FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[GA Russell]

Death in Donegal Bay

(The Brock Callahan Mysteries)

by William Campbell Gault

$1.99

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00920K45A

[GA Russell]

American Noir Classics
aka The Complete Crime Stories

by James M. Cain

$1.99

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D349R6JT/

[sufue]

Joffe's free book this Friday/weekend is A Body on the Flats, which I am very late in posting, so is probably only good for a few more hours. It's the first in the Kane and Granger series by Max Manning.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCW4CLC2
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DCW4CLC2

Spoiler:

Discover this year’s most hotly anticipated British crime thriller.

Meet Detective Edison Kane. South End murder squad’s finest. Three months ago, his wife was killed on a night out. She wanted him there with her, but he always put work first. And the killer’s never been caught. Now he thinks he’s ready to be back at work . . .

Until a body washes up. On the godforsaken mudflats near Leigh-on-Sea. One look at the dead man’s face, and Kane feels himself start to unravel.

Where the eyes should be, there are only empty sockets.

Kane’s mobile pings with an anonymous message. Murder was so much easier than I thought. See no evil . . .

Everyone knows how that saying goes . . .

It’s up to Kane to stop the twisted killer, before they write their perfect ending.

But he couldn’t protect his wife — and can’t get justice for her now she’s dead and gone. Why should this case be any different?

[salty-horse]

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

From Rachel Kushner, two-time finalist for both the Booker Prize and National Book Award, a “vital” (The Washington Post) and “wickedly entertaining” (The Guardian) novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France—a propulsive page-turner filled with dark humor.**

Creation Lake is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics and clean beauty who is sent to do dirty work in France. “Sadie Smith” is how the narrator introduces herself to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to her lover, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian she has met by “cold bump”—making him believe the encounter was accidental. Like everyone she targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her. Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her “contacts”—shadowy figures in business and government—instruct. First, these contacts want her to incite provocation. Then they want more.

In this region of old farms and prehistoric caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who believes that the path to emancipation is not revolt but a return to the ancient past. Just as Sadie is certain she’s the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story.

Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner’s rendition of “noir” is taut and dazzling. Creation Lake is Kushner’s finest achievement yet—a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure.

[salty-horse]

I previously posted about books 2 and 3. Now 1 and 4 are on sale.
Malice (The Kyoichiro Kaga Series #1) by Keigo Higashino is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

Acclaimed bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is found brutally murdered in his home on the night before he's planning to leave Japan and relocate to Vancouver. His body is found in his office, a locked room, within his locked house, by his wife and his best friend, both of whom have rock solid alibis. Or so it seems.

At the crime scene, Police Detective Kyochiro Kaga recognizes Hidaka's best friend, Osamu Nonoguchi. Years ago when they were both teachers, they were colleagues at the same public school. Kaga went on to join the police force while Nonoguchi eventually left to become a full-time writer, though with not nearly the success of his friend Hidaka.

As Kaga investigates, he eventually uncovers evidence that indicates that the two writers' relationship was very different that they claimed, that they were anything but best friends. But the question before Kaga isn't necessarily who, or how, but why. In a brilliantly realized tale of cat and mouse, the detective and the killer battle over the truth of the past and how events that led to the murder really unfolded. And if Kaga isn't able to uncover and prove why the murder was committed, then the truth may never come out.

Malice is one of the bestselling—the most acclaimed—novel in Keigo Higashino's series featuring police detective Kyochiro Kaga, one of the most popular creations of the bestselling novelist in Asia.

The Final Curtain (The Kyoichiro Kaga Series #4) by Keigo Higashino is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

[sufue]

He Who Whispers is the sixteenth Dr Gideon Fell book by John Dickson Carr. It's $1.99 right now in the US, and discountable at Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1FGQVD
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/he-who-whispers-1

Spoiler:

"Fiendishly ingenious…originally published in 1946, Carr upends the standard locked-room mystery by setting a murder in a totally exposed space: the top of a tower, in broad daylight, and with witnesses below." —Booklist, Starred Review

Carr considered this novel one of his best works, and it is easy to see why when experiencing its ingenious plot delivered with an astounding pace and masterfully drawn characters including none other than the great detective Dr. Gideon Fell.

