FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[sufue]

The Widows of Malabar Hill is the first (only, actually) in a new series by Sujata Massey, whose Rei Shimura series I read most or all of in DTB and really enjoyed. This new series is set in 1920's Bombay. I've been really hoping this book would drop in price, and now it has - to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Widows-Malaba...dp/B07226BHDG/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...f-malabar-hill

Spoiler:

1920s India: Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s first female lawyer, is investigating a suspicious will on behalf of three Muslim widows living in full purdah when the case takes a turn toward the murderous. The author of the Agatha and Macavity Award-winning Rei Shimura novels brings us an atmospheric new historical mystery with a captivating heroine.

Inspired in part by the woman who made history as India’s first female attorney, The Widows of Malabar Hill is a richly wrought story of multicultural 1920s Bombay as well as the debut of a sharp and promising new sleuth.

Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father’s law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a legal education from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes women’s legal rights especially important to her.

Mistry Law has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen examines the paperwork, she notices something strange: all three of the wives have signed over their full inheritance to a charity. What will they live on? Perveen is suspicious, especially since one of the widows has signed her form with an X—meaning she probably couldn’t even read the document. The Farid widows live in full purdah—in strict seclusion, never leaving the women’s quarters or speaking to any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen tries to investigate, and realizes her instincts were correct when tensions escalate to murder. Now it is her responsibility to figure out what really happened on Malabar Hill, and to ensure that no innocent women or children are
in further danger.

Also just noticed it's down to £1.80 at Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Widows-Mala...dp/B07226BHDG/

[sufue]

The Black Path is the 3rd in the Rebecka Martinsson series by Asa Larsson. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Path-Re...dp/B0013TX770/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-black-path-1

Spoiler:

A grisly torture-murder, a haunting northern Sweden backdrop, and a dark drama of twisted sexuality collide memorably in Åsa Larsson’s masterpiece of suspense—a tale of menace, hope, longing, and darkness beyond imagining.

The dead woman was found on a frozen lake, her body riddled with evidence of torture. Instantly, Inspector Anna-Maria Mella knows she needs help. Because the dead woman—found in workout clothes with lacy underwear beneath them—was a key player in a mining company whose tentacles reach across the globe. Anna-Maria needs a lawyer to help explain some things—and she knows one of the best.

Attorney Rebecka Martinsson is desperate to get back to work, to feel alive again after a case that almost destroyed her. Soon Rebecka is prying into the affairs of the dead woman’s boss, the founder of Kallis Mining, whose relationship with his star employee was both complex and ominous. But what Rebecka and Anna-Maria are about to uncover—a tangled drama of secrets, perversion, and criminality—will lay bare a tale as shocking as it is sad…about a man’s obsession, a woman’s lonely death, and a killer’s cold, cold heart.

[sufue]

The Curse of the Pharaohs is the second in the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters. It has dropped to $2.99 at Kindle and Kobo US. Although titles in some of Peters' other series run a little less, titles in the Peabody series in the US are usually $9 and up, so if you want/need this one, I'd grab it now . (If you travel, there is an omnibus of the first four titles that has been on sale in the past in the UK, so check carefully before you buy...)

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Curse-Pharaoh...dp/B00351DSC8/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...f-the-pharaohs

Spoiler:

One of the best-loved of mystery writers weaves another tale of intrigue featuring Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe of Crocodile on the Sandbank. This time the willful and witty duo must catch a murderer at an excavation of an ancient Egyptian tomb.

[sufue]

Widows' Watch is the second in the Elena Jarvis series by Nancy (Fairbanks) Herndon. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US (couponable/VIPable).

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Widows-Watch-...dp/B00KFU6PRM/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/widows-watch

Spoiler:

Elena Jarvis is an officer committed to her duty at the Los Santos, Texas, department of Crimes Against Persons. Not that anyone is helping her, though—not when her ex‑husband is in the next room, her boss treats her like a little girl, and her partner thinks women should not leave the kitchen. Elena always knew there would be obstacles in her job, she just figured they would come from the criminals. It was a punishment from God, declared Boris Potemkin’s fair‑weather widow, but it was not a thunderbolt that cut Boris down, it was a bullet, and from the look of it, the bullet was not divine. As the investigation intensifies, Elena soon discovers there have been several recent deaths in the same neighborhood and someone is having just a bit too much fun making widows. But the suspects are not your typical thugs—they are women in black. Elena has her work cut out for her as she scrambles to solve the case before the killer strikes again.

[sufue]

Fatal Elixir is the second (of two) in the Lobo Blacke/Quinn Booker series by William L. DeAndrea. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US (VIP/couponable).

