FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[sufue]

Titles in Susan Wittig Albert's China Bayles series almost never go on sale. Now here is a fairly recent (2016) title, the 24th, Blood Orange, on sale in the US ($1.99) and UK (£1.49). Nice!

I read a bunch of these in the early days of the series in DTB and liked them a lot. But, I've kind of lost track of the series since I've moved to e-books, and as mentioned above, they almost never go on sale in e-book. So I'll enjoy catching up a bit, I think...

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B011IUSTP8
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/blood-orange-6
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Orang.../dp/B011IUSTP8

Spoiler:

In the newest China Bayles Mystery in the New York Times bestselling series, China comes to the aid of a nurse who ends up in the hospital...

It’s mid-April in Pecan Springs, and China is renting her guest cottage to Kelly Kaufman, who needs a temporary place to live as she contends with a very acrimonious divorce from her husband Rich. One nasty point of dispute is her part ownership of the Comanche Creek Brewing Company, which she is refusing to sell.

At the same time, as a nurse employed by a local hospice, Kelly has discovered instances of suspicious practices. Even more disturbing, she suspects that a patient was murdered. Kelly’s knowledge could be dangerous, and she wants to get guidance from China on what to do.

But on her way to China’s house, Kelly is forced off the road and critically injured, putting her in a medically induced coma. Now it’s up to China to determine who wanted her out of the picture. Was it her soon-to-be ex? His new lover—who happens to be the sister of China’s friend Ruby? Or someone connected with the corruption at the hospice?

China owes it to her friend to uncover the truth—but she may be putting her own life at risk...

[sufue]

Another repeat Steve Hockensmith freebie collection of short stories...this was last free more than a year ago, so I'm reposting...

Originally Posted by sufue

Steve Hockensmith is the author of the Holmes on the Range series, which I've found to be quite entertaining. Now he has a book of 12 short stories available for free at Kindle US and UK.

Blarney: 12 Tales of Lies, Crime & Mystery

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0081887V2
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0081887V2

[Tarana]

The Marco Effect By Jussi Adler-Olsen $1.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Crime. Another Dept. Q. Was on sale last November.

Here to Stay By Mark Edwards $1.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Psychological Thriller - I like other books by this author - haven't read this one

The Iceman By P. T. Deutermann $1.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Thriller - WW2 naval thriller

The Riverman By Alex Gray $1.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Excellent crime series. First time I've seen it discounted.
Additional books in this series have been listed for $2.99:
A Small Weeping
Glasgow Kiss
The Swedish Girl
The Stalker

[sufue]

Wildside Press and its affiliate/subsidiary/imprint/brand (???) Black Cat Mysteries are offering some Father's Day deals, including a free copy of It's Her Fault by Tony Gleeson, and a couple of nice coupons. Details on those below.

I'm quite fond of Wildside Press/Black Cat because they e-publish one of my favorite, but rather obscure, series, the Stone Angel series by Marvin Albert, and also because I like their inexpensive Megapack collections, which have nice collections of public domain titles. Sure, public domain titles can often be found free here at the MR Patricia Clark Memorial Library, or at Project Gutenberg, or elsewhere, but sometimes it's worth a little bit (at least to me) to have one nice easy download of a lot of titles. Of course, YMMV. And WP/BC are also the publishers for some fun "convention anthologies", like Malice Domestic and Bouchercon.

Anyway, here's info on the deals:

It's Her Fault by Tony Gleeson, part of the Frank Vandegraf/Personal Crimes series, free at the Black Cat site, but not at major retailers; you do have to have a free BC Mystery account to get it
Black Cat: https://bcmystery.com/its-her-fault-...s-epub-kindle/

Spoiler:

Detective Frank Vandegraf isn’t sure how serious to regard the claim of an eccentric university professor that his wife is trying to kill him, especially when a relative insists that she’s gone into hiding because the husband has actually threatened to kill his wife. When the professor turns up murdered shortly thereafter, with a mysterious note lying on his chest that says 'IT'S HER FAULT', Frank redoubles his efforts to locate the missing wife, his prime suspect. But when he does, the case takes a really bizarre turn…

And the coupons, which are good only at the main Wildside Press site (https://wildsidepress.com/), per Wildside publisher John Betancourt:

DADSRULE will get you a free 99-cent ebook of your choice, or 99-cents off any order. Coupon will be live on Saturday. (Maybe sooner. It doesn't hurt to check!)

