FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[sufue]

A couple of Joffe Free Friday mysteries today, and maybe (???) through the weekend.

False Money, fifth in the Bea Abbot series by Veronica Heley
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BPDPRJ79
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BPDPRJ79

The Magic Chair Murder, first in the Black/Dod series by Diane Janes
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Z2WCFXR
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09Z2WCFXR

There is also a Christmas-themed romance for free today - check out this post in the Romance thread if you're interested.

[sufue]

Today's Big Deal at Kindle UK says that it's six Faith Martin books, all from her Ryder/Loveday series, for £0.99 each. But, apparently the folks at Kindle UK can't count, because it's actually the first seven books...all of the series, except for the eighth/last. I haven't read any in this series, nor many Faith Martin books at all...perhaps someone else has?

Titles include:

• A Fatal Obsession
• A Fatal Mistake
• A Fatal Flaw
• A Fatal Secret
• A Fatal Truth
• A Fatal Affair
• A Fatal Night

link to the Kindle UK Big Deal webpage: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?node=4725112031

[sufue]

All the Dead Shall Weep is the fifth and most recent (Sept 2023) in Charlaine Harris' Gunnie Rose series - which is a set of "supernatural thrillers" according to SYKM. I haven't read any of this series, but SYKM does list them, so putting it here. This one's on sale for £0.99 at Kindle and Kobo UK right now....

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BWTLJJ23
Kobo UK: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/all...d-shall-weep-1

Spoiler:

No. 1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Charlaine Harris returns to her alternate history of the United States where magic is an acknowledged but despised power in this fifth installment of the Gunnie Rose series.

Following the murderous events of The Serpent of Heaven, Lizbeth Rose is awaiting the arrival of her sister Felicia and her husband's younger brother Eli in Texoma. Both needed to leave the seat of the Holy Russian Empire in San Diego after Felicia's burgeoning wizardly power in death magic became the reason for kidnapping and assassination attempts from her mother's family of high-powered wizards in Mexico.

Yet bad news has travelled ahead of them, as Eli is called back to San Diego, taking Peter along with him, splitting them apart in more ways than one as their enemies' plans for revenge come to fruition . . .

[sufue]

The Motion Picture Teller is a recent (2023) non-series title by Colin Cotterill. It's on sale in the US and UK, and discountable at Kobo UK. I've not read this one, but have liked a couple of his other series.

Kindle US, $1.99: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Y53R3TB
Kobo US. $1.99: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...picture-teller
Kindle UK, £0.81: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09Y53R3TB
Kobo US, £0.99, discountable: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the...picture-teller

Spoiler:

An enchanting new standalone novel from CWA Dagger winner Colin Cotterill, set in Bangkok: a mystery without a crime, where the line between fact and fiction blurs, and nothing is as simple as it appears

Thailand, 1996: Supot, a postman with the Royal Thai Mail service, hates his job. The only bright spot in his life is watching classic movies with his best friend, Ali, the owner of a video store. These cinephiles adore the charisma of the old Western stars, particularly the actresses, and bemoan the state of modern Thai cinema—until a mysterious cassette, entitled Bangkok 2010, arrives at Ali’s store.

Bangkok 2010 is a dystopian film set in a near-future Thailand—and Supot and Ali, immediately obsessed, agree it’s the most brilliant Thai movie they’ve ever seen. But nobody else has ever heard of the movie, the director, the actors, or any of the crew. Who would make a movie like this and not release it, and why?

Feeling a powerful calling to solve the mystery of Bangkok 2010, Supot journeys deep into the Thai countryside and discovers that powerful people are dead set on keeping the film buried.

[sufue]

Rebus: The Early Years contains the first three John Rebus books by Ian Rankin: Knots And Crosses, Hide And Seek and Tooth And Nail (apa Wolfman). It's £0.99 at Kindle UK right now as part of today's Daily Deal. This is a great price for three books, and isn't bad even if you need only one...

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B086QL6QHT

Spoiler:

Knots and Crosses

The very first Rebus novel from the No.1 bestselling author.

'And in Edinburgh of all places. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you...?'

