FREE / BARGAIN - Cozy Mystery - Nov 2014

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ $1.99 through December from Open Road Media (couponable @ Kobo, price good in all the standard Canada & US stores, may also be on sale in other regions, etc.):

Rest You Merry by the late Canadian-born Nero Award-winner and Edgar-nominee Charlotte MacLeod (SYKM, Wikipedia), who also wrote as Alisa Craig, the festive 1st installment in her Peter & Helen Shandy series starring a pair of academics in Massachussetts, originally published in 1978. Kobo files these under cozy, and Wikipedia claims that MacLeod specifically tailored all her books to be cozies, but YMMV.

On Christmas Day, a University scrooge finds a murdered librarian

Each December, the faculty of Balaclava Agricultural College goes wild with Christmas lights. The entire campus glitters with holiday decorations, save for one dark spot: the home of professor Peter Shandy. But after years of resisting the Illumination festival, Shandy snaps, installing a million-watt display of flashing lights and blaring music perfectly calculated to drive his neighbors mad. The horticulturalist flees town, planning to spend Christmas on a tramp steamer, but soon feels guilty about his prank and returns home to find his Christmas lights extinguished, and a dead librarian in his living room.

Wishing to avoid a scandal, the school’s head asks Shandy to investigate the matter quietly. After all, Christmas is big business, and the town needs the cash infusion provided by the Illumination. As Peter Shandy will soon find, though, there is a dark side to even the whitest of white Christmases.

[ATDrake]

Free from the author('s republishing consortium) via KDP Select @ Amazon:

A Temporary Ghost by Michaela Thompson writing as Mickey Friedman (SYKM), 2nd in her Georgia Lee Maxwell series starring a journalist who moves to Paris, which the author labels as a cozy in the Amazon categories (YMMV), this installment originally out in 1990 from Penguin. We've previously received the 1st in series free a couple of months ago.

A GHOST-WRITING GIG IN PROVENCE--SHE'S LIVING THE DREAM! UNTIL THE KILLING STARTS...

In journalist Georgia Lee Maxwell's second adventure, she leaves her new home in Paris for Provence, where she's been offered a lucrative ghost-writing job. But her co-author, suspected murderess Vivien Howard, the widow of a wealthy New York financier, seems strangely uninterested in writing her memoir Vivian was widely believed to have murdered her husband but was never charged with the crime, and now she promises to tell all.

Amid the beauties of Provence, settled in, a charming renovated farmhouse, Georgia Lee finds a household full of ill-feeling, not to mention suspicious characters -- Vivien's handsome artist lover, Ross; her neurotic daughter, Blanche; and Pedro Ruiz, a mysterious housekeeper who has accompanied them from New York.

Frustrated by Vivien's lack of cooperation and unnerved by threatening letters, Georgia Lee soon realizes that she has become a player in a more dangerous game than she could have imagined. And then there's another murder.

[danicca]

It looks like one of editions of Blackberry Pie Murder from Joanna Fluke is 0.99 $ on amazon. There are three different ones, I wonder what's that about (and the difference in author name didn't help)

[koland]

Originally Posted by danicca

It looks like one of editions of Blackberry Pie Murder from Joanna Fluke is 0.99 $ on amazon. There are three different ones, I wonder what's that about (and the difference in author name didn't help)

I see two editions. This one is $0.99:

http://www.amazon.com/Blackberry-Pie...dp/B00R1PKTM6/

Author name seems ok (ETA: on the book and cover - off on the listing itself, which I missed, the first time), but publisher is listed as lulu.com, yet the sample is the edition from Kensington. Something definitely odd about the listing.

The Kensington edition is nearly $10, but in the lending library/kindle unlimited list; the 99 cent edition is not...

[ATDrake]

Free from the author via KDP Select @ Amazon:

Adorably Dead by Lindsay Maracotta (SYKM), 3rd in her Dead is the New Fabulous series which she files as cozy in the Amazon categories (YMMV), starring a children's film animator living in a glitzy Hollywood neighbourhood, originally published under the title Playing Dead by HarperCollins' William Morrow imprint in 1999. We've previously received at least the 1st-in-series free as well.

"I suppose that when you are about to go downtown to identify your husband's body at the county morgue, you shouldn't be obsessing over what to wear."

Lucy Frampton is trying to lead a normal life amid the glitzy trappings of Los Angeles. Her friends enjoy intimate relationships with aroma therapists and body sculptors, and her neighbors' estates boast screening rooms and humidity-controlled wine cellars. The exclusive Windermere Academy, which her daughter, Chloe, attends, has a shrink on the payroll to lead "encounter sessions" when tiny tempests threaten the students' sunny days.

But Lucy, a sensible, transplanted Midwesterner, keeps her sights down-to-earth. She's an outstanding mom, a sexy wife, and an animator whose career is rocketing. But then, in a flash, her perfect world of storyboard mornings and car-pool afternoons goes from romantic comedy to film noir.

Lucy's new nanny, Brandon, college friend--and onetime lover (but that's another story)--is shot dead while driving her husband's car. It's unclear who the intended victim was, but then Lucy stumbles upon something even more chilling: a video hidden among Brandon's things that might show a child committing a murder.

Though the authorities scoff, Lucy suspects the killer is cruising through classrooms and lunchrooms, as dewy-eyed innocent as any other kid. With a razor wit and a hilarious irreverence for the trappings of fame , Lucy launches a one-woman investigation, leading smack into the looking-glass world of child actors, where nine-year-olds can fire their own parents, where a child's smile commands top dollar--and a killer is about to have the last laugh!