FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[ZodWallop]

The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman is $1.99 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US.

I've seen Hillerman's books forever, but haven't read one. This is his first, so a good place to start.

From New York Times bestselling author Tony Hillerman, the first novel in his series featuring Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn & Officer Jim Chee who encounter a bizarre case that borders between the supernatural and murder

Homicide is always an abomination, but there is something exceptionally disturbing about the victim discovered in a high, lonely place—a corpse with a mouth full of sand—abandoned at a crime scene seemingly devoid of tracks or useful clues. Though it goes against his better judgment, Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn cannot help but suspect the hand of a supernatural killer.

There is palpable evil in the air, and Leaphorn's pursuit of a Wolf-Witch leads him where even the bravest men fear, on a chilling trail that winds perilously between mysticism and murder.

[Kindleing]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I've seen Hillerman's books forever, but haven't read one. This is his first, so a good place to start.

I read most of his Leaphorn series in paperback and really enjoyed them. Like many series, they started getting weaker toward's the end. I can't remember where in the series they started tapering off but it was quite a ways in. Part of the problem was the editors quit editing and too many errors were getting through. But that seems to have become common for many big-name authors.

The second in the series, Dance Hall of the Dead, is also $1.99. I'm going to pick up both of them as soon as the double points day starts a little later. We have them in paperback somewhere, but I like changing over to ebooks.

[sufue]

I concur that Hillerman's series was tailing off a bit, however, I still liked them enough to keep reading. And then his daughter (Anne Hillerman) has done an interesting reboot, IMO, with a change of lead character, while still keeping most of the same cast. I've really liked several of hers.

Full disclosure: my dad's family is from that part of New Mexico/Arizona, and so I may be a teeny bit biased...

[sufue]

Three Doors to Death is one of those Rex Stout books with three long Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin short-stories (or maybe novellas) in it. It is one of the last few paperbacks of Stout's that I have, which means I'm happy to see it on sale right now, and get another book off my shelves! It's $1.99/£0.99 in the US/UK.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003O86QAS
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/three-doors-to-death
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003O86QAS

Spoiler:

One by one they knock on the door of the incomparable Nero Wolfe, each with a case more perplexing than the one before. First comes the niece of a man who committed suicide by jumping naked into a geyser, only to return just in time to be murdered. Then it’s the strange case of the murder victim’s family covering up for the real killer, while a chef stews in jail. Finally a master horticulturist discovers the woman he wants to marry: dead and cooling in a hothouse. Three knocks on the door. Three cases of crime. Enter a world of mendacity, mixed motives, and masterful detection on West Thirty-fifth Street, where murder is always at home.

[sufue]

The Woman Who Married a Bear is the first in John Straley's Cecil Younger series. It's on sale right now for $1.99 in the US and £0.78 at Kindle UK. Per SYKM, it won the 1993 Shamus Award for Best First Novel.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HW7DWU
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/wom...rried-a-bear-1
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004HW7DWU

Spoiler:

High drama meets local color as a private investigator works to uncover the motive and identity of a killer in this Shamus Award–winning first Cecil Young investigation set in Sitka, Alaska.

Cecil Younger, local Alaskan investigator, is neither good at his job nor at staying sober. When an old Tlingit woman hires him to discover why her son, a big game guide, was murdered, he takes the case without much conviction that he’ll discover anything the police missed. He really just needs the extra cash. But after someone tries to kill him, Younger finds himself traveling across Alaska to ferret out the truth in the midst of conspiracies, politics, and Tlingit mythology. High drama meets local color as Cecil Younger works to uncover the motive and identity of the killer.

[sufue]

I suppose this isn't technically a mystery book, but it still seems as if it belongs here ...

A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup is on sale for $1.99 at Kindle US, and per its blurb, it seems to be pretty much what the title says it is.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WK3FGSQ

Spoiler:

Shortlisted for the BMA Book Awards and Macavity Awards 2016

Fourteen novels. Fourteen poisons. Just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's all made-up ...

Agatha Christie revelled in the use of poison to kill off unfortunate victims in her books; indeed, she employed it more than any other murder method, with the poison itself often being a central part of the novel. Her choice of deadly substances was far from random – the characteristics of each often provide vital clues to the discovery of the murderer. With gunshots or stabbings the cause of death is obvious, but this is not the case with poisons. How is it that some compounds prove so deadly, and in such tiny amounts?

Christie's extensive chemical knowledge provides the backdrop for A is for Arsenic, in which Kathryn Harkup investigates the poisons used by the murderer in fourteen classic Agatha Christie mysteries. It looks at why certain chemicals kill, how they interact with the body, the cases that may have inspired Christie, and the feasibility of obtaining, administering and detecting these poisons, both at the time the novel was written and today. A is for Arsenic is a celebration of the use of science by the undisputed Queen of Crime.

[sufue]

This week's Joffe Free Friday book is A Shroud for Delilah, which is the first in Anthea Fraser's Detective David Webb series.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C7L7VHZ7
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C7L7VHZ7

Spoiler:

In the small town of Broadminster, Detective David Webb faces a ruthless murderer targeting divorcees.