'That sort of thing' is the brutal abduction and murder of two young girls. And now a third is missing, presumably gone to the same sad end. Detective Sergeant John Rebus, smoking and drinking too much, his own young daughter spirited away south by his disenchanted wife, is one of many policemen hunting the killer.

And then the messages begin to arrive: knotted string and matchstick crosses - taunting Rebus with pieces of a puzzle only he can solve.

Hide and Seek

Inspector Rebus returns in the second novel from 'Britain's No.1 crime writer' (DAILY MIRROR).

A junkie lies dead in an Edinburgh squat, spreadeagled, cross-like on the floor, between two burned-down candles, a five-pointed star daubed on the wall above.

Just another dead addict - until John Rebus begins to chip away at the indifference, treachery, deceit and sleaze that lurks behind the facade of the Edinburgh familiar to tourists.

Only Rebus seems to care about a death which looks more like a murder every day, about a seductive danger he can almost taste, appealing to the darkest corners of his mind...

Tooth and Nail

Rebus is back, this time on the tail of a serial killer known as the Wolfman...

They call him the Wolfman - because he takes a bite out of his victims and because they found the first victim in the East End's lonely Wolf Street. Scotland Yard are anxious to find the killer and Inspector Rebus is drafted in to help. But his Scotland Yard opposite number, George Flight, isn't happy at yet more interference, and Rebus finds himself dealing with racial prejudice as well as the predations of a violent maniac.

When Rebus is offered a serial killer profile of the Wolfman by an attractive female psychologist, it's too good an opportunity to miss. But in finding an ally, he may have given his enemies an easy means of attack.

[JSWolf]

23 ½ Lies by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro is £0.99 in the UK. It is #23.5 of the Women's Murder Club series.

23 ½ Lies
When SFPD Sergeant Lindsay Boxer is called to investigate a crime scene, nothing can prepare her for what she finds: her estranged father gunned down execution style. The case will soon reveal to Lindsay a series life-altering truths . . .

Fallen Ranger
A series of armed robberies are linked to a gang of motorcycle bandits. Rory Yates, the hero of Texas Ranger, is tasked with hunting them down.

Watch Your Back
A starving artist is paid to expose his client's cheating wife. But no amount of money can protect him from a world of corruption . . .

Amazon UK
Kobo UK
eBooks.com UK

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

23 ½ Lies by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro is £0.99 in the UK. It is #23.5 of the Women's Mulder Club series.

The Women's Mulder Club is smaller than it used to be, but I'm sure there's still members.

[ZodWallop]

Now You See It… by Richard Matheson is $2 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US.

An “absorbing” horror novel “with more hairpin turns than a mountain road” (The Washington Post): At an isolated country estate, magician Delacorte is paralyzed, only able to move his eyes — and forced to watch as his son, Max, is slowly poisoned by his wife…

[sufue]

A Fox in the Fold is the fourteenth and most recent (2022) in Candace Robb's Owen Archer series. It's $1.99 right now at Kindle US, but not on sale at Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B3J2RWQZ

Spoiler:

October, 1376. Owen Archer is summoned by sheriff Sir Ralph Hastings regarding a stripped and bloodied body discovered on the road north to York. Could it be connected to an attack on a carter and his labourers who were transporting stone destined for St Clement's Priory? The carter fled, but his men stayed to fight and are now missing. Is the victim one of them?

At first Owen believes the catalyst for murder and menace in York is the arrival of the political pariah William Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester. But he soon suspects that a formidable and skillful adversary from his past has arrived in the city, thrusting him and his family into grave danger, and his investigation becomes a race to uncover the truth before his old nemesis destroys all he holds dear.

[sufue]

Driving Force is one of Dick Francis' many non-series titles, this one from the early 1990s. It's on sale right now at Kindle UK for £0.99. I've always liked the oddly enjoyable insights that one gets from many of Francis' books into various industries that are adjacent to horse racing. (And some that are not so closely related, e.g. Proof...) In Driving Force, the adjacent industry is the business of moving often-insanely-valuable horses around the UK and Europe, and I remember this one quite fondly.

