FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[Quoth]

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the...CN5Dvgs&cPos=1

Nine Mile Walk. Harry Kemelman. £6 -> £1

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Quoth

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the...CN5Dvgs&cPos=1

Nine Mile Walk. Harry Kemelman. £6 -> £1

An excellent set of stories. I really enjoyed them.

[sufue]

FWIW, California doesn't charge sales tax on e-books. Regular books, yes. E-books, no. California also doesn't charge sales tax (for now) on any downloaded electronic software that doesn't come with physical "media" - i.e. no CD or USB stick loaded with the software. In my real job, I get to argue with vendors about this from time-to-time, and it's never fun.

But unless Beverly Hills has a city sales tax on e-books, which seems highly unlikely, you're free to use 90210 if you want to. If you want to be super-sure, use 90254, which is Hermosa Beach, CA, where I live. I attached a screenshot of a recent Kobo purchase, and you can see there is no tax.

Originally Posted by issybird

People from elsewhere who shop the USA need a zip code because sales tax varies by state.

If someone's going to use a fake zip code, they might as well make it one from a no sales tax state, instead of paying the 9.75% they'd be charged for a Beverly Hills address. That's just kooky.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by sufue

FWIW, California doesn't charge sales tax on e-books. Regular books, yes. E-books, no. California also doesn't charge sales tax (for now) on any downloaded electronic software that doesn't come with physical "media" - i.e. no CD or USB stick loaded with the software. In my real job, I get to argue with vendors about this from time-to-time, and it's never fun.

But unless Beverly Hills has a city sales tax on e-books, which seems highly unlikely, you're free to use 90210 if you want to. If you want to be super-sure, use 90254, which is Hermosa Beach, CA, where I live. I attached a screenshot of a recent Kobo purchase, and you can see there is no tax.

Easier is New Hampshire as there is no sales tax.

[sufue]

This Friday's free Joffe mystery is The Long Dead, which is the first in the John Blizzard series by John Dean. Usually good through the weekend, but as always, I wouldn't count on it if you really want it. I haven't read anything by this author, so no opinion on this one.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F8BWGG14
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F8BWGG14

Spoiler:

Meet Detective Chief Inspector John Blizzard — burly and blunt. He takes no nonsense from crooks or his superiors.

The bestselling British detective series starts here — in a windswept Northern city where the past is never truly dead. The books have over 7000 five-star reviews.

On the edge of Hafton — a cold, rainy city shadowed by its industrial past — construction workers uncover a burial site beneath an old farm. Fifteen bodies lie beneath the frostbitten soil: German POWs from World War II. But one body doesn’t belong.

Modern clothes. A bullet in the skull. And a very recent death.

DCI John Blizzard is called in to investigate. The dead man was a known thug with dangerous connections — but what was he doing at the site of a disused prisoner-of-war camp, and why has someone gone to such lengths to hide him?

As Blizzard digs deeper, he uncovers a trail of secrets stretching back to the dying days of the war — and a conspiracy that someone is willing to kill for. With pressure from above and the past closing in, Blizzard must race to uncover the truth before more bodies fall.

[GA Russell]

The Wanted (Elvis Cole and Joe Pike #17)

by Robert Crais

$1.99

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M09NRYP

[issybird]

Originally Posted by sufue

FWIW, California doesn't charge sales tax on e-books.

Thanks for the correction! Just more proof that each state’s sales tax law is sui generis. I don’t need to travel to the Golden State myself, but options are good.

[ZodWallop]

All three of the Sheriff Ben Packard books by Joshua Moehling are on sale, $2 a piece. Likely due to the announcement of a fourth book.

Each book focuses on a new mystery, but there's a continuing background thread through the books. All is resolved in book three. Very highly recommended. I'm not usually a series reader, but I read these as soon as they are released.

And There He Kept Her - Amazon, Kobo

They thought he was a helpless old man. They were wrong.

When two teenagers break into a house on a remote lake in search of prescription drugs, what starts as a simple burglary turns into a nightmare for all involved. Emmett Burr has secrets he's been keeping in his basement for more than two decades, and he'll do anything to keep his past from being revealed. As he gets the upper hand on his tormentors, the lines blur between victim, abuser, and protector.

Personal tragedy has sent former police officer Ben Packard back to the small Minnesota town of Sandy Lake in search of a fresh start. Now a sheriff's deputy, Packard is leading the investigation into the missing teens, motivated by a family connection. As clues dry up and time runs out to save them, Packard is forced to reveal his own secrets and dig deep to uncover the dark past of the place he now calls home.

Where the Dead Sleep - Amazon, Kobo

A small town's dark secrets turn deadly…

When an early morning call brings Deputy Ben Packard to the scene of a home invasion. Everyone Packard talks to has a story about Bill, but no one has a clear motive for wanting him dead. The business partner. The ex-wife. The current wife. The high-stakes poker buddies. Any of them—or none of them—could be guilty.

As the investigation begins, tragedy strikes the Sheriff's department, forcing Packard to make a difficult choice about his future: step down as acting Sheriff and pursue the quiet life he came to Sandy Lake in search of, or subject himself to the scrutiny of an election for the full-time role of Sheriff, a job he's not sure he wants.

There's a hidden history to Sandy Lake that Packard, ever the outsider, can't see. Bad blood and old secrets run deep. But an attempt on Packard's life means he's getting uncomfortably close to the dangerous legacy of the quiet Minnesota town. And someone will do anything to keep it hidden.