"It almost seemed that the murder, if it was a murder, must have been committed by someone who could rise up unsupported in the air…"

When Miles Hammond is invited to a meeting of the Murder Club in London, he is met instead with just two other guests and is treated to a strange tale of an impossible crime in France years before; the murder of a man on a tower with only one staircase, under watch at the time at which the murder took place. With theories of levitating vampires abounding, the story comes home to Miles when he realises that the librarian he has just hired for his home is none other than Fay Seton, a woman at the heart of this bizarre and unsolved past murder.

[sufue]

Black Coffee is a novelized version of an Agatha Christie play, featuring Hercule Poirot - and, of course, Captain Hastings as well. It was novelized by Charles Osborne. It's on sale for £0.99 at Kindle UK, but not on sale at Kobo UK, at least as of now, but could probably be price-matched.

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004BDOTMC
Kobo UK (for price check/match): https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/black-coffee-poirot

Spoiler:

A full-length Hercule Poirot novel, adapted from Agatha Christie’s stage play by Charles Osborne

Sir Claud Amory’s revolutionary new formula for a powerful explosive is stolen. Locking his house-guests in the library, Sir Claud switches off the lights to allow the thief to replace the formula, no questions asked. When the lights come on, he is dead, and Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings have to unravel a tangle of family feuds, old flames and suspicious foreigners to find the killer and prevent a global catastrophe.

BLACK COFFEE was Agatha Christie’s first playscript, originally performed in 1930 and made into a now rarely-seen film the following year. Combining her typically beguiling plot and sparkling dialogue with his own faithful narrative, Charles Osborne’s novelisation is ‘A worthy addition to the Christie canon’ (The Spectator)

[sufue]

Blotto, Twinks and the Phantom Skiers is the thirteenth and most recent (2024) in Simon Brett's Blotto and Twinks series, which I've found to be a fun blend of a spoof of PG Wodehouse and just about any Golden Age mystery author. It's on sale in the UK for £2.99 right now.

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CCTYVV53
Kobo UK: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/blo...phantom-skiers

Spoiler:

Blotto and Twinks are off on another adventure - and this time they're bound for the Alpine village of Luzvimmen in Switzerland, where Blotto participates in racing the prestigious and very fast Croissant Run, though someone seems determined to sabotage his chances. Twinks, on the other hand, is on a mission to rescue her friend's sister from the sinister finishing school she is trapped in - the Convent of the Sacred Icicle. Once inside, Twinks is threatened by an elderly nun who shows her a secret glacier in which the Phantom Skiers are entombed... awaiting resurrection so they can wreak vengeance on people who are too curious... like Blotto and Twinks. Meanwhile, up at Schloss Luzvimmen, the crazed Count von Strapp is set on global domination via a deadly arsenal of Swiss cheese hardware he's planning to unleash on the world... Yes, everything's much as usual in the world of Blotto and Twinks

[GA Russell]

Triple Detective Magazine
Summer, 1947

three novels

The Uncomplaining Corpses
(Mike Shayne)
by Brett Halliday

Winter Kill
by Steve Fisher

Even Bishops Die
by Charles Saxby

$1.99

https://www.radioarchives.com/Triple...r_p/re1346.htm

[sufue]

Sad Cypress is the twenty-second (more or less, depending on factors like whether you count collections of short stories as books) in Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot series. It's on sale in the US for $1.99 right now.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FCK9CW
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/sad-cypress

Spoiler:

In Agatha Christie’s classic murder mystery Sad Cypress, a woman damned by overwhelming evidence stands accused of murdering her romantic rival, and only Hercule Poirot stands between her and the gallows.

Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was damning: only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity, and the means to administer the fatal poison.

Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven guilty. Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows.…

[sufue]

Joffe's free mystery this weekend, good for a few more hours, is Simon Brett's The Body on the Beach, which is the first in his Feathering series. Which series appears to have been bought (at least the early books) by Joffe. I would tell you to check carefully before you buy this one, since there has been at least one previous publisher, but it's free, so who cares...

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DDCTY8CR
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DDCTY8CR

Spoiler:

Meet your favourite new sleuthing duo: chalk-and-cheese neighbours, Carole and Jude!