FATHERSDAY will save you 20% on any order over $20. Coupon will be live on Saturday. (Maybe sooner. It doesn't hurt to check!)

These already (Friday morning) show up on the WP website, but I haven't tried to use them yet, so don't know if they are live yet. I also don't know if the 20% coupon will work on e-books - in the past, often there have been two coupons, one for e-books and one for paper books, so not sure what this one will do...

[Tarana]

Murder in Nice (book 6) - Susan Kiernan-Lewis FREE Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Cozy - Maggie Newberry series

[sufue]

The Benefits of Death is a non-series title by Roderic Jeffries. It's free right now at Kindle US and UK.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HDOTBWS
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01HDOTBWS

Spoiler:

Death waits for no one…

Charles Leithan has been unhappily married for years.

Under normal circumstances, he would have long since divorced his wife for his beloved mistress, but these are not normal circumstances.

Leithan has inherited a significant sum of money, but the conditions state that the instigator of a divorce would forfeit the entirety of the money to the other party.

Unwilling to try to make a living through his mediocre writing, Leithan suffers his corpulent wife and her obsession with pedigreed dogs, sneaking in visits to his mistress whenever she goes out of town.

When Mrs Leithan suddenly disappears, Charles calmly assures the police that he is certain his wife has simply gone away on another visit and there is nothing to worry about.

But the police are suspicious and they’re sure that Charles Leithan knows considerably more about his wife’s disappearance than he is letting on.

The fact that there is a great deal of money involved, and the conditions set upon the possession and use of it, would be damning enough.

And with Charles’s visits to his mistress becoming less and less secretive, it is clear that he is no longer scared of getting caught by his wife, or anyone else for that matter.

The police are certain that Charles is behind his wife’s mysterious disappearance and it’s not long before they think they’re got the case cracked.

Believing they have solved the mystery, the police bring a murder charge before a jury.

The only problem is that there is no body…

The Benefits of Death is an unputdownable thriller with an almighty twist in the tale.

[sufue]

I have loved some of Ross King's non-fiction books, including Brunelleschi's Dome, Michelangelo And The Pope's Ceiling, and Leonardo and the Last Supper. But I had no idea he had written two historical mystery/suspense titles: Ex-Libris and Domino. Now Ex-Libris is on sale at Kindle UK for £1.99. This one is going to start off near the top of my TBR pile. (I can't find it in the US in e-book at all...)

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CLBPTHK
Kindle UK/Smile: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CLBPTHK

Spoiler:

Responding to a cryptic summons to a remote country house, London bookseller Isaac Inchbold finds himself responsible for restoring a magnificent library pillaged during the English Civil War, and in the process slipping from the surface of 1660s London into an underworld of spies and smugglers, ciphers and forgeries. As he assembles the fragments of a complex historical mystery, Inchbold learns how Sir Ambrose Plessington, founder of the library, escaped from Bohemia on the eve of the Thirty Years War with plunder from the Imperial Library. Inchbold's hunt for one of these stolen volumes - a lost Hermetic text - soon casts him into an elaborate intrigue; his fortunes hang on the discovery of the missing manuscript but his search reveals that the elusive volume is not what it seems and that he has been made an unwitting player in a treacherous game.

[Tarana]

Death of a Wicked Witch By Lee Hollis $.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Cozy based in Bar Harbor Maine

The Red Horse By James R. Benn $1.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Historical Mystery - 1944 - Army Detective

Smokescreen By Dick Francis $.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Crime

A Drink Before the War By Dennis Lehane $1.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Crime Fiction - based in Boston

Personal By Lee Child $2.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Crime/thriller Jack Reacher series

[tch65721]

Cocaine Blues (Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Book 1) by Kerry Greenwood - $1.99
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NNZJW1T
Beware - Amazon won't warn you if you already own it.

[Tarana]

The Main Corpse By Diane Mott Davidson $1.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Cozy culinary mystery series and one of my favorite series. Based in Colorado.

[sufue]

Now $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US...links below are still good...

Originally Posted by sufue

The Museum of Desire is the 35th, and next to most recent, in Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware series. It is on sale for $2.99 in the US today...

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RL4JBM3
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07RL4JBM3
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-museum-of-desire-1

[sufue]

The Throne of Caesar is the 13th and most recent (2018) in Steven Saylor's Gordianus the Finder series - unless you count the prequels, in which case, it's the 16th, but still the most recent. It has dropped to £2.99 at Kindle UK. I don't see books in this series on sale very often, so even if it's a bit more than I like to pay (£1.99 is better for backlist!), I'll probably get this one.

