FREE/BARGAIN - Mystery, Suspense, Thriller - 2016

[Kieran Seymour]

There's another couple of books in Michael Avallone's Ed Noon series currently going free at Amazon UK.

(06) The Case of the Bouncing Betty
(28) The Hot Body

The first is definitely a repeat, but the second is new AFAIK.

[cromag]

Originally Posted by Kieran Seymour

There's another couple of books in Michael Avallone's Ed Noon series currently going free at Amazon UK.

(06) The Case of the Bouncing Betty
(28) The Hot Body

The first is definitely a repeat, but the second is new AFAIK.

Thanks! They're free in the US store, as well.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?k...price-asc-rank

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by cromag

Thanks! They're free in the US store, as well.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?k...price-asc-rank

I didn't have one of them!

Thank you Kieran Seymour and cromag!

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I didn't have one of them!

Thank you Kieran Seymour and cromag!

Was it the same as me? I did not have 28.
Apache

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Apache

Was it the same as me? I did not have 28.
Apache

Didn't we dance like this once before?

[sufue]

The Murder of Mary Russell is the fifteenth and most recent (per SYKM) in the Russell/Holmes series by Laurie R. King. I've read and enjoyed almost all of these, although I have to say the blurb for this one doesn't excite me. Still, I'm happy to see it drop (just for the day) to $1.99 at several US retailers - at that price I'm going to try it on the strength of the series, and not the blurb .

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Mary-R.../dp/B00UEL0KV4
Nook US: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...ing/1122426042
Kobo US: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/eb...f-mary-russell

Spoiler:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes series weaves rich historical detail and provocative themes with intriguing characters and enthralling suspense. Russell and Holmes have become one of modern literature’s most beloved teams. But does this adventure end it all?

Mary Russell is used to dark secrets—her own, and those of her famous partner and husband, Sherlock Holmes. Trust is a thing slowly given, but over the course of a decade together, the two have forged an indissoluble bond.

And what of the other person to whom Mary Russell has opened her heart: the couple’s longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson? Russell’s faith and affection are suddenly shattered when a man arrives on the doorstep claiming to be Mrs. Hudson’s son.

What Samuel Hudson tells Russell cannot possibly be true, yet she believes him—as surely as she believes the threat of the gun in his hand. In a devastating instant, everything changes. And when the scene is discovered—a pool of blood on the floor, the smell of gunpowder in the air—the most shocking revelation of all is that the grim clues point directly to Clara Hudson.

Or rather to Clarissa, the woman she was before Baker Street.

The key to Russell’s sacrifice lies in Mrs. Hudson’s past. To uncover the truth, a frantic Sherlock Holmes must put aside his anguish and push deep into his housekeeper’s secrets—to a time before her disguise was assumed, before her crimes were buried away.

There is death here, and murder, and trust betrayed.

And nothing will ever be the same.

[sufue]

The Silent Cry is the eighth in Anne Perry's somewhat lesser known William Monk series. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle US and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Cry-Wi.../dp/B0042JSNY0
Kobo US: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/eb...e-silent-cry-1

Spoiler:

Deep in London’s dangerous slums, Victorians transact their most secret and shameful business. For a price, a man can procure whatever he wants. But for one such man, the price he pays is his life. In sunless Water Lane, respected solicitor Leighton Duff lies dead, kicked and beaten to death. Beside him is the barely living body of his son, Rhys. The police cannot fathom these brutal assaults until shrewd investigator William Monk, aided by nurse-turned-sleuth Hester Latterly, uncovers a connection between them and a series of rapes and beatings of local prostitutes. But then the case takes an even more shocking turn.

[sufue]

Although the title sounds more like a historical mystery, The Bishop's Wife is actually the first in the Linda Wallheim (a modern day Mormon bishop's wife) series by Mette Ivie Harrison. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle US and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Bishops-Wife-.../dp/B00LKIBZIW
Kobo US: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/eb...ishop-s-wife-3

Spoiler:

In the Mormon community of Draper, Utah, seemingly perfect families have deadly secrets.

Linda Wallheim is a devout Mormon, the mother of five boys and the wife of a bishop. But Linda is increasingly troubled by her church’s structure and secrecy, especially as a disturbing situation takes shape in her ward. One cold winter night, a young wife and mother named Carrie Helm disappears, leaving behind everything she owns. Carrie’s husband, Jared, claims his wife has always been unstable and that she has abandoned the family, but Linda doesn’t trust him. As Linda snoops in the Helm family’s circumstances, she becomes convinced that Jared has murdered his wife and painted himself as a wronged husband.

Linda’s husband asks her not to get involved in the unfolding family saga. But Linda has become obsessed with Carrie’s fate, and with the well-being of her vulnerable young daughter. She cannot let the matter rest until she finds out the truth. Is she wrong to go against her husband, the bishop, when her inner convictions are so strong?

Inspired by a chilling true crime and written by a practicing Mormon, The Bishop’s Wife is both a fascinating look at the lives of modern Mormons as well as a grim and cunningly twisted mystery.