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Elixir-...dp/B00AEGIH96/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/fatal-elixir

Spoiler:

In the Old West, Lobo Blacke and Quinn Booker confront a killer potion, and a fugitive bent on payback

In the Wyoming Territory town of Le Four, Lobo Blacke used to be a legendary lawman, until the day an ambush left him confined to a wheelchair. Now he runs a newspaper with onetime New Yorker Booker Quinn, who also helped pen the great man’s memoirs.

But now Le Four is shaken by rumors that Paul Muller—a bank and train robber whom Blacke helped lock up—might be headed back to town to settle old accounts. And the same week, fourteen people suddenly drop dead after sipping Ozono, a concoction sold by a traveling medicine show. The brew’s casualties include the town’s sheriff, and without him, Quinn and Blacke must prepare to face the fiendish Muller, and discover the connection between the elixir and the fugitive.

[sufue]

This Is What Happened is a recent (2018) non-series title by Mick Herron. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/This-What-Hap...dp/B0722TJKS4/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/this-is-what-happened

Spoiler:

From CWA Gold & Steel Dagger winner Mick Herron comes a shocking, twisted novel of thrilling suspense about one woman’s attempt to be better than ordinary.

Twenty-six-year-old Maggie Barnes is someone you would never look at twice. Living alone in a month-to-month sublet in the huge city of London, with no family but an estranged sister, no boyfriend or partner, and not much in the way of friends, Maggie is just the kind of person who could vanish from the face of the earth without anyone taking notice. Or just the kind of person MI5 needs to infiltrate the establishment and thwart an international plot that puts all of Britain at risk.

Now one young woman has the chance to be a hero—if she can think quickly enough to stay alive.

[sufue]

Night Passage is the first in the Jesse Stone series by Robert B. Parker. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Night-Passage...dp/B005F4CCYS/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/night-passage-1

Spoiler:

The first book in the complex and engaging Jesse Stone series by the beloved New York Times bestselling author Robert B. Parker

After a busted marriage kicks his drinking problem into overdrive and the LAPD unceremoniously dumps him, thirty-five-year-old Jesse Stone’s future looks bleak. So he’s shocked when a small Massachusetts town called Paradise recruits him as police chief. He can’t help wondering if this job is a genuine chance to start over, the kind of offer he can’t refuse.

Once on board, Jesse doesn’t have to look for trouble in Paradise: it comes to him. For what is on the surface a quiet New England community quickly proves to be a crucible of political and moral corruption—replete with triple homicide, tight Boston mob ties, flamboyantly errant spouses, maddened militiamen and a psychopath-about-town who has fixed his violent sights on the new lawman. Against all this, Jesse stands utterly alone, with no one to trust—even he and the woman he’s seeing are like ships passing in the night. He finds he must test his mettle and powers of command to emerge a local hero—or the deadest of dupes.

[sufue]

Savage Season is the first in the Hap and Leonard series by Joe R. Lansdale. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Season...dp/B0047747QA/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/savage-season

Spoiler:

Savage Season is the basis for the first season of the Sundance TV series Hap and Leonard

A rip-roaring, high-octane, Texas-sized thriller, featuring two friends, one vixen, a crew of washed-up radicals, loads of money, and bloody mayhem.

Hap Collins and Leonard Pine are best friends, yet they couldn't be more different. Hap is an east Texas white-boy with a weakness for Texas women. Leonard is a gay, black Vietnam vet. Together, they steer up more commotion than a fire storm. But that's just the way they like it. So when an ex-flame of Hap's returns promising a huge score. Hap lets Leonard in on the scam, and that's when things get interesting. Chockfull of action and laughs, Savage Season is the masterpiece of dark suspense that introduced Hap and Leonard to the thriller scene. It hasn't been the same since.

[sufue]

The first three titles in the Magic Men series by Elly Griffiths have dropped to $2.99 each at Kindle and Kobo US. Titles are:

• The Zig Zag Girl
• Smoke and Mirrors
• The Blood Card

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/search/?se...price-asc-rank
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?Qu...cmaxprice=2.99

[sufue]

Dark Omens is the 14th in the Libertus series by Rosemary Rowe, set in Roman Britain. A bunch of early titles in this series went on sale a while back in the US, so if you tried and liked any of those, here is one of the later ones - Omens has dropped to £2.25 at Kindle UK.

link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Omens-Liber...dp/B00FYTGY5C/

Spoiler:

Libertus accepts a contract to install a pavement for Genialis, a self-important citizen from a nearby town, in the house of the customer's intended but unwilling and young bride, Silvia. However, the winter is exceptionally severe, and although the mosaic is laid in time to earn the promised bonus, Genialis goes missing in the snow before payment can be made.

Meanwhile, at an important feast, the sacrifice is spoiled as an aged priest lets go of the sacrificial ram – and when news arrives that the Emperor is dead, it seems that these dark omens are being realised. The subsequent discovery of not one, but two mutilated corpses only adds to this. Who holds the answer to the mysteries? Everyone had motive; Libertus attempts to solve the mystery against a backdrop of superstitious fear of auguries, and public riots following the confirmation of the Emperor's death.