A Long Time Gone - Amazon, Kobo

It's time to put the past to rest…

Ben Packard was just a boy when his older brother disappeared. Ben watched him walk out the back door of their grandparents' house and into the cold night.

His brother was never seen again.

Decades later, Deputy Packard finds himself with too much time on his hands. A shooting has him on leave and under investigation, and all he can do is dwell on the past. For the first time in years, new information about his brother has surfaced that may lead them to the location of a body.

The midwinter ground is frozen solid. Worse, Packard is cut off from department resources. As he strikes out to finally uncover the truth behind his brother's disappearance, he stumbles on a separate, suspicious death. A tenuous connection exists between the two cases, and as Packard starts to dig, he meets fierce resistance from friends and foes alike who want him to stand down.

The winter is long and cold. By the end of it, Packard will risk everything to catch a killer and reveal the shocking truth about his brother.

[sufue]

The Serpent's Tale is $1.99 right now in the US. @Fbone's link below is still good for Kindle, and here's the Kobo US link: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-serpent-s-tale

FYI, per eReaderIQ, this was also previously published as The Death Maze, and it was a finalist for the 2008 Historical Dagger Award. (The first book in the series, Mistress of the Art of Death, won a couple of awards.)

Originally Posted by Fbone

The Serpent's Tale (A Mistress of the Art of Death 2) by Ariana Franklin is $4.99

https://smile.amazon.com/Serpents-Ta...8626007&sr=8-1

[sufue]

Now $2.99 in the US....

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DG1NLY23
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...swan-mystery-1

Originally Posted by DrNefario

The Black Swan Mystery by Tetsuya Ayukawa is 99p on the UK Kindle Store today.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Swan-.../dp/B0DCK6YMH3

I don't totally remember why it was on my wishlist, if I'm honest, but it is an award-winning Japanese mystery.

[salty-horse]

The Trees by Percival Everett is £1 in the UK (Kobo, Amazon)

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Percival Everett's The Trees is a powerful satire of revenge and racial justice in America.

‘Page-turning comic horror’ – The Guardian
‘Powerfully prescient’ – The Financial Times
‘Satire in the great tradition of Swift by way of South Park’ – The Daily Telegraph
‘Hilarious and horrifying’ – The New Yorker

When the rural town of Money, Mississippi is beset by a series of brutal murders, a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive. They're greeted with resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a mob of racist white townsfolk.

This, they expect. Less predictable, however, is the second corpse which appears at each crime scene: that of a man resembling Emmett Till, the young Black boy lynched in the same town sixty-five years earlier.

As a spate of copycat killings spreads across the country, what begins as a murder investigation soon becomes a journey into the soul of America’s violent past . . .

[salty-horse]

A bunch of Japanese Honkaku murder mystery translations are on sale in the US and the UK.
By Yukito Ayatsuji (Kobo GB)

[sufue]

Hotel Ukraine is the final Arkady Renko book from Martin Cruz Smith, who, per SYKM, passed away earlier this year. It has dropped to £1.99 at Kindle UK, as part of today's Daily Deal. It hasn't dropped yet at Kobo UK, but since it's only just past midnight right now in the UK, it probably will later today. And I'm too lazy to do the Kobo price match thing (even with the small bonus) unless I have to: filling out the form, keeping track of whether I get the refund, making the screenshots in case I have to argue with them. Of course, YMMV! But in any case, I'm providing the Kobo link for price-check as well...

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C5JZXDYD
Kobo UK: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/hotel-ukraine-1

Spoiler:

The rivetingly tense and timely conclusion to the Arkady Renko series – an iconic character from a titan of the political crime thriller genre.

When Arkady Renko is charged with investigating the murder of Alexei Kazasky, the Deputy Minister of Defence, he knows he has to tread carefully. Alexei Kazasky is a high-profile politician and has a complicated relationship with Putin. This investigation clearly has Kremlin approval, but, as with everything in Russia, things are not always what they seem.

Already preoccupied with his developing Parkinson’s, Arkady finds he has more to worry about. The war in Ukraine is gaining momentum, and his adopted son Zhenya has become involved with the Black Army, a Russo-Ukrainian group of hacktivists. Moreover, as Arkady digs deeper into Kazasky’s murder, he realizes that the man’s death may have been more politically motivated than he first assumed.

Now it seems that the people behind the killing have him firmly in their crosshairs – but this time Arkady’s life is not the only one on the line.

[salty-horse]

An Instance Of The Fingerpost by Iain Pears is £1 in the UK (Kobo, Amazon)

Set in Oxford in the 1660s - a time and place of great intellectual, religious, scientific and political ferment - this remarkable novel centres around a young woman, Sarah Blundy, who stands accused of the murder of Robert Grove, a fellow of New College. Four witnesses describe the events surrounding his death: Marco da Cola, a Venetian Catholic intent on claiming credit for the invention of blood transfusion;Jack Prescott, the son of a supposed traitor to the Royalist cause, determined to vindicate his father; John Wallis, chief cryptographer to both Cromwell and Charles II, a mathematician, theologian and master spy; and Anthony Wood, the famous Oxford antiquary.

Each one tells their version of what happened but only one reveals the extraordinary truth. Brilliantly written, utterly convincing, gripping from the first page to the last, An Instance of the Fingerpost is a magnificent tour de force.

[rrrlakin]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

An Instance Of The Fingerpost by Iain Pears is £1 in the UK (Kobo, Amazon)

$1.99 in Amazon US