FREE/BARGAIN - Mystery, Suspense, Thriller - 2014

[ATDrake]

Free from the author via KDP Select @ Amazon: (linkage for the lot):

Power Play by Larry Johns, a vintage espionage action thriller originally out from UK publisher Robert Hale in 1980.

Jackie Ryderbeit, carrying a government licence to kill, is tossed into a cauldron of International intrigue with orders to find and eliminate a double agent. With the help of a booze-sodden ex-courier and an over-the-hill trigger- man he casts for a shark only to find a whale on his line.

The story reaches a shattering climax on the blue waters of the Mediterranean after a chase through the confused currents of cross and double-cross.

A Warrior's Code, a mercenary soldier adventure thriller originally out from Robert Hale in 2011.

Treachery and double-cross are the hallmarks of the mercenary soldier. Can you ever know who the real enemy is? Is it the man in the cross-hairs, or the friend alongside you? Or is it the man who pays your wages? Martin Palmer must fight his war in the grim certainty that a potentially fatal bullet could come from any direction. And yet he must fight, because fighting is all he knows. It is a deadly challenge that will test him to the limits of his endurance and beyond. Because, in a world where change is possible, there will always be another paymaster with high aspirations, and enough money to pursue them. And money, of course, is the mercenary soldier's creed. (description cribbed from the hardcover version, since the e-book blurb is literally just one single really cryptic line)

Johns' two other books from yesterday are still free as well.

Free again from the author via KDP Select @ Amazon:

The Big Goodbye by Michael Lister (SYKM), 1st in his Jimmy Riley series of Soldier Mysteries set in 1940s Florida, starring the eponymous hard-boiled noir one-armed ex-cop turned PI, originally out from small press Pulpwood in 2011. The blurb indicates that this particular installment may have strong romantic elements, and quotes a favourable Publisher's Weekly review.

Someone is following Lauren Lewis.

She ducks into the office of PI, Jimmy “Soldier” Riley, not to hire him, but to find out if he’s the one following her. Back when they were lovers he told her if he ever decided to, she’d never know he was there.

It’s1940’s Panama City, Florida. The world is at war, and the growing panhandle paradise is doing its part. Tyndall Field is training pilots. Wainwright Shipyard is building battleships. The Naval Section Base is protecting vessels in the Gulf. The Dixie Sherman Hotel is hosting celebrities such as Clark Gable. Harry Lewis, a wealthy banker, is running for mayor, unaware his wife is running for her life.

With a secret to hide and a husband running for mayor in a city exploding and expanding like no other time in history, Lauren doesn’t want trouble, but she’s about to get a double-barrel full of it. Only one man can help her, and though it might destroy him, he doesn’t mind. Better to die than be the walking wounded.

[sufue]

And yet another Anthea Fraser book, Motive for Murder, is one of the US Kindle countdown deals. It's at $0.99 for about the next 5 1/2 days, and after that goes to $3.99, which appears to be the normal price for Fraser's backlist books. It's about 9 am on Friday, Oct 31, US Pacific time, right now.

According to the SYKM website, this is one of Fraser's non-series books, originally published in 1996.

Link: http://www.amazon.com/Motive-Murder-...dp/B00NNMLEHK/

Blurb:

Spoiler:

When Emily Barton applies for a position as secretary to the moody, mysterious author Matthew Haig, it does not occur to her that she may be putting her life in danger at Touchstone.

From the first, she can sense the Cornish house has many secrets.

Why did her predecessor leave so suddenly?

And why will no one talk about her fate?

Kept at a distance by her brusque employer, Emily is grateful when his handsome cousin, Mike Stacey, offers her companionship.

However, her uneasiness is increased when she discovers that the book Matthew is working on is based on an unsolved local murder, which gives the title, ‘Motive for Murder,’ a new and threatening significance…

Torn between investigating the mysterious deaths at Touchstone and fathoming the two cousins’ intentions, Emily finds herself plunged into danger.

Can she unlock the secret behind the killings?

Or will she remain in the dark about this Motive for Murder?

Praise for Anthea Fraser:

“A superbly crafted, riveting, page-turner of a read" - Booklist

“Ms Fraser is her dependable elegant, guileful self withholding the killer's identity till a dying fall" - Sunday Times

'A well-mannered, well-plotted and well-told story' - Birmingham Post

'Sympathetic, well-executed book, in which full attention is paid to human feelings and failings' - Yorkshire Post

Anthea Fraser has written all her life but did not begin to take it seriously until after marriage, when she found herself at home with two small daughters and embarked on a correspondence course with the London School of Journalism. She wrote short stories before turning to novels of the supernatural, and then to crime. Her novels include ‘The Seven Stars’, ‘The Ten Commandments’, ‘Death Speaks Softly’ and ‘Pretty Maids All in a Row’.

