260 pages, 29 of 30 reviews are 5-star, Lending Enabled
236 pages, 33 of 38 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
Fifteen-year-old Brittney Ryan has taken to the streets. Leitha, her older sister and legal guardian, hires private investigator Nicholas Colt to find her and bring her home. Piece of cake, Colt thinks. With Brittney’s forbidden boyfriend’s address in hand, he plans to make a surprise visit and put this one in the scrapbook.But something more sinister is behind Brittney’s disappearance, and Colt soon finds himself in an ever-widening maze of deceit, betrayal, and murder. When Colt learns what the mysterious phrase Pocket-47 means, he is haunted even more by the plane crash that killed his family and rock band twenty years ago-a crash he now realizes might not have been an accident.Determined to save Brittney, Colt struggles to untangle the threads of his own tortured past. Unfortunately, one of the most heinous and violent criminals in modern history has other ideas.
Cedardale Court by Nathan Lee Christensen
233 pages, 36 of 39 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
Full of daring fools, haunting old flames, and brimming with panicked villainy, the Oregon countryside was meant to solve Canner Connelly’s problems, not make them worse. But, after their well-intentioned move to Cedardale Court, the safety and peace of mind he’s longed for since the passing of his wife, for him and his daughter, Chloe, might be farther away than ever.
Almost as soon as the sun comes up, the promising start at Uncle Henry’s falls rather short when the ever inept inhabitants of Cedardale Court start their days. One domestic dispute, a little reckless driving, and a broken fire hydrant later, what normally might have been an enjoyable Sunday morning quickly turns into a slightly darker affair when a human hand turns up in the bushes.
From then on, things only get messier and more frightfully uncertain as, one by one, the secrets that have been so carefully kept, for so very long, unravel for everyone.
*A neo-gothic fabulation, bordered on the lines of hysterical realism, wrapped up in a quirky little murder mystery*
228 pages, 17 of 20 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
Michael Balkind, author of the critically acclaimed thriller Sudden Death, scores a home run in his newest book titled Dead Ball. Murder, mystery, elite sports, guns, greed, special ops, mafia, and glamour? Dead Ball has it all! The story takes place on the hallowed grounds of AllSport, a sports facility that houses & trains inner city athletes who have shown professional potential in various sports. Before AllSport, many of these athletes lived in poverty. Many were members of street gangs. Combining these kids, the country’s top professional athletes, the finest training facility in the world, and big money, makes for a combustible mix. Cutthroat tactics abound and the high-stakes world of professional sports makes for a thrilling read. A brazen murder is committed and the list of suspects with plenty of motive is long. Then the body count grows. The sports world is one where all kinds of people come to play, not just the athletes, and the rules of the game are sometimes subject to dangerous interpretation. Is murder just another form of competition? Dead Ball is full-throttle action from the very first page!
One For Sorrow by Erick Mayer and Mary Reed
313 pages, 7 of 8 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
Byzantium, capitol of the 6th century Roman Empire, simmers a rich stew of creeds, cultures, and citizens with a sprinkling of cutthroats and crimes. John the Eunuch, Emperor Justinian’s Lord Chamberlain, orders a Christian court while himself observing the rites of Mithra. Thomas, a knight from Britain, Ahasuerus, a soothsayer, and two ladies from Crete stir up events and old memories for John, who must ask how the visitors link to the death of Leukos, Keeper of the Plate. An Egyptian brothel keeper and a Christian stylite know more than they are telling….
In due course, John gets his man – and a love scene….
288 pages, 25 of 30 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled, Previously Free
Blanco County, Texas: It’s the week before deer hunting season, as close to a statewide holiday as you get in Texas, and the locals are getting restless. Game Warden John Marlin has his hands full with poaching complaints coming in faster than he can write out-of-season tickets. Then a call of a different sort comes in. A man dressed up in some sort of deer costume has been shot at the Circle S ranch, and witnesses are reporting a massive wild-eyed buck prancing about the pasture in a lovesick frenzy. Marlin’s seen a lot in his years, but this is wilder than he could have imagined: the man in the deer suit is a good friend, and the whacked-out whitetail isn’t exactly a stranger either. It’s the beginning of a mad, frantic weekend in Blanco County, one that will see a few more men shot, an invasion by Colombians with more than hunting on their minds, and damn near the end of Marlin’s life. Ben Rehder serves it all up with a huge helping of humor in this debut comic mystery that will firmly establish him as the funniest crime writer in Texas.
Tainted Morals by Janene Hudson
385 pages, 25 of 41 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
When Laura Broderick’s world was destroyed, she retreated to the woods to rebuild her life. An anonymous existence and nearly absolute solitude has gone a long way toward healing the scars. But four years later, Laura has discovered she will never truly escape the madman that is after her. Even the FBI couldn’t help her before and now she finds herself trying to trust the small town sheriff with her life.
