FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by Kieran Seymour

Three of Michael Avallone's Ed Noon series are currently going free. #24 is definitely a repeat.

The quest to be a cheapskate completist draws ever nearer its end...

(13) The Bedroom Bolero
amazon.co.uk | amazon.com | amazon.ca

Spoiler:

Five murdered nude lovelies are all found in rooms painted red, with Ravel’s Bolero playing endlessly on a turntable. The Evil Evelyn, a showbiz phenomenon, is dead center of a bizarre serial killer hunt that has Captain Mike Monks completely baffled, so he enlists Noon’s aide, and Ed is knee-deep in trouble again. This story marks the first appearance of Ed Noon’s new secretary, beautiful African American Melissa Mercer, who remains with Noon for the rest of the series.

(16) The February Doll Murders
amazon.co.uk | amazon.com | amazon.ca

Spoiler:

An international ring of dedicated conspirators has conceived an ingenious plot to sabotage the U.N. The case begins when an old Army buddy of Noon’s contacts him and asks questions about the dollar bill that Noon had his entire mechanized cavalry squad sign in Europe during WWII. But when Kyle Crosby is murdered atop the RCA Building and Noon himself is shot down, another uniquely different case has been launched in the Noon canon. This case also makes Melissa Mercer an active participant in Noon’s affairs for the very first time.

(24) London Bloody London
amazon.co.uk | amazon.com | amazon.ca

Spoiler:

“The fate of all cogs everywhere: when the buttons are pushed, you move. Especially if you’re a well-trained cog with a .45, a license, and the personal endorsement of a President to use your virtues." Ed Noon, Private Eye

Ed Noon is trapped abroad by a broad who likes to swing and slay. Once again the President sends his Special Agent Noon off on a hazardous mission. This time he’s hunting an aging master scientist and a wizard child prodigy through the back streets of London.

Got them! Thanks

[ATDrake]

X-link to the Comics megathread for a bundle which may be of interest to spy franchise fans:

Humble Comics Bundle Ian Fleming's James Bond 07 presented by Dynamite Entertainment contains brand new tie-in stories by Warren Ellis, James Robinson, and other notable award-nominated comics writers.

[sufue]

The John Creasey Box Set 1 contains three titles in the Department Z series by (ummmm....) John Creasey. Titles are: First Came a Murder, Death Round the Corner, and The Mark of the Crescent. It has dropped to $1.99/£1.99 at Kindle US/UK as a Countdown deal for a little more/less than one day, depending on where you are. It seems slightly strange to me that these are titles 2, 3, and 4 in the series, so if you like to read in order, you're out of luck. (Just FYI, the first title, Redhead, is $3.99/£2.99 right now.)

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/John-Creasey-...dp/B01BC9M7A8/
Kiindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Crease...dp/B01BC9M7A8/

Spoiler:

A boxed set of three classic Department Z detective novels by the writer who sold 80 million novels worldwide, John Creasey.

First Came a Murder

Sir Basil Riordan is mysterious, frightening, and an immensely wealthy man. But is he also a killer? As head of England’s elite secret service, “Z” Department, Gordon Craigie has to find out.

It wasn’t an easy investigation. Too many important people were involved. A member of an exclusive London Club has been poisoned. Could Riordan or his son, Marcus, be involved?

Craigie assigns his best agent, Devenish, to find the truth. But what Devenish finds is no clear-cut case of homicide. He uncovers a mad masquerade of murder, larceny, and deceit of the highest order.

Before long, it looks like he and Craigie are in over their heads.

Death Round the Corner

Leopold Gorman studies the World Economic Conference with interest – and then picks five rich and powerful men to bring his plan to fruition.

If any one of them show reluctance to fall in with his scheme, he’ll be dead within the hour.

Gordon Craigie, Chief of British Intelligence, is the only thing standing between Gorman and success. So Gorman turns his attentions to Craigie’s greatest asset, the men of Department Z.

As Craigie attempts to undermine Gorman’s plot, Gorman decides which agent should be next to “disappear”… Can Craigie and his men outwit this master criminal before it’s too late?

The Mark of the Crescent

The mark of the crescent signs an order for murder.

Gordon Cragie and Department Z are embroiled in a desperate investigation involving drugs and large scale murder. How will the Department uncover who is behind the mysterious mark? Will they solve the case before the anonymous culprit claims another victim?

The trail starts at the country estate of Greylands, but where will the mark of the crescent lead them?