[sufue]

Don't Dare a Dame is the third in the Maggie Sullivan mystery series by M Ruth Myers. It's a US Kindle Countdown deal at $0.99 for about the next 2 1/2 days, before going up to $3.99, which appears to be its normal price. The first two have also been freebies/bargain in the past so this finishes off the books in the series to date.

According to the SKYM website, this book was a finalist for a 2014 Shamus Award for Best Indie PI Novel.

link: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GJQEGO0/

blurb:

Spoiler:

2014 SHAMUS AWARD FINALIST

Depression-era private investigator Maggie Sullivan risks losing her P.I. license — and her life — when two spinsters hire her to learn the fate of their father, who vanished twenty-six years earlier. She’s barely started when her main suspect commits suicide and Maggie is summoned before the powerful chief of police. A stroke of his pen will revoke her license, and he warns her he’s getting complaints about her from City Hall.

With her livelihood on the line, fortified by a nip of gin and her .38, the intrepid detective follows a trail all but obliterated by time and the catastrophic Dayton flood of 1913 in which the vanished man went missing. It leads her to a local politician with bigger ambitions — and possibly secrets to hide. It takes her into dime stores, cheap hotels, and a violent ambush by men wearing brass knuckles.

As a cop wages a wily campaign to win her affections, and a rag-tag newsboy pushes to become her assistant, crimes of the past explode in the present. Maggie fights to survive foes who must destroy her to destroy each other.

Fans of strong women sleuths and historical atmosphere have dubbed this tough little private investigator “Sam Spade in a skirt.”

[Hampshire Nanny]

Originally Posted by septentrion

Dance of Death (Special Agent Pendergast Book 6) is 1.99$ at amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Death-Sp...kindle_edition...

I'm really disappointed that I missed this one. Price has already gone up to $5.94.

[septentrion]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Nanny

I'm really disappointed that I missed this one. Price has already gone up to $5.94.

ah, sorry for you.

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ 99 cents each for US-only from HarperCollins e-books (likely available in all the US stores, linkage goes to Kobo since that's where I spotted them; you can probably try getting them with the OmniLit 50% off Halloween rebate which GeoffR alerted us to in his thread here):

There's actually quite a lot of mysteries, and I'm not going to bother SYKM-linking the author credentials, since these are all established trad-pub names. Sorry, also unsorted since they've also some sf/fantasy & other genres on sale and I'd like to get some posts before the deals possibly expire if they're meant for monthly turnover.

• Michael Jecks, medieval murder mysteries
• Joan Wolf, medieval murder mysteries
• Barbara Mertz writing as Elizabeth Peters writing as Barbara Michaels, I think these are her suspense thrillers, possibly romantic
• Lauren Haney, Ancient Egyptian murder mysteries
• Carol Thurston, modern Egyptology murder mystery solving a crime in Ancient Egypt
• Bartholomew Gill, Irish police procedural with political/espionage thriller overtones, as far as I can tell

There's actually quite a lot of them at the 99 cent price point, so here's some auto-linkage to the imprint name, sorted by price and filtered by category over @ Kobo.
Also, if you're possibly looking to use up your more disappointing Kobo coupons, Open Road Media's $1.99 Halloween sale is still good through tonight and has a lot of spooky-themed mystery/suspense thrillers and true crime titles, which can be found via the link in gweeks' alert thread.

[sufue]

Two more Archer Mayor/Joe Gunther books are Kindle US Countdown Deals. Occam's Razor is #10 in the series, and Tucker Peak is #12. Eventually we'll maybe see all of Mayor's backlist titles cycle through...


Occam's Razor is $1.99 for 5 3/4 more days, before going back up to its normal price of $3.99. It's about 7 am on Nov 1, US Pacific time, right now. I don't know if I missed it at $0.99, or if there is some pricing experimentation going on here.

Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C3E0D9E/

Blurb:

Spoiler:

The body was positioned so that the train neatly obliterated its head and hands. Dressed in a homeless man's clothes with empty pockets, it might easily be passed-off as an unfortunate John Doe. And yet… Joe Gunther has a knack for knowing when things don't quite add up, and the math in this case is all kinds of wrong. Add a toxic waste dumping scheme, a stabbing, and a whole lot of state politics… if Occam's razor were applied to Gunther's caseload, how many incisions would it make?

Tucker Peak is $0.99 for 1 1/4 more days, before going up to $1.99 for an unknown amount of time. It's still about 7 am on Nov 1, US Pacific time, right now.

Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C3EJFGG/

Blurb:

Spoiler:

An overworked sheriff and a string of condo burglaries at a luxurious ski resort have Lt. Joe Gunther and the newly-minted Vermont Bureau of Investigation digging deep for clues. But it doesnt take long for Joe to find the most likely thief missingand his girlfriend dead. As the complications mount, from drug dealing to environmental terrorism to attempted murder, Joe and his team go undercover to infiltrate the closed society of a one-company town, populated by bored millionaires and supported by a small legion of resort employees, not all of whom are what they seem.

