Poisoned Pen Press - Mysteries

[Blue Tyson]

Yep, absolutely she does.

[ClareK]

Thanks, ATDrake and Blue Tyson, I won't keep checking to see whether they're suddenly available in that case!

[Blue Tyson]

Yeah, you'd have to do the Amazon address change thing - be out of luck at Kobo.

[ATDrake]

So, just to keep track, four more PPP iTunes freebies added since last time:

• 2 Posadas County mysteries: Heartshot & Red, Green, and Murder by Steven F. Havill (contemporary police procedural set in New Mexico, recommended upthread)
• Silver Lies by Ann Parker (historical western frontier mining town with female saloonkeeper, award-winner)
• Screenscam by Michael Bowen (satirical lawyer/English professor amateur sleuth couple, very funny)

Also, if you were thinking of picking up any of the discount sequels, the very cheapest place right now is Books on Board, which has discounted some of them from $2.99 to $1.74, and $4.99 to $2.90 (and I bought mine for mostly higher prices during their official 40-50% off sale ): convenient linkage sorted low-to-high for your shopping convenience while it lasts.

[dandelioncottage]

Thanks--I grabbed six of the Greenwood Phryne Fisher mysteries because when I added a couple to my cart, BoB offered me $2 off if I spent $17. Six books came to just over $17, entitling me to the discount. ! (I love when that happens. )

[ATDrake]

Just so you know, generally when the BoB cart does that offer, if you keep adding more batches of stuff and buying in $17+ increments, you can sometimes keep getting the extra discount until they lock your account and you have to contact their customer service to get it unlocked.

[NightBird]

Hardscape:A Ben Abbott Mystery #1 by Justin Scott is $.99 at Kobo and Amazon and free at iTunes, so perhaps will go free at Amazon at least.

Description
Ben Abbott returns to his hometown to save his family’s recession-battered real estate business, never dreaming that things are about to heat up in picturesque Newbury, Connecticut. Broke and looking for some excitement, Ben takes a job videotaping the adulterous goings-on in a bedroom in Jack and Rita Long’s “castle.” But he doesn’t bargain on becoming embroiled in the murder of Rita Long’s friend. A second murder closer to home propels Ben to embark on a new career as a neophyte detective and leads him to answers that will put him in mortal danger.

Also The Old Buzzard Had it Coming:An Alafair Tucker Mystery #1

Description
Alafair Tucker is a strong woman, the core of family life on a farm in Oklahoma where the back-breaking work and daily logistics of caring for her husband Shaw, their nine children, and being neighborly requires hard muscle and a clear head. She’s also a woman of strong opinions, and it is her opinion that her neighbor, Harley Day, is a drunkard and a reprobate. So, when Harley’s body is discovered frozen in a snowdrift one January day in 1912, she isn’t surprised that his long-suffering family isn’t, if not actually celebrating, much grieving.

When Alafair helps Harley’s wife prepare the body for burial, she discovers that Harley’s demise was anything but natural—there is a bullet lodged behind his ear. Alafair is concerned when she hears that Harley’s son, John Lee, is the prime suspect in his father’s murder, for Alafair’s seventeen-year-old daughter Phoebe is in love with the boy. At first, Alafair’s only fear is that Phoebe is in for a broken heart, but as she begins to unravel the events that led to Harley’s death, she discovers that Phoebe might be more than just John Lee’s sweetheart: she may be his accomplice in murder.

[ATDrake]

I've bought both and read the Donis Casey Alafair Tucker book (and bought the sequel before the tie-in sale, sigh) and can recommend it as a pretty good rural historical read.

Well, at least hopefully I can pick up the further series books cheap this time around.

Also, might as well link the other batch of recent freebies, in case anyone missed them in the fast-moving main Deals:

Interrupted Aria by Beverle Grave Myers, baroque opera mysteries set in 17th century Venice and starring a castrato singer (recommended)

Artscape by Frederick Ramsay, contemporary ex-CIA-turned-college town sheriff police procedurals (decent enough read)

Thanks for finding the new ones. I'll put up some feature posts with the appropriate series order/buy-links later when I get back.