[GA Russell]

Sufue, Amazon says that #1 in the Department Z series is "The Death Miser," which it has for 99 cents.
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Miser-D...dp/B015GAXLZO/

[ZodWallop]

Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity is $2.99 on Amazon

Salman Rushdie had some fun applying Robert Ludlum's naming pattern to Shakespeare's plays. In Rushdie's hands, and with only a few seconds to think about it, Hamlet became The Elsinore Vacillation. Challenged with Macbeth, Rushdie apparently again stepped up with The Dunsinane Reforestation. From there, The Merchant of Venice became The Rialto Sanction and Othello The Kerchief Implication.

[sufue]

Hmmmm...SYKM says it's Redhead, which appears first in their list. But then they also say, when I look more closely, that the list is of Creasey's "Department Z and tales of British counterespionage", so maybe Amazon feels that one is part of "tales of British counterespionage", but not "Department Z" . I'm not familiar with this series, so don't have an independent opinion.

And I did miss The Death Miser, which does appear as the second title in SYKM's list, then followed by First Came a Murder, Death ’round the Corner, and The Mark of the Crescent, which SYKM has as titles 3, 4, and 5; not 2, 3, and 4 as I indicated above.

The order of some of these older series can be challenging some times, especially if some were serialized or things like that. I usually go by SYKM for no particular reason other than that I like their website....but I did miss Death Miser as #2...

Originally Posted by GA Russell

Sufue, Amazon says that #1 in the Department Z series is "The Death Miser," which it has for 99 cents.
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Miser-D...dp/B015GAXLZO/

[ATDrake]

Through November 30th, Kobo UK is having a sale on Historical Mysteries for £2.99 and under, with most titles priced at the £0.99 and £1.99 mark. It seems to be a spotlight of titles already discounted by the publishers rather than one of their special arrangements (some of the Hodder/Headline & Head of Zeus titles have been on sale for a while now), but some of them are couponable/VIP-eligible.

There's a pretty good selection from major and specialty publishers, including titles by authors Mark Gatiss (of BBC Sherlock tv series fame), Ellis Peters (a few installments of her Brother Cadfael series), Priscilla Royal (I've enjoyed what I've read of her medieval mysteries set at a nunnery, of which we've gotten the 1st one as a freebie long ago), C. J. Sansom (a 10th anniversary edition of the 1st novel in his Tudor era series), S. J. Parris, and more. There's also some true crime, ranging from medieval times up to the present day.

Linkage to the main sale page with categories: Scandals and Sleuths, Historical Whodunnits & Thrillers, Medieval Mysteries, Tudor Terrors, and More, Dark Undersides of the Past, Romantic Mysteries, Mysteries of History (all non-fiction, though the holy grail stuff may be debatable; the one about how the Victorians sensationalized and invented modern crime from a HarperCollins imprint looks interesting and certainly gives you value for money, at an ~800 pagecount for just £0.99)

[ATDrake]

Bargain @ $1.99 from Penguin's Berkley imprint in Canada & the US (price should be the same at all the usual retailers):

Prince of Darkness by historical novelist Sharon Kay Penman (SYKM, Wikipedia), 4th in her Edgar-nominated Medieval Mystery series starring Justin de Quincy, a bastard son of a bishop, who apparently serves Eleanor of Aquitaine circa the reign of Richard the Lionheart.

The Edgar®-nominated author of the medieval mysteries featuring Justin de Quincy places the Queen’s Man far from home—and in the presence of a most cunning foe...

Justin de Quincy has been lured to Paris by his nemesis, Prince John, on a mission of mercy. The prince is suspected in a plot to kill his brother, King Richard. Despite John’s hunger for the crown, he’s unwilling to put himself at risk for regicide—and he wants Justin’s help in discrediting the document that implicates him.

Justin only concedes to John’s request when he realizes that the welfare of the woman he serves, Eleanor of Aquitaine, is also at risk. It is a concession that will take him to a bloody chamber at Mont St Michel, to a putrid dungeon in Brittany, to a murderous encounter in a Paris cemetery, and to the unraveling of a conspiracy that might have changed the course of English history.

[badgoodDeb]

Prince of Darkness at Amazon too, for $1.99

[ZodWallop]

James Ellroy's Suicide Hill has dropped to $1.99 on Amazon. This is the third in a trilogy and the first two aren't currently on sale, FYI.

[sufue]

As I mentioned a few posts back, when this first dropped to $1.99, I love this series. I am biased to historical mysteries, but even among historicals, this is one of my favorites. Penman's titles don't go on sale very often, at least in the US, so if you think you might want to read it, you should grab it, even though it is the fourth in the far-too-short 4-book series.

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Bargain @ $1.99 from Penguin's Berkley imprint in Canada & the US (price should be the same at all the usual retailers):

Prince of Darkness by historical novelist Sharon Kay Penman (SYKM, Wikipedia), 4th in her Edgar-nominated Medieval Mystery series starring Justin de Quincy, a bastard son of a bishop, who apparently serves Eleanor of Aquitaine circa the reign of Richard the Lionheart.

