FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[sufue]

Murder at the Ritz is on sale at Kindle US right now for $0.99...

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GPL83KF

Originally Posted by sufue

All three books in Jim Eldridge's wartime (WWII) hotel mystery series are on sale at Kindle UK right now. I haven't read any books in this series, but did have a review copy of one of the books in his Museum Detectives series a while back and liked it.

Murder at the Ritz, £1.49
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08GPL83KF
Kindle UK/Smile: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08GPL83KF

{edited other books}

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by sufue

...I think there are some Rosetta ones?...

Is Rosetta an imprint of Open Road? I seem to remember seeing books were the cover would say Rosetta, then you'll see the same book, same cover as Open Road. I noticed it when I bought a bunch of Arthur C. Clarke on sale.

(I tend to see this when looking for high-res cover scans and always forget to look further into the Rosetta/Open Road connection.)

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Is Rosetta an imprint of Open Road?

I don't think so...? https://www.rosettaebooks.com/about-us/
This article suggests there's some shared ownership: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...open-road.html
Rosetta isn't mentioned in Open Road's corporate website: https://openroadintegratedmedia.com/our-portfolio/

I don't really trust them. I got their edition of The Queen's Gambit and it has about 2 pages of text missing (in the middle of a sentence).

I tried contacting them through their website, and Twitter, and reporting the book to Amazon, and never got a reply.

[sufue]

I've noticed this too (similarity between Rosetta and Open Road), but have never really checked it out. So now I did, and here's what their website says:

RosettaBooks is a leading independent publisher headquartered in New York City. It pioneered by building a 700-eBook catalog of iconic titles.

RosettaBooks prides itself as a pro-author publisher. It has long paid the highest standard industry eBook royalties.

Rosetta does seem to have a bit of a thing for somehow having a few books out of an otherwise "homogeneous" series - Robert B Parker's Promised Land, Ed McBain's Fuzz, and Sharyn McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun (but sadly not the only other book in that too-short series, Zombies of the Gene Pool) come to mind. I've always just assumed it to be some quirk of publishing rights...

I've read all three of those and didn't notice any egregious errors, but I'm pretty tolerant of formatting - although not of totally missing text!

[sufue]

Today's Joffe Friday free book, probably - but not guaranteed - good through the weekend, is Risky Mission, which is the first in the Frank Doy series by Dan Latus.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZWJ1GGV
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ZWJ1GGV

Spoiler:

Frank Doy, contract security specialist, is flat broke. Then beautiful and mysterious Vlasta George shows up at his door. She'll give him good money to take her to a secret location in Europe, no questions asked.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

The woman’s husband is a murderous Teesside gangster. She is running away to start a life without him, taking her two young kids and a million pounds with her.

HE WANTS HER BACK. DEAD OR ALIVE.

But there is someone even more dangerous — someone from the past — who also has an interest in the money. Before long, two of Vlasta’s circle are found dead.

Doy finds himself in a frantic chase across Europe, travelling into unknown territory, battling an enemy he doesn’t understand, for vendettas he is not involved with.

Will he be able to protect his client — and make it out alive?

Perfect for fans of Lee Child, Peter James, Robert Galbraith and Michael Grant.

MEET FRANK DOY, a quick-thinking, fast-talking security consultant turned private investigator. He has a talent for finding himself in the seediest corners of the most dangerous cities in Europe. He doesn’t go looking for trouble. He lives in a converted miner’s cottage on an isolated stretch of the Cleveland coast. But he never backs down from a fight and he never turns away those who are desperate. So trouble finds him.

[sufue]

An Impossible Impostor is now $1.99 in the US...

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0951KW1VB
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/an-impossible-impostor

Originally Posted by sufue

An Impossible Impostor is the seventh in the Veronica Speedwell series by Deanna Raybourn. It has dropped to £1.99 at Kindle UK.

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0951KW1VB
Kindle UK/Smile: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0951KW1VB

[sufue]

A few years later, The Big Sleep is $1.99 again at Kindle US...

@ZodWallop's link below is still good.

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler is $1.99 at Amazon US.

One of the great detective novels. It's densely plotted (perhaps too densely plotted; I had to read the book three times before I was sure I understood what was going on) and Raymond Chadler's narration is fantastic. He's one of my favorite writers.