Webb is called to the home of recently separated forty-year-old Linda Meadowes. Her body has been discovered with a stab wound to the heart.

Despite the brutality of the crime, there are no signs of forced entry or robbery. The only clue left behind is the word ‘Delilah’ scrawled in red lipstick.

What is the significance of the name? And without a murder weapon, how will Webb track down the killer?

The investigation takes an unnerving turn when gruesome objects begin showing up at another woman's flat: a dead pigeon, a dismembered moth.

Webb fears she may be the next victim.

[sufue]

I remember reading most or all of Leonard Tourney's Matthew and Joan Stock historical series (17th century England) years and years ago in DTB, and although I don't remember a ton of details after so many years and so many other books, I remember I liked the ones I read. And now the 8-book series is available as a box-set for $0.99/£0.99...

The Complete Elizabethan Murder Mysteries Books 1-8 contains: The Players’ Boy Is Dead, Low Treason, Familiar Spirits, The Bartholomew Fair Murders, Old Saxon Blood, Knaves Templar, Witness of Bones, and Frobisher’s Savage

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CB6G4G9R
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CB6G4G9R

Spoiler:

DISCOVER A *COMPLETE* UNPUTDOWNABLE ELIZABETHAN MYSTERY SERIES FEATURING HUSBAND AND WIFE DETECTIVE DUO MATTHEW AND JOAN STOCK.

EIGHT BOOKS IN ONE GREAT-VALUE BOX SET!

{edited some nonsense}

BOOK 1: THE PLAYER’S BOY IS DEAD
In Shakespearean England, a small players’ troupe performs for a lord and his lady, and none shines more than the young players’ boy. But, at cock’s crow the next day, he is found brutally murdered in his stable bed.

BOOK 2: LOW TREASON
Matthew Stock’s young relation, Thomas, leaves home to apprentice himself to Castell, a jeweller in London. Then he disappears. Castell writes to say Thomas has gone to sea, but Stock is suspicious. He leaves to search for the boy, who meanwhile returns to Essex and tells Joan of the danger he’s in.

BOOK 3: FAMILIAR SPIRITS
1602. Chelmsford is in a frenzy. Witch hunts have pitted neighbours against one another, and there’s a collective hysteria about recent eerie events. What will Matthew and Joan make of the sudden, unexplained deaths and lingering spirits?

BOOK 4: THE BARTHOLOMEW FAIR MURDERS
Matthew Stock becomes involved in murderous matters when he discovers that a bear, trained to kill dogs for the St Bartholomew Fair – attended by the queen – has set its sight on a higher prize.

BOOK 5: OLD SAXON BLOOD
Sir John Challoner has been murdered, so why does no one want to help Joan and Matthew Stock investigate? The castle servants are sullen and the neighbouring gentry abusive. When someone hides the headless body of a serving maid in their chamber, even the level-headed Stocks fear the strange spirit of evil that haunts the castle.

BOOK 6: KNAVES TEMPLAR
One by one, law students are dying. All are deemed suicides, but in truth they are murders, and it befalls humble clothier Matthew Stock to unravel the truth. Meanwhile, Matthew’s wife, Joan, uncovers dangerous secrets on London’s bawdy Elizabethan streets.

BOOK 7: WITNESS OF BONES
As Queen Elizabeth slowly dies, Puritans and Papists play a game of deception. A plot is afoot to unseat her principal advisor, Sir Robert Cecil. Therefore, merchant-constable Matthew Stock, who considers Sir Robert his master, becomes a principal pawn.

BOOK 8: FROBISHER’S SAVAGE
When Sir Martin Frobisher went in search of a Northwest Passage, he got as far as Canada before returning to England. On his return, he was accompanied by an Eskimo man, whom he names “Adam Nemo”. Years later a local family is brutally mutilated, and fingers are pointed at Adam. Matthew and Joan Stock are determined to prove his innocence.

____________________

MEET THE STOCKS
Matthew Stock is a clothier by trade, but also Essex county’s constable. He has a nose for detective work and a marvellous tenor voice. He considers himself a loyal subject to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I, and has been happily married for twenty years.

Joan Stock is Matthew’s practically-minded wife. She is Matthew’s partner in more than just the marital sense, however, and her powers of deduction make her the perfect counterpart in this crime-solving sleuth team.

THE SETTING
16th century, England. Essex, once occupied by the Romans, is now a burgeoning market town and the perfect place for Matthew Stock to run his clothing business. Houses and shops nestle between inns and taverns with all the muck, mire, murder and mystery you’d expect.

[sufue]

A Necessary Evil is £0.99 in the UK again right now...

Originally Posted by sufue

A Necessary Evil is the second in the Captain Sam Wyndham/Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee series by Abir Mukherjee. It has dropped to £0.99 at Kindle UK.

