FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[sufue]

The Dirty Duck is the fourth Richard Jury book by Martha Grimes. It's $2.99 right now in the US, and discountable at Kobo US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BHHDMP0
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-dirty-duck-4

Spoiler:

The Dirty Duck is a pub in Shakespeare’s beloved Stratford-on-Avon, and it’s here that Miss Gwendolyn Bracegirdle of Sarasota, Florida—fresh from a performance of As You Like It—takes her last drink. Mere minutes later she is slashed ear to ear. The only clue to this baffling and brutal murder is a pair of lines from an unknown poem printed across a theater program.

It seems that a razor-happy killer is stalking a group of rich American tourists. And Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury, just passing through Stratford for a glimpse of the intriguing Lady Kennington, finds himself taking a crash course in the bloodier side of Elizabethan verse.

[sufue]

A very nice price on the third book in Cassandra Clark's Abbess Hildegard of Meaux series - it's on sale for $0.75 at Kindle US. The books in this series are mostly usually pretty expensive, although a few of them do go on sale from time to time. But I'd grab this one at this price now if you want it...

The Law of Angels, #3
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00457X89E

Spoiler:

York, 1385. Just as the Mystery Plays are about to unfold, a young woman witnesses a terrible crime and turns to Abbess Hildegard of Meaux for protection. In The Law of Angels, Cassandra Clark once again shows us the human side of history, giving readers new reason to follow Publishers Weekly's rallying cry: "Medievalists rejoice!"

[salty-horse]

Beat the Devils by Josh Weiss is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Alternative history. There's a sequel.

USA, 1958. President Joseph McCarthy sits in the White House, elected on a wave of populist xenophobia and barely‑concealed anti‑Semitism. The country is in the firm grip of McCarthy's Hueys, a secret police force evolved from the House Un-American Activities Committee. Hollywood's sparkling vision of the American dream has been suppressed; its remaining talents forced to turn out endless anti‑communist propaganda.

LAPD detective Morris Baker—a Holocaust survivor who drowns his fractured memories of the unspeakable in schnapps and work—is called to the scene of a horrific double‑homicide. The victims are John Huston, a once‑promising but now forgotten film director, and an up‑and‑coming young journalist named Walter Cronkite. Clutched in the hand of one of the dead men is a cryptic note containing the phrase “beat the devils” followed by a single name: Baker. Did the two men die in an attack fueled by better-dead-than-red sentiment, as the Hueys are quick to conclude, or were they murdered in a coverup designed to protect—or even set in motion—a secret plot connected to Baker's past?

In a country where terror grows stronger by the day, and paranoia rises unchecked, Baker is determined to find justice for two men who raised their voices in a time when free speech comes at the ultimate cost. In the course of his investigation, Baker stumbles into a conspiracy that reaches deep into the halls of power and uncover a secret that could destroy the City of Angels—and the American ideal itself.

[sufue]

Joffe's free book today is The Portsmouth Murders, apa Tide of Death, which is the first in Pauline Rowson's Solent mystery series.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SV6G9QP
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09SV6G9QP

Spoiler:

Meet Detective Inspector Andy Horton. It’s his second day back in Portsmouth’s CID and things aren’t going well.

Please note this was previously published as Tide of Death.

DI Andy Horton is on his morning run along an isolated stretch of beach when he stumbles across a dead man. Stark naked and bludgeoned to death.

Eight months ago, DI Horton’s life fell apart when he was suspended for misconduct. His wife kicked him out and stopped him seeing his daughter.

The young woman who’d accused him went missing and the charges were dropped, but his personal and professional life are still in a mess.

And now it doesn’t look good for a detective under suspicion to be the one to find a dead body. His colleagues don’t want him on the case.

But this murder will challenge Detective Horton in every single way. And when another body turns up with the same cause of death, Horton suspects he might be the next person in the killer’s sights.

[sufue]

Three years later, The King's Justice is no longer the most recent book in the series, but it is on sale again, this time for £0.99 at Kindle UK, £1.99 (but discountable) at Kobo UK, and $1.99 in the US. The links below are still good, and here's the Kobo UK link: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-king-s-justice-9

Originally Posted by sufue

The King's Justice is the ninth and most recent (2020) in Susan Elia MacNeal's enjoyable (to me, at least) Maggie Hope series - at least, that is, until the new one comes out in July. It has gone on sale both in the US at $1.99 and the UK at £1.49. Those prices are within a few cents of each other, at least according to my favorite forex site. It's probably on sale at Kobo UK also, but I don't typically check there.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Kings-Justice...dp/B07S8LCBB7/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-king-s-justice-9
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07S8LCBB7

[sufue]

Serpent's Tooth is the tenth Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus book by Faye Kellerman. It's $1.99 in the US right now.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000W9164S
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/serpent-s-tooth-2

Spoiler:

A man walks into a trendy Los Angeles restaurant -- a disgruntled ex-employee with an automatic weapon -- and seconds later, thirteen people are dead and thirty-two more have been wounded. It is a heinous act of mass slaughter that haunts Homicide Detective Peter Decker.

But, though eyewitnesses saw only the lone gunman -- who apparently took his own life after his bloody work was done -- evidence suggests more than one weapon was fired. It is a disturbing inconsistency that sends Decker racing headlong into a sordid, labyrinthine world of Southern California money and power, on an investigation that threatens to destroy his reputation and his career.

[sufue]

Death in Lovers' Lane is the third title in Carolyn Hart's Henrie O series. It's $1.99 right now in the US.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OVLJQY
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/death-in-lovers-lane

Spoiler:

A Pulitzer Prize-winning ex-reporter and journalism teacher at ivy-covered Thorndyke University, Henrietta "Henrie O" Collins demands of her students the same steadfast dedication to the truth that was the cornerstone of her own illustrious career. So when beautiful, ambitious Maggie Winslow decides to investigate a trio of hitherto unresolved local crimes, Henrie O urges her to pursue the story with uncommon vigor.

But the gifted future journalist's zeal may have cost her her life. The next day Maggie's corpse is discovered in Lovers' Lane--the very site of one of the unsolved mysteries the extraordinary young woman was exploring at the time of her brutal, premature death. The police and the Thorndyke powers-that-be are rabidly against Henrie O's involvement in the case. But, for Maggie's sake, the stubborn, sixtysomething investigator is determined to dredge up a past everyone seems to want to keep buried even if it means placing herself firmly in a relentless killer's path.

[sufue]

The Ghost Orchid is now $1.99 in the US...

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4JBJBFG
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-ghost-orchid-4

Originally Posted by sufue

Another one of those most-recent-in-series UK deals for £0.99...

This time it's Jonathan Kellerman's latest (2024) Alex Delaware book, Ghost Orchid, and sadly, since I've been swamped and a bit late in posting, it's only for a few hours more.

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C6168GD4
Kobo UK: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-ghost-orchid-5