Carole
If British restraint could take human form, it would look suspiciously like Carole Seddon. A retired civil servant with a penchant for order, she keeps her seaside life as tightly buttoned as her sensible raincoat. Carole enjoys the predictable: routine, solitude, and a well-mannered Labrador named Gulliver (at least he doesn’t answer back like her troublesome ex-husband). But when a dead body rudely interrupts her morning stroll, Carole is reluctantly dragged out of her comfort zone. Cue exasperated sighing and meticulous note-taking.

Jude
On the other side of the spectrum (and Carole’s garden fence) lives Jude, a woman of mystery and many scarves. A free-spirited, incense-burning, alternative medicine-dabbling whirlwind, she breezes into Fethering with a knowing smirk and a refusal to reveal her past. Unlike Carole, Jude is perfectly at ease with life’s chaos — actually, she thrives on it. So when Carole finds herself at the centre of a vanishing body mystery, Jude gleefully jumps in, convinced that life is far more interesting when it involves a bit of detective work.

Together, they make the most unlikely crime-solving duo: one stiff as a starched collar, the other as loose as a yoga instructor at a full moon retreat. But despite their differences, this odd pair is about to prove that murder in a sleepy seaside town is anything but predictable.

There's also a free romance, posted in that thread...

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by sufue

Joffe's free mystery this weekend, good for a few more hours, is Simon Brett's The Body on the Beach, which is the first in his Feathering series. Which series appears to have been bought (at least the early books) by Joffe. I would tell you to check carefully before you buy this one, since there has been at least one previous publisher, but it's free, so who cares...

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DDCTY8CR
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DDCTY8CR

I bought that one for £0.99 last December. I'm glad to say I have already ready it. It was an enjoyable cozy murder mystery, as one expects from Simon Brett.

[sufue]

Peter Tremayne's Death of a Heretic, which is a fairly recent Sister Fidelma title (#33), is on sale for £2.99 in the UK. This is one of the few of the Sister Fidelma books I didn't have, so I'm glad to see it on sale.

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09L5ZZ97Q
Kobo UK: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/dea...teries-book-33

Spoiler:

IRELAND AD 672. The abbey of Muman at Imleach Iubhair is being renovated when its guests' hostel burns to the ground. There is one fatality: Bishop Brodulf of Luxovium, a distinguished visitor and cousin to the King of Franks. Sister Fidelma is asked by Abbot Cuán to investigate the unfortunate incident and soon finds that the bishop had been stabbed to death before the fire had even started.

Thrown into a world of treachery and jealousy, where religious beliefs are vehemently disputed, Fidelma and her companions, Eadulf and Enda, face a barrier of deceit. The abbey, a leading ecclesiastical teaching institution as well as a conhospitae, housing both men and women, is divided into factions. Can Abbot Cuán trust Prioress Suanach, who is in charge of the sisterhood? Can the professors trust each other as well as their students? Moreover, can suspicion be levelled at the builders working on the abbey under their dominant Master Builder, Sítae? As more deaths follow, Fidelma must use her wit and ingenuity to unravel the complexities of this intricate mystery.

[ZodWallop]

Out by Natsuo Kirino is $2 at Amazon and Kobo. Highly recommended. I read it twenty years ago and still think about it.

ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • Winner of Japan's Grand Prix for Crime Fiction • Edgar Award Finalist • Nothing in Japanese literature prepares us for the stark, tension-filled, plot-driven realism of Natsuo Kirino’s award-winning literary mystery Out.

This mesmerizing novel tells the story of a brutal murder in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works the night shift making boxed lunches strangles her abusive husband and then seeks the help of her coworkers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime. The coolly intelligent Masako emerges as the plot’s ringleader, but quickly discovers that this killing is merely the beginning, as it leads to a terrifying foray into the violent underbelly of Japanese society.

At once a masterpiece of literary suspense and pitch-black comedy of gender warfare, Out is also a moving evocation of the pressures and prejudices that drive women to extreme deeds, and the friendships that bolster them in the aftermath.

[sufue]

Michael Connelly's most recent book, Nightshade, which came out just last May, is one of those £0.99 deals in the UK today. I got to hear him talk about a week before this came out, at a UCLA business school event. He was a really good speaker, and it was fascinating listening to how he got into writing thrillers, and how he runs his "writing business".

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DNMP89LH
Kobo UK: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/nightshade-74

Spoiler:

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Detective Stilwell has been "exiled" to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland.

But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found wrapped in plastic and weighed down at the bottom of the harbor. Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, he starts doggedly working the case.

Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.