rages in Paris, the nuns dig it up and scatter its pieces across the globe because, when united, the set contains a secret power that could topple civilizations. To keep the set from falling into the wrong hands, two novices, Valentine and Mireille, embark on an adventure that begins in the streets of Paris and leads to Russia, Egypt, Corsica, and into the heart of the Algerian Sahara.

Two hundred years later, while on assignment in Algeria, computer expert Catherine Velis finds herself drawn unwillingly into the deadly “Game” still swirling around the legendary chess set—a game that will require her to risk her life and match wits with diabolical forces.

[sufue]

Six titles in the Phrynne Fisher series by Kerry Greenwood have dropped to $2.99 at Kindle and Kobo US. They're VIP/couponable at Kobo.

Titles are:

• Away with the Fairies, #11
• Murder in Montparnasse, #12
• Queen of the Flowers, #14
• Murder in the Dark, #16
• Dead Man's Chest, #18
• Unnatural Habits, #19

Links for all six (including a couple of strays)...

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/en...SelectorHeader
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/...SelectorHeader
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?Qu...9&fcmedia=Book

Note: several of these have been on sale before in (apparently) slightly different editions - so check carefully before you buy...

[sufue]

An Artless Demise is the seventh and next-to-most-recent (2019) in the Lady Darby series by Anna Lee Huber. It has dropped to $1.99/£1.49 in the US/UK respectively. (It seems that a number of "mainstream" books have started going on sale at the same time in the US/UK - I'll have to start paying attention to which publisher(s)...)

Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/Artless-Dem...dp/B07FC7Y6GT/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/an-artless-demise
Kindle UK/Smile: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Artless-D...dp/B07FC7Y6GT/

Spoiler:

Lady Darby returns to London with her new husband, Sebastian Gage, but newlywed bliss won't last for long when her past comes back to haunt her in the latest exciting installment in this national bestselling series.

November 1831. After fleeing London in infamy more than two years prior, Lady Kiera Darby's return to the city is anything but mundane, though not for the reasons she expected. A gang of body snatchers is arrested on suspicion of imitating the notorious misdeeds of Edinburgh criminals, Burke and Hare--killing people from the streets and selling their bodies to medical schools. Then Kiera's past--a past she thought she'd finally made peace with--rises up to haunt her.

All of London is horrified by the evidence that "burkers" are, indeed, at work in their city. The terrified populace hovers on a knife's edge, ready to take their enmity out on any likely suspect. And when Kiera receives a letter of blackmail, threatening to divulge details about her late anatomist husband's involvement with the body snatchers and wrongfully implicate her, she begins to apprehend just how precarious her situation is. Not only for herself, but also her new husband and investigative partner, Sebastian Gage, and their unborn child.

Meanwhile, the young scion of a noble family has been found murdered a block from his home, and the man's family wants Kiera and Gage to investigate. Is it a failed attempt by the London burkers, having left the body behind, or the crime of someone much closer to home? Someone who stalks the privileged, using the uproar over the burkers to cover his own dark deeds?

To get non-Smile links, replace the "smile" in the URL with "www".

[Tarana]

Christmas Stalkings - Charlotte MacLeod, ed. (Canadian cozy mystery writer). $.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N

Love and Death Among the Cheetahs By Rhys Bowen $1.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N

[sufue]

Sorry, I've been busy all day so this is really late notice, with only a couple of hours left...

Although it purports to be science fiction, today's Big Deal in the UK includes most or all of SJ Parris' Giordano Bruno historical mystery series, for £0.99 each. I've read and liked several titles in this series, based on the real Giordano Bruno, whose life itself reads a little bit like a novel...

Kindle UK Daily Deal: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=s9_ac...d_i=5400977031

Note, most of these have been on sale before, so check carefully before you buy.

[sufue]

Henrietta Who? is the second in Catherine Aird's CD Sloan/Calleshire series. It's on sale for $0.99/£0.99 in the US/UK respectively.

This is one of my top five favorite mystery series, mostly for its dry British humor, and also because it's a really fun window into a past time - although written decades ago, IMO they've aged really well.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00USNENPC
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00USNENPC
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/henrietta-who
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00USNENPC
Kindle UK/Smile: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00USNENPC

Spoiler:

A hit-and-run murder unearths a case of mistaken identity in this “well-bred, well written and genuinely superior” mystery by the Diamond Dagger winner (Kirkus Reviews).

Early one morning in the quiet English village of Larking, the body of a woman named Mrs. Jenkins is found in the road. Miles away, her daughter, Henrietta, receives the bad news while working in the university library. Poor Mrs. Jenkins appears to have been the victim of a horrible car accident.

When an autopsy proves not only that this was no accident but also that Mrs. Jenkins had never had a child, young Henrietta’s life is thrown upside down. If she’s not Mrs. Jenkins’s daughter, then who is she? It’s up to Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan of the Calleshire police force to bring the murderer to justice—and a sense of order back to Henrietta’s life.

Proclaimed by the New York Times in 1968 to be one of the year’s best books, Henrietta Who? is a first-order English whodunit that’ll keep you guessing until the end.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by sufue

This is one of my top five favorite mystery series, mostly for its dry British humor, and also because it's a really fun window into a past time - although written decades ago, IMO they've aged really well.

Perfect recommendation. I'll try them!

[sufue]

I hope you like them!

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Perfect recommendation. I'll try them!

[sufue]

Today's Big Deal in the UK is 18 mysteries/thrillers, including several titles in the Tom Ripley series by Patricia Highsmith, a bunch of Kitty Peck titles by Kate Griffin, several titles by Mary Higgins Clark, and a few titles by Ben Creed, Scott Carson and Lucy Dawson, all for £0.99 each.

link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?i=digital...81&ref=sr_pg_1
Smile link: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/s?i=digit...81&ref=sr_pg_1