FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[sufue]

Dead as a Doornail is the third Sookie Stackhouse book by Charlaine Harris. It's $2.99 right now in the US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000O76OP4
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B000O76OP4
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/dea...ackhouse-novel

Spoiler:

When Sookie Stackhouse sees her brother Jason’s eyes start to change, she knows he’s about to turn into a were-panther for the first time. But her concern becomes cold fear when a sniper sets his deadly sights on the local changeling population, and Jason’s new panther brethren suspect he may be the shooter. Now, Sookie has until the next full moon to find out who’s behind the attacks—unless the killer decides to find her first...

[Tarana]

Tree of Hands - Ruth Rendell $1.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Crime/mystery

[sufue]

Suddenly While Gardening is the tenth in Elizabeth Lemarchand’s Pollard/Toye series. It’s $0.99/£0.99 at Kindle US/UK right now…

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PYKZS2L
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07PYKZS2L
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07PYKZS2L
Kindle UK/Smile: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07PYKZS2L

Spoiler:

Expect the unexpected…

Detective Chief Superintendent Pollard of New Scotland Yard visits a sleepy village in the English countryside for what he thinks will be a quiet holiday.

But his plans are ruined when some hikers discover a very modern skeleton in an ancient Celtic gravesite.

At first the local authorities think the skeleton is a gruesome practical joke, but when the evidence points to murder, they ask Pollard to take charge of the investigation.

He calls in his partner Detective Inspector Toye to help.

But with increasingly uncooperative locals hindering the investigation it is clear someone has something sinister to hide…

Suddenly While Gardening is the tenth cosy village mystery in the Pollard & Toye crime series: an intriguing police procedural set in rural England.

[Hollow Man]

Agatha Christie's Five Little Pigs is $1.99 at Amazon USA.

[sufue]

Joffe's free book Friday this week is not one, but two collections of mysteries. And, even though it's "free book Friday", it seems to last through the weekend, so these are still free, even though I'm late posting...

The Complete Monica Noble Mysteries by Faith Martin
contains: The Vicarage Murder (apa An Unholy Mess), The Flower Show Murder (apa An Unholy Whiff of Death), and The Manor House Murder (An Unholy Shame)
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097F2Q8S8
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B097F2Q8S8

I do wish Joffe would quit changing titles...

Detectives Roper and Hooley Books 1-4 by Michael Leese
contains: The Case of the Headless Billionaire, The Case of the Missing Faces, The Case of the Dirty Bomb, and The Case of the Exploding Shop
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09WNDYLVF
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09WNDYLVF

[sufue]

Two-and-a-half years later, Top Secret Twenty One is $2.99 again in the US. @Tarana's links below are still good...

Originally Posted by Tarana

Top Secret Twenty One by Janet Evanovich $2.99. Book 21 of the Stephanie Plum series.

Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/Top-Secret-...9034926&sr=8-1
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/top...vugUKgQTA4AfGQ
B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/top...dpid=tekz25v83

BTW, thanks everybody for researching that publisher.

[salty-horse]

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji, translated by Ho-Ling Wong is $2 on Amazon.com
This is a shinhonkaku murder mystery (another description) where the mystery is supposed to be "fair" and the reader is challenged to solve it before the solution is revealed.

Taking its cues from Agatha Christie’s locked-room classic And Then There Were None, the setup is this: The members of a university detective-fiction club, each nicknamed for a favorite crime writer (Poe, Carr, Orczy, Van Queen, Leroux and — yes — Christie), spend a week on remote Tsunojima Island, attracted to the place, and its eerie 10-sided house, because of a spate of murders that transpired the year before. That collective curiosity will, of course, be their undoing.

As the students approach Tsunojima in a hired fishing boat, 'the sunlight shining down turned the rippling waves to silver. The island lay ahead of them, wrapped in a misty veil of dust,' its sheer, dark cliffs rising straight out of the sea, accessible by one small inlet. There is no electricity on the island, and no telephones, either.

A fresh round of violent deaths begins, and Ayatsuji’s skillful, furious pacing propels the narrative. As the students are picked off one by one, he weaves in the story of the mainland investigation of the earlier murders. This is a homage to Golden Age detective fiction, but it’s also unabashed entertainment.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji, translated by Ho-Ling Wong is $2 on Amazon.com
This is a shinhonkaku murder mystery (another description) where the mystery is supposed to be "fair" and the reader is challenged to solve it before the solution is revealed.

There is a manga adaptation of that book. Huh.

Anyway, another Japanese mystery on sale for $1.99: Death on Gokumon Island by Seishi Yokomizo.

A fiendish, classic locked room murder mystery, from one of Japan's greatest crime writers

Loosely inspired by Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, the brilliant Gokumon Island is perhaps the most highly regarded of all the great Seishi Yokomizo's classic Japanese mysteries.
*
Detective Kosuke Kindaichi arrives on the remote Gokumon Island bearing tragic news--the son of one of the island's most important families has died, on a troop transport ship bringing him back home after the Second World War. But Kindaichi has not come merely as a messenger--with his last words, the dying man warned that his three step-sisters' lives would now be in danger. The scruffy detective is determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious prophecy, and to protect the three women if he can.
*
As Kindaichi attempts to unravel the island's secrets, a series of gruesome murders begins. He investigates, but soon finds himself in mortal danger from both the unknown killer and the clannish locals, who resent this outsider meddling in their affairs.

I picked up books 1 (The Honjin Murders) and 6 (The Inugami Curse) of this series when they were on sale.

[salty-horse]

Thanks, missed that.
Here's another article about the genre:
Honkaku: a century of the Japanese whodunnits keeping readers guessing

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Thanks, missed that.
Here's another article about the genre:
Honkaku: a century of the Japanese whodunnits keeping readers guessing

So Encyclopedia Brown has been Honkaku all along!

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

So Encyclopedia Brown has been Honkaku all along!

Obligatory Wikipedia Brown link: http://adamcadre.ac/content/brown/ (Sorry, this is image-based, so might be hard to read for some)

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji, translated by Ho-Ling Wong is $2 on Amazon.com
This is a shinhonkaku murder mystery (another description) where the mystery is supposed to be "fair" and the reader is challenged to solve it before the solution is revealed.

I read this one last year and found it so-so; maybe the verve was lost in translation, but it was too flat for my taste. I was able to figure out the murderer easily enough but there's a nice twist at the end.

[sufue]

I had ARCs of both Honjin and Inugami, and liked them well enough. They were clearly based on specific types of murder plots (locked room, and competitors for an inheritance), and the author even mentions some classic mysteries they are like. I gave them both 4 stars, which for me is a solid "worth reading", but not something I would re-read. And I think some other authors have done each type better. But still enjoyable, and kind of fun to have some different settings/characters than an English country village ...

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

There is a manga adaptation of that book. Huh.

Anyway, another Japanese mystery on sale for $1.99: Death on Gokumon Island by Seishi Yokomizo.



I picked up books 1 (The Honjin Murders) and 6 (The Inugami Curse) of this series when they were on sale.

[sufue]

A few years later, The Prime Minister's Secret Agent is again $1.99 in the US. The links below are still good.

Originally Posted by sufue

The Prime Minister's Secret Agent is the fourth in the much nominated/awarded Maggie Hope series by Susan Elia Macneal. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Prime-Ministe...dp/B00H6JBEVW/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...s-secret-agent

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Loosheesh

I read this one last year and found it so-so; maybe the verve was lost in translation, but it was too flat for my taste. I was able to figure out the murderer easily enough but there's a nice twist at the end.

Could it be their age? They were published mid-40's/early 50's. Or were they just dull regardless?