[NightBird]

I saw your recommendation about that. I don't know if you got the second one in the series yet or not, but it just went down to $2.99.

Hornswoggled

Poisoned Pen also made the comment on their website that the only way to get Amazon to reduce something to free was for them to list it at $.99, so this may be a clue that something is going free when it suddenly drops to that. The two above still aren't free and I reported the lower price.

Seems like almost everything I have bought lately has then be reduced or free. Gah!

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by NightBird

Poisoned Pen also made the comment on their website that the only way to get Amazon to reduce something to free was for them to list it at $.99, so this may be a clue that something is going free when it suddenly drops to that. The two above still aren't free and I reported the lower price.

The other books PPP recently priced at $0.99 were eventually price matched to free (I reported these this morning too), but since the ebooks are DRM-free we can grab the freebies from Apple and convert them with calibre.

[NightBird]

Originally Posted by Synamon

The other books PPP recently priced at $0.99 were eventually price matched to free (I reported these this morning too), but since the ebooks are DRM-free we can grab the freebies from Apple and convert them with calibre.

Right!

[NightBird]

$.99 at Amazon:

Desert Noir: A Lena Jones Mystery (Lena Jones Series)

Survival in the upscale Scottsdale art scene depends on how well a private eye does her footwork… At the age of four, private detective Lena Jones had been found lying unconscious by the side of an Arizona highway, a bullet robbing her of her memories. Now the scarred survivor of a dozen foster homes, Lena has vowed to find the truth about her origins—no matter how terrible that truth might be.

In Desert Noir, the first of the Lena Jones mysteries, Lena’s quest is interrupted when her friend, heiress Clarice Kobe, is beaten to death in the Western Heart Art Gallery. Lena and her Pima Indian partner Jimmy Sisiwan at first suspect the art dealer’s abusive husband, but their investigations soon reveal that domestic violence was hardly the only problem in the victim’s troubled life. Clarice, for all her money and beauty, had a dark side; her enemies far outnumbered her friends. Among those who wished her dead are George Haozous, the fiery Apache artist whose graphic work she once banned from her gallery. Another enemy is Dulya Albundo, the daughter of an elderly Hispanic woman whose death was directly attributable to the art dealer’s greed. Even Clarice’s parents—wealthy land developers whose housing tracts have ravaged the beautiful Sonoran Desert—appear to be oddly untroubled by their daughter’s death. Lena’s search for Clarice’s killer brings violence back into her own life, yet it also brings her closer to the solution of her own mystery—her real identity. Set against the backdrop of the posh Scottsdale, Arizona art scene and the nearby Indian reservations, Desert Noir heralds the debut of a detective as wounded as her clients, a woman battling her own demons while trying to rescue others from theirs.

http://www.amazon.com/Desert-Noir-Jo...195657&sr=1-15

One for Sorrow: A John, the Lord Chamberlain Mystery (John, the Lord Chamberlain Series) Eric Mayer, Mary Reed

Byzantium, capitol of the 6th century Roman Empire, simmers a rich stew of creeds, cultures, and citizens with a sprinkling of cutthroats and crimes. John the Eunuch, Emperor Justinian's Lord Chamberlain, orders a Christian court while himself observing the rites of Mithra. Thomas, a knight from Britain, Ahasuerus, a soothsayer, and two ladies from Crete stir up events and old memories for John, who must ask how the visitors link to the death of Leukos, Keeper of the Plate. An Egyptian brothel keeper and a Christian stylite know more than they are telling....

In due course, John gets his man - and a love scene....

http://www.amazon.com/One-Sorrow-Cha...196830&sr=1-19

Free at Apple:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/one-...56304300?mt=11

[NightBird]

Desert Wives by Betty Webb is free on iTunes and $.99 at Amazon. #2 in the Lena Jones mystery series.