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B075JNL3JK
Kindle UK/Smile: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B075JNL3JK

Spoiler:

In The Throne of Caesar, award-winning mystery author Steven Saylor turns to the most famous murder in history . . .

It's Rome, 44 BC, and the Ides of March are approaching.

Julius Caesar has been appointed Dictator for life by the Roman Senate. Having pardoned his remaining enemies and rewarded his friends, Caesar is now preparing to leave Rome with his army to fight the Parthian Empire.

Gordianus the Finder, after decades of investigating crimes and murders involving the powerful, has finally retired. But on the morning of March 10th, he's summoned to meet with Cicero and Caesar himself. Both have the same request - keep your ear to the ground, ask around, and find out if there are any conspiracies against Caesar's life. Caesar, however, has one other important matter to discuss - he is going to make Gordianus a Senator when he attends the next session on the 15th of March.

With only four days left before he's made a Senator, Gordianus must dust off his old skills and see what conspiracy against Julius Caesar, if any, he can uncover. Because the Ides of March are approaching...

[sufue]

The Pot Thief Who Studied the Woman at Otowi Crossing is the ninth and most recent (2020) in the Pot Thief series by J. Michael Orenduff. I've really enjoyed this series over the years - it hits a bunch of my favorite themes: archeology, the American Southwest (where my dad's family is from), some good laughs, and a bit of murder, of course. And this book specifically was a finalist for the 2021 Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US, and is discountable at Kobo!

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0912SCH9C
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0912SCH9C
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...otowi-crossing

Spoiler:

A New Mexico pottery dealer cracks a perplexing mystery in this “winning blend of humor and character development” (Publishers Weekly).

Hubert Schuze is an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and he has a fairly lucrative side gig digging up ancient relics and selling them. He also seems to have a talent for finding killers. When Hubie discovers a body outside his pottery shop, it appears the victim was stabbed in the back with something resembling a screwdriver. But the story gets a lot more mysterious when a video turns up showing the man collapsing with no one else nearby. Furthermore, a slip of paper is found in his pocket, with Hubie’s name and address on it, suggesting there may be a connection between the two men—though Hubie has no idea what it could be.

Now, the professor and pottery expert must put his sleuthing skills to work—while simultaneously managing his new role running the university’s art department—to piece together the shards of a baffling crime in this “breezy” novel from a winner of the Left Award for Best Humorous Mystery starring a “witty” amateur detective (Albuquerque Journal).

[sufue]

Another title in Lynda S Robinson's Lord Meren series has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle US. This time it's the third one, Murder at the Feast of Rejoicing. Thank you, Open Road, for picking up this series, which I really like, and putting the titles on sale from time to time .

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YDZ4L22
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08YDZ4L22

Spoiler:

“As Robinson deftly juggles ancient Egyptian political intrigue and a riveting mystery, she proves again her mastery of the historical whodunit.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

During a celebration for Lord Meren, an agent of King Tutankhamun, one of his relatives is murdered. Known for her sharp tongue and numerous lovers, Anhai could’ve been targeted for any number of reasons, but Meren fears her death might have something to do with the undercover mission he’s currently working on. He’ll have to rummage through family secrets and face a nest of vipers to uncover the truth . . .

“A classic country-house mystery with a delicious twist: the country estate is located in the Nile Valley and belongs to Lord Meren, the confidential agent of King Tutankhamen . . . Good scholarship authenticates the historical setting; imagination provides the sense of danger and romance to make it come alive.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Fascinating.” —The Washington Post Book World

[sufue]

Dead Days of Summer is the 17th in Carolyn Hart's Death on Demand series. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OVLJQO
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B000OVLJQO
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/dead-days-of-summer

Spoiler:

Annie Darling, owner of the Death on Demand mystery bookstore, is understandably upset. It isn't like her p.i. husband Max to abruptly disappear—and homicide is definitely not his style. But when his car is found abandoned on a remote road with a brutally slain, once-beautiful young woman nearby and the murder weapon stashed in the trunk, Annie's worst fears seem justified.

The police have Max all but tried and convicted—except for Chief Billy Cameron, whose unshakable belief in his friend's innocence prompts his removal from the case. And as a media circus descends on tiny Broward's Rock, Annie will have to place her own life in jeopardy to clear her husband's name. But time is running out—and she has only one slim chance to unmask a killer who just may have committed the perfect crime.