The Edgar®-nominated author of the medieval mysteries featuring Justin de Quincy places the Queen’s Man far from home—and in the presence of a most cunning foe...

Justin de Quincy has been lured to Paris by his nemesis, Prince John, on a mission of mercy. The prince is suspected in a plot to kill his brother, King Richard. Despite John’s hunger for the crown, he’s unwilling to put himself at risk for regicide—and he wants Justin’s help in discrediting the document that implicates him.

Justin only concedes to John’s request when he realizes that the welfare of the woman he serves, Eleanor of Aquitaine, is also at risk. It is a concession that will take him to a bloody chamber at Mont St Michel, to a putrid dungeon in Brittany, to a murderous encounter in a Paris cemetery, and to the unraveling of a conspiracy that might have changed the course of English history.

[ATDrake]

^

Oops, I definitely missed it earlier, else I'd have picked it up from your heads-up (been meaning to try Penman for her regular historicals for a while now).

A few more price drops available in Canada & the US which don't seem to have been mentioned yet (should be the same price at all the regular retailers):

@ $1.99 in the US only from Penguin's G. P. Putnam & Sons imprint:

Kinsey and Me: Stories by Sue Grafton (SYKM, Wikipedia), author of the Shamus & Award-winning Kinsey Millhone “alphabet” mysteries, a collection of her short stories, with introductory notes to each tale.

@ $1.99 in US & Canada from HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster imprints:

• Thunder Bay by William Kent Krueger (SYKM, Wikipedia), 7th in his Cork O'Connor starring a part-Irish, part-Ojibwe ex-Sheriff normally in Minnesota, but taking a sidetrip to Ontario in this one, which made it an autobuy for me, even before I found out that it had won the Dilys Award. Much of the rest of the series seems to have gotten awards or nominations as well.
• The Man Who Wanted To Know Everything by Israeli author D. A. Mishani (SYKM), 3rd in his reduplicative Inspector Avraham Avraham series starring a police detective in Tel Aviv. 1st in series was an International Dagger finalist, according to SYKM.
• Black Run by Italian author Antonio Manzini (SYKM), 1st in his Rocco Schiavone series starring a policeman exiled to a tourist town in the Alps.
• Loves Music, Loves to Dance by Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award recipient Mary Higgins Clark (SYKM, Wikipedia), a standalone serial killer suspense thriller pitting a surviving friend against one who preys upon personal ads.
• A Talent for Murder by Andrew Wilson, apparently a debut novel, and Real People Fic. This is based upon Agatha Christie's own mysterious brief disappearance in 1926 (Wikipedia), and gives it a potentially sinister spin, if you're interested.

@ $2.99 in Canada & US from Penguin's Berkley imprint:

An Unthymely Death and Other Garden Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert (SYKM, Wikipedia), a collection of short stories with recipes in her China Bayles gardening gimmick cozies starring an herbalist ex-lawyer. The intro says these were originally written for a gardening website to go along with various featurettes, and have been fleshed out and expanded, with each story retaining the original informative sidebars.

[sufue]

The Judgment of Caesar is the 10th in the Gordianus the Finder series by Steven Saylor, whose books rarely go on sale (at least here in the US). It has dropped to $2.99 at Kindle and Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Judgment-Caes...dp/B003J4VEB8/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-judgment-of-caesar

Spoiler:

It is 48 B.C. For years now, the rival Roman generals Caesar and Pompey have engaged in a contest for world domination. Both now turn to Egypt, where Pompey plans a last desperate stand on the banks of the Nile, while Caesar's legendary encounter with queen Cleopatra will spark a romance that reverberates down the centuries. But Egypt is a treacherous land, torn apart by the murderous rivalry between the goddess-queen and her brother King Ptolemy.

Into this hot-house atmosphere of intrigue and deception comes Gordianus the Finder, innocently seeking a cure for his wife Bethesda in the sacred waters of the Nile. But when his plans go awry, he finds himself engaged in an even more desperate pursuit - to prove the innocence of the son he once disowned, who stands accused of murder.

The judgment of Caesar will determine the fate of Gordianus's son; the choice Caesar makes between Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy will determine the future of Rome's empire. At the center of these two dilemmas, Gordianus becomes the unwitting fulcrum that will shift the balance of history. Witness to the death throes of the old world, he is to play a critical role in the birth of the world to come.

Drawing scrupulously on historical sources, this is the most ambitious novel yet in Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa series. Saylor presents a bold new vision of Caesar and paints a compelling and original portrait of Cleopatra, amid bloodshed, battles and storms, in a setting of Egyptian magic and mystery.

