FREE/BARGAIN - Mystery, Suspense, Thriller - 2015

[ATDrake]

Free from the authors via KDP Select @ Amazon:

Bitter Melody by sibling writing duo Loretta Jackson & Vickie Britton (SYKM shared entry), one of whom is a fellow MR member author, a prevent-the-murder suspense thriller originally out from Whiskey Creek Press in 2004.

When Elaine Sands auditions as a singer for the Wind River Band, her wildest dreams seem to be coming true. But soon it is clear that someone is out to ruin her success. During her first night on stage, Elaine barely escapes receiving a fatal electrical shock. Threatening phone calls suggest she has become the target of some obsessed fan. Yet Elaine notes undercurrents of resentment directed at Rex Tobin, handsome singer and part owner of Craft Music Productions. Rex, not Elaine, might be the actual target. Elaine is shattered when she finds out Rex has a reason to want her out of the way-and may have hired her for the sole purpose of staging her death. What started out as a once-in-a-lifetime adventure suddenly becomes a tour of fear.

[sufue]

Fourteen (if I counted right) Ed McBain 87th Precinct books are on sale at Kindle US for $1.99, as part of their "175 Kindle Books for $1.99 Each" sale, good through March 11, 2015.

All of these were on sale back in 2012, when Amazon did the big one day $0.99 Ed McBain sale, but I haven't seen any Ed McBain 87th Precinct titles for less than $1.99 since then, so if you didn't get these then, this might be a good time, since $1.99 is still 50% off the normal $3.99.

The titles are:

Vespers
The Empty Hours
See Them Die
Poison
Long Time No See
Tricks
Kiss
Lightning
Calypso
Lady Killer
Blood Relatives
Heat
So Long as You Both Shall Live
Shotgun

I don't usually post links to books in the big Kindle sales, because others do this in other threads, but thought this was good enough to at least let folks in this mystery thread know about the Ed McBain titles.

[ATDrake]

Free again from the author via KDP Select @ Amazon: (individual linkage, since the author's name is common enough to bring up a bunch of unrelated titles)

Secrets by Michael A. Smith, a dark side of suburbia murder suspense thriller originally out from St. Martin's Press in 1980.

Frank Montgomery and his family love their life in the placid suburb of Lake View. Members of the seven households on Horseshoe Drive form an extended family. Like any family, they occasionally play practical jokes on each other. But the harmless pranks suddenly turn ugly, even obscene. Feelings become heated, alliances form, fingers are pointed--until a brutal murder ends the life of the prime suspect. Frank digs deep into his neighbors' lives and discovers that motives for the murder abound. Secrets reveals a dark side of suburbia. It's enough to make you wonder about your neighbors. Who are they really? What are they up to? Are you watching them? Are they watching you?

Legacy of the Lake, a crime/corruption mystery adventure thriller originally out from Avon in 1980.

Jack Olsen, a down-on-his luck former cop, seeks inner healing at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. Out fishing one day, he witnesses a deliberate collision that leaves one man dead. Hired by the elderly victim's companion to investigate the so-called accident, Jack discovers another world beneath the surface of paradise---one characterized by organized crime, political corruption, drugs and gambling. Working with Kate Carter, the new love of his life, Jack follows a money trail littered with greed, obsession and hate. With one final throw of the dice, it appears he's turned up snake eyes.

Smith also offers a repeat of his Jeremiah Trilogy of sfnal technothrillers involving an extremist separatist religious cult originally out from Tor's Forge imprint, x-linked in the SF/Fantasy megathread.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by sufue

.... I don't usually post links to books in the big Kindle sales, because others do this in other threads, but thought this was good enough to at least let folks in this mystery thread know about the Ed McBain titles.

sufue Amazon Aus doesn't have Big Kindle Sales, so I like it when you do alert this thread to some of the authors on sale.

(Because then I can check out Amazon Aus to see if they've got a similar price, and often they have lowered it to match, or Kobo.)

Here's the Amazon Aus link to the Kindle Summer Sale (Mystery, Thriller and Suspense):
http://www.amazon.com.au/s/ref=sr_pg...qid=1423950858

On Sale till 1st March.

[ATDrake]

Free from the author via KDP Select @ Amazon: (linkage for the lot)

On A Golden Chain by Ruth Benjamin, a Jewish-themed mystery/identity thriller originally out from small publisher CIS in 1991.