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01K6RP0MO
Kindle UK/Smile: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01K6RP0MO

[sufue]

Donna Leon's So Shall You Reap is the most recent in her Guido Brunetti series, and I liked it as much as I like the rest of the series, which is to say, quite a lot. (There are a few that are a bit better, and a few that are a bit less good, but all are excellent, IMO...) It's £0.99 at Kindle UK right now, sadly, probably not for too much longer, because I was tied up with a bunch of stuff at work, and just now getting to this. And also, it's not on sale at Kobo UK, at least as of now, so if you have issues with the Kindle 2023 stuff - this is a 2023 title...

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHN5R5W5

Spoiler:

On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice's canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man's presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city's far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim. Curiously, he had been living in a garden house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, in which Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim's interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s.

As the investigation expands, Brunetti, Vianello, Commissario Griffoni, and Signorina Elettra each assemble pieces of a puzzle-random information about real estate and land use, books, university friendships-that appear to have little in common. Until Brunetti stumbles over something that transports him back to his own student days, causing him to reflect on lost ideals and the errors of youth, on Italian politics and history, and on the accidents that sometimes lead to revelation.

I has an ARC of this - my review is on my blog...

[sufue]

A Deadly Brew is the fourth in Susanna Gregory's Matthew Bartholomew series. It's on sale right now for £2.99 at Kindle UK. That's not a great price for decades-old backlist, but is better than eReaderIQ has ever recorded it - either in the US or UK. YMMV...

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004BDOJOU

Spoiler:

The winter of 1353 has been appallingly wet, there is a fever outbreak amongst the poorer townspeople and the country is not yet fully recovered from the aftermath of the plague. The increasing reputation and wealth of the Cambridge colleges are causing dangerous tensions between the town, Church and University.

Matthew Bartholomew is called to look into the deaths of three members of the University of who died from drinking poisoned wine, and soon he stumbles upon criminal activities that implicate his relatives, friends and colleagues - so he must solve the case before matters in the town get out of hand...

[sufue]

An omnibus of the three most recent Captain Lacey mysteries by Ashley Gardner (pen name for Jennifer Ashley) is $0.99/£0.99 at Kindle US/UK right now. I've read two of the three so far and liked them.

Books in the omnibus include: Murder in St. Giles, Death at Brighton Pavilion, and The Custom House Murders.

Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries Volume 5
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HRG57PR
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09HRG57PR

Spoiler:

A collection of books 13-15 in the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries.

In Murder in St. Giles, Captain Lacey must clear his bodyguard and former pugilist, Brewster, of murdering a man in the rookery of St. Giles.

In Death at Brighton Pavilion, Captain Lacey emerges from a stupor to find himself standing over the dead body of a calvary officer who had once been his bitter enemy. He now must investigate himself for murder.

In The Custom House Murders, Lacey is thrust between James Denis and one of his deadly rivals, at the same time he worries that an old army friend has committed murder.

[sufue]

Chaos in Death/Possession in Death is a collection of two short stories in JD Robb's In Death series. SKYM indicates that these were previously published in other collections: Possession in Death was included in the 2010 anthology, The Other Side, and Chaos in Death was included in the 2011 anthology, The Unquiet. The collection is on sale right now at Kindle UK for £2.99. I don't see it available as an e-book in the US, at least that I could find...

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CAUHDOE

Spoiler:

Possession in Death

After a Russian woman whispers her dying words to Eve Dallas, strange things begin to happen. Unable to concentrate on anything, Eve realises that in order to reclaim her mind, she must find the woman's great-granddaughter - one of a string of young missing girls, forgotten by all.

Set between Indulgence in Death and Treachery in Death.

Chaos in Death

When eye-witness testimony paints the killer as a green skinned monster, with swollen red eyes and goblin ears, even Eve Dallas is shaken. But as she gets closer, the trail suggests something even more disturbing - someone is playing at science . . .

Set between New York to Dallas and Celebrity in Death.

[sufue]

Jo Nesbø's Killing Moon is the thirteenth and most recent (2023) in the Harry Hole series. It's £1.99 at Kindle and Kobo UK right now...

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BGB5T4VF
Kobo UK: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/killing-moon-7

Spoiler:

This killer has got inside Harry's head. And now he's coming for YOU.

'Breathtaking... Harry Hole returns in cracking form' Sunday Times

'Nesbo deserves to be crowned the king of all crime thriller writers' Sunday Express

'With Harry in the unfamiliar role of private eye, assembling an eccentric team to help him, and rubbing his old police colleagues up the wrong way, it's one of the most fun [books in the Harry Hole series]' Daily Express
---

Two young women are missing. Strangers to each other, but last seen at the same party. When the body of one of them is found with fresh stitches along her hairline, the hunt is on to find a murderer with singular methods.

Catching this criminal calls for a detective with a singular mind.

Only Harry Hole can stop this ingenious psychopath. But Harry is gone: struck off the force, down and out in LA. It seems like nothing can entice him back to Oslo. Until someone close to him comes under threat.

But there is more to this case than meets the eye and the clock is ticking to find the missing woman, before the body count rises.

[Paperbackstash]

Luckiest Girl Alive on sale for 1.99

I have not read it but was a Goodreads award nominee and made into a Netflix movie

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