FREE/BARGAIN — Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

[issybird]

The Venus of Salò by Ben Pastor, the eighth in her Martin Bora series, has dropped to $2.99 from $9.99 at Kindle. Unfortunately, no price drop (yet?) at Kobo, where it's $10.99.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW18SW7H

This is the latest in the Bora series, which features a Wehrmacht officer with a conscience. I know, I know, but it's nuanced. It's one of my favorite series and it's been a long while since the last book was released (2020!). It's frustrating because the books exist; the author who is Italian writes in English and they're translated into Italian. The Italian translation of this title was released two years ago.

I've never done it before, but I'm going to try a price match. I've always been mostly bookstore agnostic but I'd rather buy from Kobo, where I have a lot of credit. I have credit at Amazon, too, but that can be used for other things.

[SomeSteve]

The Drowned by John Banville, the fourth and latest Strafford and Quirke murder mystery, is £0.99 at Amazon UK and Kobo UK.

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-drowned-4

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drowned-Str...dp/B0D7K6NWVJ/

Christine Falls, the first Quirke mystery, which Banville published under the name Benjamin Black, is also £0.99.

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/christine-falls-2

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Christine-F.../dp/B003DWC6K4

[sufue]

Two Joffe freebies:

Sing It to Her Bones is the first in the Hannah Ives series by Marcia Talley. It was a finalist for the 1999 Agatha Award for Best First Novel. It appears to be free only in the UK; in the US it still appears to be published by Dell, and is not free. Presumably the rights were sold separately, and Joffe was able to get them only in the UK.
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01EXAFMIM

Murder at the Château is the second book in the Brittany murder mystery series by Anne Penketh
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6GQTJNF
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0D6GQTJNF

[GA Russell]

Man Stories All Adventure Magazine
May, 1931

includes

The Dead Face Grinned Twice
(complete novelette)
by Hugh B. Cave

$1.99

https://www.radioarchives.com/Man_St...1_p/re1158.htm

[sufue]

Past Lying is the seventh and most recent (2023) in Val McDermid's Karen Pirie series. It's £0.99 right now in the UK.

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BG8T72VM
Kobo UK: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/past-lying

Spoiler:

Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of its many writers, is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn't be surprised when an author's manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime.

Karen can't ignore the plot's chilling similarities to the unsolved case of an Edinburgh University student who vanished from her own doorstep. The manuscript seems to be the key to unlocking what happened to Lara Hardie, but there's a problem: the author died before he finished it.

As Karen digs deeper, she uncovers a spiralling game of betrayal and revenge, where lies are indistinguishable from the truth and with more than one unexpected twist . . .

The Queen of Crime Val McDermid is at the top of her game in her most gripping and fiendishly clever case yet.

[sufue]

Joffe books appear to have picked up at least some of Patricia MacDonald's non-series psychological thrillers, and now two of them are £0.99 in the UK (and KU, if you have that). Just as a fun fact, per SYKM, MacDonald's first book, The Unforgiven, was a finalist for the 1982 Edgar Award for Best Paperback

Somewhat unusually for Joffe, neither is on sale in the US, and one still shows with a different cover and as being published by Atria. SO maybe they will work their way into them in the US, or maybe there were different publishers to deal with. Not available at Kobo, due to the KU thing...

Lost Innocents at Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk//dp/B09Z71YQDP

Not Guilty at Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BS9VSF1Y

[sufue]

Three Joffe murder mysteries are free right now. Of these three authors, I've read a few of Rebecca Tope's Thea Osborne/Cotswolds series, and liked them well enough, but haven't read any in this series.

A Dirty Death is the first in the Den Cooper/West Country series by Rebecca Tope.
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B889TJ7P
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B889TJ7P


Murder on Port Meadow is the first in the Oxford Dog Walker series by Annie Dalton, with Maria Dalton
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VH5T656
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09VH5T656

Darkness Rises is the first in the Jeffrey Flint archaeological mystery series by Jason Monaghan. I got all excited when I read the words "archaeological mystery", since I tend to like mysteries with archaeological themes, but reading the blurb, I'm not so sure. Still, it's free, so I may try it sometime. And, of course, YMMV....
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZFPKCY4
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00ZFPKCY4

[itisbomb]

A Conspiracy of Paper (Benjamin Weaver Book 1)
by David Liss

is $1.99 at US stores

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-conspiracy-of-paper

Below is the blurb:
THE HISTORICAL THRILLER OF THE YEAR

Benjamin Weaver is an outsider in eighteenth-century London: a Jew among Christians; a ruffian among aristocrats; a retired pugilist who, hired by London's gentry, travels through the criminal underworld in pursuit of debtors and thieves.

In A Conspiracy of Paper, Weaver investigates a crime of the most personal sort: the mysterious death of his estranged father, a notorious stockjobber. To find the answers, Weaver must contend with a desperate prostitute who knows too much about his past, relatives who remind him of his alienation from the Jewish faith, and a cabal of powerful men in the world of British finance who have hidden their business dealings behind an intricate web of deception and violence. Relying on brains and brawn, Weaver uncovers the beginnings of a strange new economic order based on stock speculation--a way of life that poses great risk for investors but real danger for Weaver and his family.

In the tradition of The Alienist and written with scholarly attention to period detail, A Conspiracy of Paper is one of the wittiest and most suspenseful historical novels in recent memory, as well as a perceptive and beguiling depiction of the origin of today's financial markets. In Benjamin Weaver, author David Liss has created an irresistibly appealing protagonist, one who parlays his knowledge of the emerging stock market into a new kind of detective work.

[sufue]

Two very thriller-ish looking Joffe freebies right now...

Run for Home is the first in the Harry Gibson series by Dan Latus
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZV6TC77
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09ZV6TC77

Code Name: Viper seems to be a non-series title by Rich Johnson
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077VNC38R
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B077VNC38R

[GA Russell]

Detective Mystery Novel Magazine
Summer, 1948

includes full-length novel

The Crooked Hinge
by John Dickson Carr

$1.99

https://www.radioarchives.com/Detect...48_p/re419.htm

[sufue]

Think Twice is the twelfth and most recent (2024) in Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar series. It's £1.99 in the UK right now.

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CFPVT4SN
Kobo UK: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/think-twice-16

Spoiler:

How can a man who’s already dead be wanted for murder?

This is the question sports agent Myron Bolitar asks himself when two FBI agents visit him in New York.

The man they are looking for is Myron’s former client and rival, Greg Downing. Greg’s DNA has been found at the scene of a high-profile double murder, and he is now the FBI’s main suspect.

But Greg died three years previously, Myron says. He went to his funeral and gave the eulogy.

The FBI are disbelieving, and Myron knows he has to find some answers – and quickly.

Could Greg Downing still be alive?

The more Myron and his close friend Win dig into what really happened, the more dangerous their world becomes . . .

Secrets, lies and a murderous conspiracy that stretches back into the past lie at the heart of Harlan Coben’s blistering new thriller.

[pdurrant]

Odds Against, Dick Francis's fourth novel and the first featuring his detective Sid Halley, is just £0.99 at Amazon UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002RI9BDA/

If you like horse racing and classic thriller/detective fiction, this is for you.