Polygamy can be murder! That’s what private detective Lena Jones learns when she helps thirteen year old Rebecca escape from Purity, a polygamy compound hidden in a desolate area near straddling Utah/Arizona border.

When Rebecca’s mother is arrested for the murder of Prophet Solomon Royal, Rebecca’s intended husband, Lena enters Purity masquerading as a polygamist wife to uncover the real murderer. In doing so, Lena finds out more than she bargained for—the shocking secret the cult’s Circle of Elders will kill to keep. During her investigations, Lena also discovers more about her own past. At the age of four she was found lying unconscious by the side of an Arizona highway, a bullet robbing her of her memories. Raised in a series of foster homes, Lena does not remember her real name nor the names of her parents. She thinks she has put the past behind her, but the sins of Purity’s polygamous mothers and fathers force her to reexamine the few memories she has of her own mother the woman who shot her…

Hardscape is finally free at Amazon.

[mitford13]

Originally Posted by NightBird

Desert Wives by Betty Webb is free on iTunes and $.99 at Amazon. #2 in the Lena Jones mystery series.



Hardscape is finally free at Amazon.

Desert Wives is now also free on Amazon (US).

http://www.amazon.com/Desert-Wives-J.../dp/B0056KOF8M

[NightBird]

Originally Posted by NightBird

Also The Old Buzzard Had it Coming:An Alafair Tucker Mystery #1

Finally free at Amazon also.

More $.99ers:

Concrete Desert:A David Mapstone Mystery by Jon Talton.

Also $.99 at B&N.

Having recently lost his job as a history professor, David Mapstone returns to his boyhood home of Phoenix, Arizona, to find the city dramatically changed. It’s now a haven for wealthy retirees and a seasonal retreat for West Coast “sophisticates.” But pockets of his earlier life—some welcome, some not—remain. Mapstone eagerly accepts a temporary job from his old friend and Maricopa County Chief Deputy Mike Peralta: Look into still-open cases and see if he can close any. He is beginning to settle into his new job when his college sweetheart appears at his door one evening. True to his memory of her, she is there because she wants something. Her sister is missing and she wants Mapstone to look for her.

Mapstone’s search for the missing woman is quickly resolved when her body is discovered in the desert, but he is stunned to find the dead sister in circumstances identical to a sensational 40-year-old unsolved murder.

Mapstone’s dogged investigation of both murders bridges the chasm of clashing cultures, meshing his own long-ago memories with the tangled doings of newcomers and their acolytes, young women eager to share the lifestyle of tainted wealth, drugs, and careless violence.

Embrace the Grim Reaper by Judy Clemens.

B&N

Casey Maldonado’s life is over—at least as she knows it. In one brief moment of fire and wrenching metal, everything important was gone. The car manufacturer was generous with its settlement, but it can never be enough. Her family and friends—not to mention her lawyers—want her to go for more. More money. More publicity. More everything. But Casey is done. No financial gain or courtroom retribution will bring back what really matters. So she packs up, puts her house on the market, and leaves town. Her only companion: Death, who won’t take her, but won’t leave her alone.

She stops on a whim in tragedy-stricken Clymer, a small blue-collar town in the midst of Ohio farmland. Not only is HomeMaker, the town’s appliance factory and main employer, moving to Mexico, but the town has been rocked by the suicide of a beloved single mother.

Casey is drawn to the town, and soon realizes that many of the citizens don’t believe the verdict of suicide at all. Death encourages her to investigate, and she uncovers information that points to the factory. Was the victim’s death a cover-up? Did she truly have the means—as she claimed—to keep the factory from leaving town?

When Casey begins to receive messages that she should leave well enough alone, she decides she’d be better off back on the road, but the murderer can’t let her go with everything she knows….