[sufue]

The Stick Game is the seventh in Peter Bowen's Gabriel Du Pré series. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle US and others as part of Open Road's Early Bird deals. (Note Open Road titles are couponable at Kobo US if you have any Kobo coupons...)

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Montana.../dp/B007AUXRJO
Kobo US: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/the-stick-game

Spoiler:

Du Pré investigates a gold mining company whose pollution might be poisoning the children of a nearby reservation

Something is rotten in the Fort Belknap Reservation. Life has always been tough on this barren stretch just south of the Canadian border, but now the children are dying. While playing his fiddle in a reservation bar, part-time deputy Gabriel Du Pré meets an accordionist who suspects that the children’s health defects and low test scores are connected to the nearby Persephone mine.

Meanwhile, Du Pré investigates the disappearance of one of the afflicted children. When the boy turns up dead, the accordionist’s theory gains credence. It wouldn’t be the first time that the rich men of Montana found wealth at the expense of the reservation’s children.

[sufue]

Cross-post to ATDrake's post in another thread reminding us that this is the last day (probably) of the Smashwords summer sale. ATDrake noted that a large portion of the BevEditions catalog is free (link in the other post). This includes almost all of the Lara McClintoch series by Lyn Hamilton and a good chunk of the Marc Edwards series by Don Gutteridge.

Link to cross-post: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho....php?p=3362567

[sufue]

A couple of very last minute freebies in Smashwords Summer sale that I noticed in a last glance through:

Family Trio contains three short/individual stories by Michael Z. Lewin in his Lunghi family series, which also has (per SYKM) at least three full length titles. It is free for a very short while longer today with code SFREE at Smashwords, unless they let the sale run a little long.
link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/139729

Black Dog is the first in Stephen Booth's Cooper and Fry series. It won a Barry Award back in 2001. It is also free for a very short time with code SFREE.
link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/142026

[maddz]

There's a whole bunch of Charlotte MacLeod's Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn series books on Amazon.co.uk at £3.49, which I think is roughly half price the usual price. Book 2 - The Withdrawing Room does not seem to be included in the offer.

Titles on offer include
The Silver Ghost
The Odd Job
The Convivial Codfish
The Plain Old Man
The Bilbao Looking-Glass
The Family Vault
The Resurrection Man
The Palace Guard
The Recycled Citizen
The Balloon Man
The Gladstone Bag

All can be found here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Charlotte%2...rnid=492562011

Her other series seem to be priced at £6.50 - £8.99; I remember thinking the last time I looked into replacing my paperbacks that the prices seemed on the high side.

Note: this may be the last day of last month's deal.

[GA Russell]

Trouble is My Business - Raymond Chandler - $1.99
https://www.amazon.com/Trouble-My-Bu.../dp/B000FBFM3Y

(I read this just a couple of weeks ago. Highly recommended.)

[Little.Egret]

Endeavour Books, free

The Dart Players by Jerrard Tickell

Originally published by Doubleday, 1952

When the members of the Hand and Flower Darts Club set out on a day trip across the Channel to take in the sights of Boulogne, they can't begin to imagine how the day will end...
Fred Collins has been planning and waiting for this moment - the moment he proudly takes charge - and is keen to see their little adventure go off without a hitch.
However, his fellow team members have no interest in sticking together and it isn't long before secret desires start landing these Englishmen into hot water.
Fred finds himself in an embarrassing situation as he attempts to find a nice pair of beige nylons for his wife.
The team captain, Charley Brewer, has spent the entire day searching Boulogne for some pretty French girls.
Trevor Hilgrove's activities - while outwardly unremarkable - net him hundreds of pounds of smuggled goods to take back to England.
Luke Grenfell, hoping only to immerse himself in the French literary and artistic scene, finds himself repeatedly called upon to act as a sympathetic ear as one after another of his companions finds himself in a fix.
As for Jim Carver, it's been a lifetime since he set foot on Boulogne.
He was Sergeant Jim Carver then, of the 25th Lancers, thick as thieves with his mate George Holden and always up to his elbows repairing tanks.
But George is long gone, buried in a cemetery in Boulogne, and the only memories Jim has of his time in Boulogne are of a little girl called Marie-Josephe.
To his astonishment, he encounters the quite grown up, and engaged, Marie-Josephe at the cemetery as he visits George's grave, and finds himself drawn into his past with such intensity that he starts to question the direction of his future.

Six men make the crossing from England to France and lose themselves in the streets of Boulogne.
But only four of them will make the return voyage...

Books by Jerrard Tickell include Moon Squadron, Appointment with Venus (Island Rescue in US), See How They Run and Hussar Honeymoon

Private View by Meg Elizabeth Atkins

First published Allison & Busby 2003

Chatfield, 1986 and after a private art viewing on a bleak February evening, the local gallery owner - the flamboyantly camp Minim Minikin - is found murdered.
A painting on display has also been stolen.
The case has DCI Sheldon Hunter stumped.
After months of enquiry, the investigation has turned up nothing.
No suspects, no murder weapon, no painting and, indeed, no artist.
The identity of the painter, Fayne, whose work disappeared that fateful night was as much a mystery to the police as to the art world at large.
Reluctantly, with no leads to pursue, the case is marked unsolved and forgotten amongst heap of other unresolved cases.
Four years later and Hunter receives a series of anonymous letters and phone calls alleging that a family in the picturesque town of Rush Deeping is somehow involved in the death.