And if you like to read more in order, several of those early titles are still $3.99 and under at Kindle US, and a few at $3.99 at Kobo US. (Links have a few strays.)
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/search/&se...price-asc-rank
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?Qu...cmaxprice=3.99

[sufue]

Five Fun Female Sleuths is a box set with titles by Julie Smith, Adrienne Barbeau, Michaela Thompson and Tracy Whiting. It is free right now at Kindle US. It has been on sale at $0.99 before, and also most or all of the titles have been on sale individually before, but it's free now, so who cares!

Titles are:

• Smith: Louisiana Bigshot
• Smith: The Sourdough Wars
• Whiting: The 13th Fellow
• Barbeau: Love Bites
• Thompson: Paper Phoenix

More info and link in this previous post: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh....php?p=3383929

Just noticed - also free at Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Five-Fun-Fe...dp/B01IADAPF8/

[sufue]

At the Dying of the Year is the fifth in the Richard Nottingham series by Chris Nickson. It has dropped to £1.12 at Kindle UK.

link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dying-Year-...dp/B00CH0YTCQ/

Spoiler:

As an atmosphere of fear and suspicion pervades the city, Richard Nottingham and his team find themselves hunting a ruthless child-killer, a monster who preys on abandoned street children, those with no one to care about them, no one to report them missing. The Constable has his suspicions as to who the culprit might be – but how can he prove it when the wealthy and powerful protect their own? He could also do without the interference of the new mayor, who’s taking a close personal interest in the case. Nottingham’s efforts to bring the killer to justice will have tragic consequences for himself and his family.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by sufue

Five Fun Female Sleuths is a box set with titles by Julie Smith, Adrienne Barbeau, Michaela Thompson and Tracy Whiting. It is free right now at Kindle US. It has been on sale at $0.99 before, and also most or all of the titles have been on sale individually before, but it's free now, so who cares!

Titles are:

• Smith: Louisiana Bigshot
• Smith: The Sourdough Wars
• Whiting: The 13th Fellow
• Barbeau: Love Bites
• Thompson: Paper Phoenix

More info and link in this previous post: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh....php?p=3383929

I had no idea Adrienne Barbeau was an author. More power to her.

[sufue]

Die Like an Eagle is a fairly recent (2016) title in the Meg Langslow series by Donna Andrews. It has dropped to $2.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Die-Like-Eagl...dp/B01AGFYUBI/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/die-like-an-eagle

Spoiler:

The brilliantly funny Donna Andrews delivers another winner in the acclaimed avian-themed series that mystery readers have come to love. The nineteenth book in her New York Times best-selling series continues to surprise and delight in this next knee-slapping adventure featuring Meg Langslow and all the eccentric characters that make up her world.

Meg is Team Mom and Michael is coach of their twin sons' youth baseball team, the Caerphilly Eagles. Meg tangles with Biff Brown, the petty, vindictive league head. On opening day, Biff's lookalike brother is found dead in the porta-potty at the ball field. So many people think Biff's scum that it would be easy to blame him, but he has an alibi--and Meg suspects he may actually have been the intended victim.

With Die Like an Eagle, readers can look forward to another zany Meg Langslow mystery--this one filled with the spirit of America's pastime and Donna's eagle eye.

Like Meg Langslow, the blacksmith heroine of her series, Donna Andrews was born and raised in Yorktown, Virginia. She introduced Meg to readers in her Malice Domestic Contest-winning first mystery, Murder with Peacocks, and readers are still laughing. This novel swept up the Agatha, Anthony, Barry, and a Romantic Times award for best first novel, and a Lefty for funniest mystery.

[sufue]

The Whole Enchilada is the 17th in the Goldy Schulz series by Diane Mott Davidson. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Whole-Enchila...dp/B00BS8JCJ8/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-whole-enchilada-1

Spoiler:

Caterer and sleuth extraordinaire Goldy Schulz jumps from the frying pan into the fire as she tries to solve a puzzling murder that is much too close to home, in this latest entry in the New York Times bestselling series from "today's foremost practitioner of the culinary whodunit" (Entertainment Weekly)

The Whole Enchilada

Goldy Schulz knows her food is to die for, but she never expects one of her best friends to actually keel over when she's leaving a birthday party Goldy has catered. At first, everyone assumes that all the fun and excitement of the party, not to mention the rich fare, did her in.

But what looks like a coronary turns out to be a generous serving of cold-blooded murder. And the clever culprit is just getting cooking.

When a colleague—a woman who resembles Goldy—is stabbed, and Goldy is attacked outside her house, it becomes clear that the popular caterer is the main course on a killer menu. With time running out, Goldy must roll up her sleeves, sharpen her knives, and make a meal out of a devious murderer, before that killer can serve her up cold.