[BearMountainBooks]

The Barbara Michaels are here Gothic mysteries. Not much romance. Sometimes there is a male main and some romantic interest is implied, but he's also usually a possible suspect and it never turns smarmy at all and there often isn't a happily ever after, just a natural close to the stories. In some cases Michaels likes to leave the ending a bit open--as in--was there a ghost...or not? The mystery is always solved, but sometimes that paranormal element is left open-ended. Good books. I really liked most of them.

[ATDrake]

^

Thanks for the info. I'm not really a supernatural-ish suspense-leaning person, but I liked her historical/modern mysteries, so I'll take a chance on the sale ones.

Also, more Barbara Mertz writing as Elizabeth Peters markdowns @ $2.99 each on a baker's dozen of selected titles in her Amelia Peabody and Vicky Bliss series, out from Little & Brown's Constable & Robinson Crime imprint:

Linkage for her author name search sorted by price @ Kobo (not couponable, prices good in Canada & US at least, and likely matched at your favourite North American retailer)

I toyed with the notion of getting these, since I enjoyed both series, but the library has them all in paper if I should ever decide I want to re-read them, so it's an insufficiently compelling price-point for me at the moment, what with the other sale stuff I'm planning to buy this month.

That said, they're really quite enjoyable and recommended if you haven't tried them already (and if Die For Love in the Jacqueline Kirby series were to show up on sale, I'd snatch it up in a heartbeat).

[BearMountainBooks]

I'm waiting for the Jac Kirby ones. They are the only ones I haven't read. Elizabeth Peters is probably my favorite writer. Her Vicky Bliss series is very dear to me. Not only classic cozy, but just that touch of zany chic-lit with a real career woman. I think she invented that sub-genre. I like the Peabody ones too. Some great mysteries and some of the best character driven pieces you'll ever hope to read. I think the Gothic ones will surprise you. You'd never know they were by the same person. A couple of them run dark (Not unholy dark, but chill down your spine dark). The unfinished nature (not answering all the spooky questions) bothers some people, but it's what makes the whole atmosphere of Gothic.

I have all of the Vicky Bliss paperback (last on Kindle). Loved that silly little series.

[ATDrake]

^

The Jacqueline Kirby series is very hilarious in a kind of deadpan matter-of-fact way and utterly delightful, IMHO. 2nd book is the best and funniest of the lot (set at a romance writers' convention where it seems like everyone is named "Valerie", even one of the guys, and has been plagiarizing The Lustful Turk (Wikipedia) for their latest novel's plot). If the Vicky Bliss series was one of your very favourites, I think you'll really like reading these.

Some more Little & Brown Constable & Robin Crime $2.99 markdowns (non-couponable, linkage goes to Kobo but likely price-matched in your favourite Canada/US store):

• assorted The Mammoth Book Of… short story reprint collections edited by Mike Ashley
• David Roberts' Corinthe/Brown just-pre-WWII 1930s murder mystery/maybe-espionage-leaning series starring British aristocrat Lord Edward Corinthe and his friend Verity Browne. I bought a couple of these on sale before BooksOnBoards' demise, but haven't gotten around to reading them yet.
• Barbara Cleverly's 1920s globe-trotting Scotland Yard Inspector Joe Sandilands series. Also a B&B purchase I haven't opened up, IIRC.
• Quentin Bates' Sergeant Gunnhildur Gísladóttir series set in Reykjavik, Iceland. Never heard of these before, but I'll be checking out the reviews shortly before very-likely-scooping it up, since I like Nordic stuff and Iceland is probably my 2nd favourite country in the world

[mitford13]

FWIW, I really like the Bates books. They're fairly low-key: the MC is a non-glamorous, single mum with a supportive partner, co-workers/boss can be a d*ck at times...she just gets on with things. And the Icelandic settings, social & landscape, add the exotic part (for me, anyway.)

[BearMountainBooks]

It's very odd I haven't bought them yet. I think it's because my library has them so I keep telling myself to check them out from there. But haven't done it. I'm sure I'll like them as I've liked nearly every book Peters wrote. The woman was just a genius with characters.

I guess next time I'm at the library I should just bite the bullet and get them!

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by mitford13

FWIW, I really like the Bates books. They're fairly low-key: the MC is a non-glamorous, single mum with a supportive partner, co-workers/boss can be a d*ck at times...she just gets on with things. And the Icelandic settings, social & landscape, add the exotic part (for me, anyway.)

Thanks for the rec! It looks like the $2.99 sale title is actually a novella which one of the Amazon reviews says has been down to $0.99 before, so I think I'll wait for a further price-drop. And the $4.99 C&R Crime title is actually 4th in the series.

OTOH, some of Quentin Bates' other books in the series are out from Soho Press, which makes them couponable, so I'm putting them on my wishlist and for a price-drop when the good coupons are available.

[Fbone]

Sorry, if this has been posted before.

Seven Ways to Die by William Diehl [The Story Plant] is FREE today at Amazon.

http://smile.amazon.com/Seven-Ways-D...en+ways+to+die