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006X23G5A

Spoiler:

Ex-jockey Freddie Croft now runs a fleet of vehicles which transport racehorses across the British Isles and Europe. But when two of his drivers pick up a hitchhiker who ends up dead, Freddie's got a big problem.

First, it quickly becomes apparent that the hitcher wasn't quite what he seemed.

And second, Freddie finds that his horse boxes might just be being used for moving something a lot less legal than horses.

Now he must figure out what is going on before the police, and before whoever is doing it cottons on and tries to stop him - permanently . . .

[sufue]

I'm late posting the Joffe Free Friday books, but luckily, as of Sunday morning in the US, they are still free. There are three this week, but only one mystery/thriller: Patricia MacDonald's Don't Believe a Word

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093H692TZ
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B093H692TZ

Spoiler:

A NAIL-BITING DOMESTIC THRILLER FROM A BESTSELLING AUTHOR.

One phone call changes everything.

Eden’s mom is dead in what looks to be a murder-suicide. She wasn’t perfect but Eden can’t believe she could be a killer.

But if her mom didn’t do it, who did?

Find out in DON’T BELIEVE A WORD.

A seamless blend of high domestic suspense with a shattering final twist.

The other two are a holiday romance and an alternate history/conspiracy thriller-type thing that I put in Fiction/Everything Else. Check those threads if you are interested...

[sufue]

Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI, by David Grann, isn't a typical mystery, but per its blurb, it won an Edgar for "Best Fact Crime", so I'm cross-posting here.

It's £0.99 at Kindle UK for a few more hours, as part of today's Daily Deal.

[salty-horse]

Crime In The Land of 7,000 Islands by Zephaniah Sole is $1 on Amazon.com)
Recommended by author K. J. Charles (Review)

A powerhouse crime thriller fused with folk tales and the influence of anime.

This psychological literary fiction tells the tale of Ikigai Johnson, a Special Agent working out of the FBI's Portland, Oregon field office, who pledges to bring justice to children abused by a monstrous American in the Philippines. Amidst an expertly accurate police procedural, Ikigai recounts her tale to her eleven-year-old daughter through fantastical allegory.

Her story exposes the damage that arises from exploitation, inequality, and generational trauma. Exploring the nuances of criminal justice, it enacts the battle between our courage and our submission to fear. It is an important call to act against evil.

Death in Disguise (Inspector Barnaby #3) by Caroline Graham is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
The basis for the Midsomer Murders TV show. The novel was adapted for the 5th episode of the show.

The Lodge of the Golden Windhorse has provided the citizens of Compton Dando with splendid fodder for gossip, prompting speculation of arcane rituals and bizarre sexual practices. But with the murder of the commune’s leaders, the rumor-mill goes into overdrive. Now Chief Inspector Barnaby must separate rumor from reality in a case where the facts are often stranger than fiction.

The residents of the Windhorse commune may have been seeking the simple life, but they’re all concealing complicated pasts—or past lives.

[GA Russell]

Detective Short Stories magazine
January, 1939, issue

12 short stories, including

The Careless Cadaver
by Hugh B. Cave

$1.99

https://www.radioarchives.com/Detect...9_p/re1145.htm

[ZodWallop]

Penance by Kanae Minato is $3 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US.

I read Minato's Confessions earlier this year and just couldn't put it down, even though I was visiting family out of state. One of the best books I've read this year.

A chilling Japanese psychological thriller and Edgar Award finalist about four women, forever connected by one horrible day in their childhood -- fifteen years later, someone wants to make sure they never forget.

When they were girls, Sae, Maki, Akiko and Yuko were tricked into leaving their friend Emily with a mysterious stranger. Then the unthinkable occurred: Emily was found murdered hours later.

The four friends were never able to describe the stranger to the police; the killer's trail went cold. Asako, the bereaved mother, curses the surviving girls, vowing that they will be the ones to pay for her daughter's murder . . .

Like Confessions, Kanae Minato's award-winning, internationally bestselling debut, Penance is a dark tale of revenge and psychological drama that will leave readers breathless.