[sufue]

Three titles on sale for a bit more than I usually like to purchase at, but the first two are titles by authors whose books rarely go on sale, and the other is set in such an interesting time period that I'm probably going to buy it, especially since I have a yen for historical mysteries...

Hollow Mountain is the third in the Spike Sanguinetti series by Thomas Mogford. I've read and enjoyed the first two, so I may (or may not) ante up $4.23 for it at Kindle US. For some reason (perhaps because they have a road running across their airport, which has to close (the road, not the airport ) whenever a plane takes off or lands), I've always wanted to visit Gibraltar, and I tend to enjoy books set there.
link: https://www.amazon.com/Hollow-Mounta...dp/B00J5ED8E2/

Spoiler:

Danger has followed the lawyer Spike Sanguinetti back to Gibraltar.

The disturbing question of what happened to Spike's girlfriend, Zahra, is still unanswered. He hasn't heard from her since she vanished in Malta months ago, when suddenly his phone rings. It's Zahra, but she sounds strange. She tells him that he has to stop looking for her and that if he doesn't, Žigon will come after those closest to him. Then she hangs up.

When Peter Galliano, Spike's partner in the law firm, is hospitalized by a mysterious hit-and-run accident, and a woman asks him to investigate the suspected suicide of her husband, Spike finds himself on a perilous path that draws him into international politics and leads him, finally, to the hollow mountain.

The Strangling on the Stage is third from last (so far) in the Fethering series by Simon Brett. I've read and enjoyed several of the early titles in this series in DTB, but since I've shifted to e-books, and Brett's e-books are pretty pricey, I haven't read many. Strangling has dropped to $3.55 at Kindle US.
link: https://www.amazon.com/Strangling-St...dp/B00HS2C0MY/

Spoiler:

When Jude agrees to lend her vintage chaise longue for the local Amateur Dramatics Society's production of George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple, little does she realize she'll end up in a starring role. It's an ambitious play, culminating in a dramatic execution scene: a scene that's played for real when one of the leading actors is found hanging from the especially-constructed stage gallows during rehearsals.

A tragic accident - or something more sinister? Carole and Jude make it their business to find out.

The Hot Country is the first in the Christopher Marlowe Cobb series by Robert Olen Butler. It has gone on sale for $3.91 at Kindle US. I'm usually reluctant to spend that much on a new-to-me author, and on a book that calls itself a thriller rather than the mystery, but the setting/timing (Mexican civil war, during US invasion of Vera Cruz, in the run-up to WWI) make this sound pretty intriguing to me. So I'm probably going to buy this one...
link: https://www.amazon.com/Country-Chris...dp/B008DYIGR4/

Spoiler:

In The Hot Country, Christopher Marlowe Cobb (“Kit”), the swashbuckling early 20th century American newspaper war correspondent travels to Mexico in April and May of 1914, during that country’s civil war, the American invasion of Vera Cruz and the controversial presidency of Victoriano Huerta, El Chacal (The Jackal). Covering the war in enemy territory and sweltering heat, Cobb falls in love with Luisa, a young Mexican laundress, who is not as innocent as she seems.

The intrepid war reporter soon witnesses a priest being shot. The bullet rebounds on the cross the holly man wears around his neck and leaves him unharmed. Cobb employs a young pickpocket to help him find out the identity of the sniper and, more importantly, why important German officials are coming into the city in the middle of the night from ammunition ships docked in the port.

An exciting tale of intrigue and espionage, Butler’s powerful crime-fiction debut is a thriller not to be missed.

[sufue]

The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam is the first in the Good Thief's Guides series by Chris Ewan. It is free right now at Kindle UK. I've read a couple of the titles in this series back in DTB, and enjoyed them, and I just recently purchased the 5-book omnibus (info in this post) that seems to be available lots of places, although not in the US or Canada.

link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Thiefs...dp/B071F6PBQM/

Spoiler:

From the Number One Bestselling author of SAFE HOUSE comes this fast paced heist thriller.

Charlie Howard doesn't just write books about a career thief, he also happens to be one.

In Amsterdam working on his latest novel, Charlie is approached by a mysterious American who asks him to steal two apparently worthless monkey figurines from two separate addresses on the same night. At first he says no. Then he changes his mind. Only later, kidnapped and bound to a chair, the American very dead and a spell in police custody behind him, does Charlie begin to realise how costly a mistake he might have made.

The police think he killed the American. Others think he knows the whereabouts of the elusive third monkey. But for Charlie only three things matter: Can he clear his name? Can he get away with the haul of a lifetime? And can he solve the briefcase-shaped plot-hole in his latest novel?

The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam is the first book in Chris Ewan’s highly acclaimed Good Thief’s Guide series. All of the books in the series can be read and enjoyed as individual mysteries.