Meg Elizabeth Atkins has published Samain, Palimpsest and Tangle as well as other novels

Francesca by Donald F Mayo

East Timor, 1975. Indonesian soldiers invade the village of Dili, raping and slaughtering.
A young girl named Francesca sees her parents and two brothers shot and her baby sister taken away.
She escapes, eventually discovered hiding under a pier by a man named Hasan. He has a boat and takes her to the city of Bandakan, hoping his boss, Benny Surikao can help the pretty young girl.
Interwoven in Francesca's journey are a cast of vividly drawn characters.


See all

https://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search...ur|+Pioneering

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?url=sear...ur|+Pioneering
https://www.amazon.ca/s/?url=search-...ur|+Pioneering

[sufue]

Three titles in the Ursula Blanchard series by Fiona Buckley have dropped to $3.99 at Kindle US - a bit pricey IMO for backlist titles, but this is one of my favorite series, and regular prices tend to be quite high.

To Shield the Queen, #1
link: https://www.amazon.com/Shield-Queen-.../dp/B00BOTY2JQ

Spoiler:

In this compelling debut of her historical mystery series, Fiona Buckley introduces Ursula Blanchard, a widowed young mother who has become lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth I. Armed with a sharp eye, dangerous curiosity, and uncanny intelligence, Ursula pledges...

To Shield the Queen

Rumor has linked Queen Elizabeth I to her master of horse, Robin Dudley. As gossip would have it, only his ailing wife, Amy, prevents marriage between Dudley and the Queen. To quell the idle tongues at court, the Queen dispatchesUrsula Blanchard to tend to the sick woman's needs. But not even Ursula can prevent the "accident" that takes Amy's life. Did she fall or was she pushed? Was Ursula a pawn of Dudley and the Queen?

Suddenly Ursula finds herself at the center of the scandal, trying to protect Elizabeth as she loses her heart to a Frenchman who may be flirting with sedition against her Queen. She can trust no one, neither her lover nor her monarch, as she sets out to find the truth in a glittering court that conceals a wellspring of blood and lies.

The Fugitive Queen, #7
link: https://www.amazon.com/Fugitive-Quee.../dp/B00BSA2VGM

Spoiler:

It is 1568, three years since Ursula Blanchard exchanged her work as a spy in the service of her half sister, Queen Elizabeth, for the relative calm of married life. But when Elizabeth summons her, loyal Ursula senses there is more to her seemingly benign request than meets the eye. She is to pluck Penelope Mason, her inappropriately flirtatious protégé, from court and find the disgraced girl a husband, and she is also to deliver a secret warning to Elizabeth's arch rival, Mary, Queen of Scots. Gradually, Ursula comes to understand the true delicacy and danger of this mission. Exiled after the suspicious death of her husband, Mary is now a fugitive queen and a "guest" in northern England's daunting Bolton Castle. Ursula, with her blade-sharp acuity, can outsmart Mary's notorious charm and sidestep treasonous traps while extracting the truth. But can she protect those who look to her -- including young Penelope -- from a deadly game where, to those who hunger for power at all costs, murder is a small price to pay?

The Siren Queen, #8
link: https://www.amazon.com/Siren-Queen-B.../dp/B00BOTY2IW

Spoiler:

The year is 1569. Ursula Blanchard, illegitimate half sister to Queen Elizabeth I and sometime spy on the Queen's behalf, is happily married to wealthy Hugh Stannard and living quietly in the country. Ursula's thoughts are on domestic matters as she watches her daughter, Meg, grow up. Meg will soon be fourteen, so perhaps it is time to think of a betrothal.

When an invitation to visit arrives from the powerful Duke of Norfolk, Ursula and Hugh welcome the chance for Meg to meet an apparently worthy young man of the Duke's household, Edmund Dean. Is he a possible husband for Meg?

It's love at first sight, at least on Meg's part. Young Dean seems to admire Meg as well, and he's even more impressed with her promised dowry. Ursula, though, has her doubts. Does she see something cruel in the man's eyes?

Soon, more weighty matters demand Ursula's attention. Two men are dead under mysterious circumstances, and there may be a new plot to put Mary, Queen of Scots, on the English throne. A letter written in cipher may contain the information Ursula needs -- but can she decode the letter in time to save the half sister and Queen she loves? And what shattering personal discovery will the letter reveal?

Surrounded by treachery, Ursula wonders whom she can trust. Is the great Duke of Norfolk himself part of the plot against Queen Elizabeth? And what about the young man who would marry Meg?

With richly drawn characters and riveting historical accuracy, The Siren Queen sweeps us into a suspenseful and passionate re-creation of one of the most tumultuous and colorful eras of English history.