Life for the Wilson family living in a small English town was picture perfect. But when her young son receives a toy train as a gift, Dorothy reacts with strange agitation. Soon she is having recurrences of an inexplicable old nightmare involving a terrible train crash. Why does it all seem so real? And why is it always the same? Then the family is suddenly plunged into confusion by the sudden death of Dorothy’s mother who, with her last gasping breath, reveals that Dorothy is not really her child.

Dorothy is stunned. Who is she? Who are her real parents? Are they still alive? How can she ever expect to find them? Unfortunately the only clue to her identity is a small Jewish star on a golden chain . . .and those awful nightmares.

Benjamin also offers a few more self-published things and a backlist literary dark secrets of the past self-discovery thriller and some YA mysteries, if you're interested.

Free from the author via KDP Select @ Amazon:

Kula by Chip Hughes, 3rd in his Surfing Detective series of mysteries starring the eponymous Hawai'ian PI. This is out from one Slate Ridge Press which only seems to publish this author's books, but the 1st-in-series was originally published by Hawaii-local small publisher Island Heritage Press, from which IIRC I've actually read some of their Hawaiian culture books in paper from my local library (well, actually, the not-so-local central library downtown, which is the only one big enough to get in relatively obscure Hawaiian cultural publications), and we've previously received others in the same series free.

Summoned to the Honolulu hilltop mansion of radio pitchman Barry Buckingham, presumably to trace his missing wife, the Surfing Detective is in for the letdown of his career. Kai Cook is hired to track another lost family member. A dog.

Despite his qualms, Kai would seem a natural for the case, since the golden retriever named Kula is a famous surfing dog. Yet the PI knows nothing about finding missing pets. But he does know where to find help—Maile Barnes, an ex-K9 cop and kindred spirit with the keys to unlock the dark underworld of animal theft in the islands.

Then a questionable tip takes Kai to a late-night rendezvous, his tipster winds up dead, and the detective himself becomes a suspect. Can he clear his name and find the murderer before he strikes again? The PI tracks the illusive retriever from O‘ahu to the Big Island to Maui, but the killer is one step ahead—other players linked to the dog’s disappearance keep turning up dead.

Is a ghost from Barry Buckingham’s past behind the murders? Or is Kai’s client just a misunderstood man with a lost pet? To solve this third case in the Surfing Detective series, Kai Cooke must do what he never does—take on a partner. Teaming up with the headstrong K9 cop is his only shot to liberate the famous surfing dog, who is somehow always at the center of this mystery.

[GA Russell]

Looking for Chet Baker - free
http://www.amazon.com/Looking-Chet-B...rds=chet+baker

[AnemicOak]

Footsteps in the Dark (Country House Mysteries) by Georgette Heyer - $1.99
Amazon US | Google | Kobo | not dropped at B&N, OmniLit or eBooks.com so far

What begins as an adventure soon becomes a nightmare...

Locals claim it is haunted and refuse to put a single toe past the front door, but to siblings Peter, Celia, and Margaret, the Priory is nothing more than a rundown estate inherited from their late uncle-and the perfect setting for a much-needed holiday. But when a murder victim is discovered in the drafty Priory halls, the once unconcerned trio begins to fear that the ghostly rumors are true and they are not alone after all! With a killer on the loose, will they find themselves the next victims of a supernatural predator, or will they uncover a far more corporeal culprit?

Couponable at Kobo

[Fbone]

Lockdown (Ryan Lock #1) by Sean Black is FREE today at most retailers. Bantam 2009. GR 3.70

https://play.google.com/store/books/...d=GzA0AgAAQBAJ
http://smile.amazon.com/Lockdown-Rya...own+sean+black

[itisbomb]

L.A. Confidential
by James Ellroy

is $2.99 at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/L-Confidential....+confidential

[ATDrake]

Free from the authors via KDP Select @ Amazon:

Racked by Jude Hardin & self-publishing champion J.A. Konrath (SYKM, Wikipedia), a crossover mystery/thriller short involving their respective Nicholas Colt & Jack Daniels characters, the latter of whom is the star of Konrath's police procedural novel series which was originally out from Disney's Hyperion imprint.

A private investigator, a police lieutenant, and a man wearing a Bugs Bunny mask walk into a bar...

Unfortunately, it's no joke when Bugsy rigs the barrel of a twelve-gauge pump to the back of the bartender's neck.

Together for the first time in this explosive, lightning-paced tale of greed, betrayal, and blood-soaked terror (not really, but it's a fast-paced and funny mystery-thriller), Florida PI Nicholas Colt (Crosscut, Key Death) and Chicago cop Jacqueline Daniels (Whiskey Sour, Shaken) team up to stop the robber before another shotgun shell gets RACKED.