[sufue]

A year-and-a-half later, DUKE: Inspector Mislan and the Expressway Murders is $1.99 at Kindle US again. The link below is still good...

Originally Posted by sufue

I've read and liked all three of Rozlan Mohd Noor's Inspector Mislan books that have been translated into English. The books are set in Kuala Lumpur, and the author is a former Malaysian police officer, so he's writing what he knows. And I personally really enjoy reading police procedurals set in places that aren't the US or the UK . Right now the second book in the series, DUKE: Inspector Mislan and the Expressway Murders, is $1.99 at at Kindle US, as part of the Kindle US Black Friday sale, good through 29 Nov 2021. It’s not matched at Kobo US, at least as of now.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C1J4DBQ
{deleted Smile link}


And if you want to read my reviews of any or all three of the books, they're on my blog - the address is in my signature.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by sufue

A few years later, The Big Sleep is $1.99 again at Kindle US...

@ZodWallop's link below is still good.

The new covers, in a word, suck. A shame.

A few months back I re-re-reread The Big Sleep. It holds up. I'm working my way through Chandler's stuff, a book a month. He wasn't very prolific. Seven novels and two collections. Worth the read.

[sufue]

The Other Devil's Name is the fourth in the Andrew Basnett series by EX Ferrars. It's $1.99 right now at Kindle US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DQ8X524

Spoiler:

When an old colleague complains of disappearing neighbors, a retired professor of botany starts digging for clues in this delightful cozy mystery.

Andrew Basnett may be retired from academia, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped his former colleagues from dumping problems in his lap. This time around it’s peppery Constance Camm, whose neighbors keep disappearing. Miss Camm and her sister, Mollie, would probably shrug it off if not for a frightening letter that reads “I know where you buried the body.”

But . . . to which disappeared neighbor does the letter refer? And why was it sent to Mollie, who hasn’t buried anything? Spurred by a desire to help a friend, Professor Basnett starts poking around. But his efforts uncover more than one village skeleton, and they may call up more than anyone has bargained for.

[sufue]

The G-String Murders by Gypsy Rose Lee is $1.99 at Kindle US right now. (Yes, the famous Gypsy Rose Lee...)

It goes on sale a lot, but eReaderIQ hasn't ever caught it below $1.99.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009KSGRAK

Spoiler:

“Burlesque is the background . . . [and] the background is perfect. Recommended for the readers who feel better when their eyebrows are raised.” —The New Yorker

A mystery set in the underworld of burlesque theater, The G-String Murders was penned in 1941 by the legendary queen of the stripteasers—the witty and wisecracking Gypsy Rose Lee. Narrating a twisted tale of a backstage double murder, Lee provides a fascinating look behind the scenes of burlesque, richly populated by the likes of strippers Lolita LaVerne and Gee Gee Graham, comic Biff Brannigan and Siggy the g-string salesman. This is a world where women struggle to earn a living performing bumps and grinds, have gangster boyfriends, sip beer between acts and pay their own way at dinner.

[Critteranne]

Originally Posted by sufue

The G-String Murders by Gypsy Rose Lee is $1.99 at Kindle US right now. (Yes, the famous Gypsy Rose Lee...)

It goes on sale a lot, but eReaderIQ hasn't ever caught it below $1.99.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009KSGRAK

Interesting. I remember reading that Craig Rice was the ghostwriter. But the Wikipedia entry on the book says Gypsy Rose Lee wrote most of it (or maybe all of it), although she had help from an editor friend and from Craig Rice (who was also her friend).

[sufue]

Which seems not too different from the way many authors write today . I've read countless thanks to friends, editors, writing groups, and even cats (Jennifer Estep's Only Good Enemies) in the acknowledgement sections of various books...

Originally Posted by Critteranne

Interesting. I remember reading that Craig Rice was the ghostwriter. But the Wikipedia entry on the book says Gypsy Rose Lee wrote most of it (or maybe all of it), although she had help from an editor friend and from Craig Rice (who was also her friend).

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by sufue

The G-String Murders by Gypsy Rose Lee is $1.99 at Kindle US right now. (Yes, the famous Gypsy Rose Lee...)

It goes on sale a lot, but eReaderIQ hasn't ever caught it below $1.99.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009KSGRAK

Missed it!

[sufue]

It goes on sale a lot...just keep an eye out for it...

But if I notice it, I'll post again.

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Missed it!