[rgeorg]

"The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins is free on Amazon, then the matching audiobook is only 99 cents. Over 25 hours and excellent ratings.
__________________

[Mort1997]

Free on Amazon UK-Baltimore Blues by Laura Lipman


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Baltimore-Bl...362247031_f_21

[ATDrake]

Free again from the author('s republishing consortium) @ Kobo & thence price-matched in selected regional Amazon stores (not currently available to Canadians, but if it stays free long enough, sometimes they get matched):

The Kindness of Strangers by Edgar Award-winner Julie Smith (SYKM, Wikipedia), 6th in her Skip Langdon mystery series (the one which won her said award) starring the eponymous New Orleans cop, originally out from Ballantine in 1996.

A MADMAN, A COP OBSESSED, AND A WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE LOVE AFFAIR…

Politics makes the strangest bedfellows of all and in New Orleans, a psychopath’s running for mayor. Not just the usual harmless megalomaniac—a murderer and a monster. His supporters and a good proportion of would-be voters think he’s just a kindly preacher-man and handily crucify anyone who says otherwise. Enter Detective Skip Langdon, who met the Rev. Errol Jacomine on a case, finds him pretty much the personification of evil, and can point to a pile of corpses to prove it.

But Langdon’s fresh out of street cred. On administrative leave after shooting someone, she’s become the Cassandra of the police department—everything she says gets put down to paranoia. So finding the proof to discredit Jacomine becomes her obsession until he kidnaps a couple of kids she cares about—and then it turns into a mission from hell.

Langdon has to bull her way through a hurricane to find the small army of Jacomine’s thugs who’ve got 15-year-old Sheila, the closest thing she has to a niece, and Sheila’s friend, who’s having the mother of inappropriate love affairs—with someone dangerously close to Jacomine.

[ATDrake]

Free from the author('s republishing consortium) via KDP Select @ Amazon:

Dead in the Hamptons by Elizabeth Zelvin (SYKM), 3rd in her Bruce Kohler series of humorous mysteries starring the recovering Manhattan alcoholic, originally out from Five Star in 2012 under the title Death Will Extend Your Vacation.

THE ULTIMATE BEACH READ—SECRETS, LIES, SUNBURN, AND MURDER!

A clean and sober group house might not be everyone's idea of a dream vacation in the Hamptons, but the aptly named Deadhampton seems just about perfect for recovering alcoholic Bruce Kohler, his main man Jimmy, and BFF Barbara the World-Class co-dependent. (Meaning she simply cannot mind her own business.)

Even the neighbors seem kindred spirits. Down the road's a big house in the dunes owned by a clean and sober playboy with a motley crew of house guests in recovery from drug, love, and sex addictions, compulsive overeating, bulimia, and anorexia, not to mention good old-fashioned alcoholism.

BUT SOMEONE'S NOT ABSTAINING FROM MURDER...

All goes swimmingly, so to speak, until Deadhampton lives up to its name in more ways than one way when the tide washes in the body of Clea, the trio's beautiful housemate . "Murder?" say the cops. " Piffle! You people are seeing pink elephants."

But Clea was an investigative journalist whose passions included environmental issues and men—lots of men. Our intrepid three aren't about to let this one go. So who needs the old addictions? Secrets, lies, and danger are the new sex, booze, and drugs!

[Little.Egret]

Sanders of the River

Bones in London by Edgar Wallace

Nisyros Publishers also reprints, free for a few days.

http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-...lisher=Nisyros

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?url=searc...lisher=Nisyros
http://www.amazon.ca/s/?url=search-a...lisher=Nisyros

King of the Khyber Rifles: A Romance of Adventure by Talbot Mundy

Intrigue, romance, and mystery

Talbot Mundy (born William Lancaster Gribbon) (April 23, 1879 - August 5, 1940) was an English writer. He also wrote under the pseudonym Walter Galt. Many of his novels, including his first novel Rung Ho!, and his most famous work King of the Khyber Rifles, are set in India during the British Raj in which the loyal British officers encounter ancient Indian mysticism. The novels portray the citizens of Imperial India as enigmatic, romantic and powerful. His British characters have many encounters with the mysterious Thugee Cults.

Jimgrim and Allah's Peace by Talbot Mundy

Told in the East by Talbot Mundy

The Subterranean Brotherhood by Talbot Mundy

Guns of the Gods: A Story of Yasmini's Youth by Talbot Mundy

Rung Ho! by Talbot Mundy

Hira Singh: When India Came to Fight in Flanders by Talbot Mundy

Winds of the World by Talbot Mundy

Caesar Dies by Talbot Mundy