Sheriff Trevor Holbrook has never given a second thought to the beautiful mysterious woman that lives in the woods outside of New Jackson. She made it clear to the entire town she wanted to be left alone. But when a horrifying turn of events drops a killer in the middle of the small town he is sworn to protect, he has no choice but to figure out the mystery that is Laura Broderick. Her dauntless courage awakens passionate feelings Trevor never could have anticipated. The deeper he delves into Laura’s past, the more terror seems to be unleashed on his town.
Can one small town sheriff help her stop a psychopath the FBI hasn’t been able to touch?
The Schliemann Legacy by DA Graystone
250 pages, 10 of 12 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
1873 — Heinrich Schliemann discovered ancient treasure in Turkey which proved the existence of Troy.
1943 — the treasure disappeared from Nazi Germany.
1981 — Henri Mardinaud, international information broker, discovers the treasure in the possession of Friedrich Heiden, ex-commander of Majdanek, a Nazi extermination camp. Using his network, the master gamesman positions his players in a race for the treasure and the Nazi:
David Morritt, recently retired Mossad agent and survivor of Majdanek.
Katrina Kontoravdis, a disgraced Greek intelligence operative hoping to redeem herself.
Duman, a vicious Turkish terrorist who will do anything to achieve his objectives.
From Europe, to Heiden’s fortress in Colombia, to a secluded estate in Jamaica, Mardinaud uses the hatred between Greece and Turkey and the horror of the holocaust to fuel his twisted game.
More than the treasure, survival becomes the ultimate prize in this battle of haunting memories, revenge, and love.
Amongst My Enemies by Williams Brown
324 pages, 17 of 18 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
Inside an old German U-Boat rusting on the bottom of the Baltic are millions in gold bars, stolen art, and a secret that could tear NATO apart. The only one who knows the truth is Mike Randall, a battle-scarred American who survived four months in the frozen Hell of northern Germany at the end of the war. When he does speak up, he puts a target on his own forehead, one which the Russians, the West Germans, the U-boat’s former owners, the Israeli Mossad, and even his own government quickly take aim at. Some want the gold, some want him dead, and some want proof about a high-ranking spy inside NATO itself. Randall’s wants are much simpler. Caught between the Kremlin and a new, deadly, 4th Reich, he wants revenge and to satisfy some old debts with a steel-jacketed bullet.
A Cutthroat Business by Jenna Bennett
208 pages, 14 of 14 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
Everyone has warned new-minted realtor Savannah Martin that real estate is a cutthroat business. But Savannah doesn’t think she’s supposed to take the warning literally … until an early morning phone call sends her to an empty house on the ‘bad’ side of town, where she finds herself standing over the butchered body of a competitor, face to face with the boy her mother always warned her about.
Rafe Collier is six feet three inches of testosterone and trouble; tall, dark, and dangerous, with a murky past and no future—not the kind of guy a perfect Southern Belle should want to tangle with. In any way. But wherever Savannah turns, there he is, and making no bones about what he wants from her.
Now Savannah must figure out who killed real estate queen Brenda Puckett, make a success of her new career, and avoid getting killed—or kissed—by Rafe, all before the money in her savings account runs out and she has to go back to selling make-up at the mall.
Bingo Barge Murder by Jessie Candler
242 pages, 15 of 18 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
As co-owner of The Rabbit Hole, a quirky-cool Minneapolis coffee shop, Shay O’Hanlon finds life highly caffeinated but far from dangerous. That is, until her lifelong friend Coop becomes a murder suspect. The victim was Kinky, Coop’s former boss and the unsavory owner of The Bingo Barge, a sleazy gambling boat on the Mississippi. The weapon? Kinky’s lucky bronzed bingo marker.
While unearthing clues to absolve Coop, Shay encounters Mafia goons hunting for some extremely valuable nuts. Looking for the murderer without help from the cops proves risky—especially with distracting sparks flying between Shay and the beautiful yet fierce Detective Bordeaux. When Shay’s elderly friend and landlady is held for ransom by the mob, all bets are off. Can Shay find the killer before the stakes get any higher?
Bingo Barge Murder won the Ann Bannon Popular Choice Award from the Golden Crown Literary Society.
Embrace the Grim Reaper by Judy Clemens
329 pages, 7 of 11 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
Casey Maldonado’s life is over—at least as she knows it. In one brief moment of fire and wrenching metal, everything important was gone. The car manufacturer was generous with its settlement, but it can never be enough. Her family and friends—not to mention her lawyers—want her to go for more. More money. More publicity. More everything. But Casey is done. No financial gain or courtroom retribution will bring back what really matters. So she packs up, puts her house on the market, and leaves town. Her only companion: Death, who won’t take her, but won’t leave her alone.
She stops on a whim in tragedy-stricken Clymer, a small blue-collar town in the midst of Ohio farmland. Not only is HomeMaker, the town’s appliance factory and main employer, moving to Mexico, but the town has been rocked by the suicide of a beloved single mother.
Casey is drawn to the town, and soon realizes that many of the citizens don’t believe the verdict of suicide at all. Death encourages her to investigate, and she uncovers information that points to the factory. Was the victim’s death a cover-up? Did she truly have the means—as she claimed—to keep the factory from leaving town?
When Casey begins to receive messages that she should leave well enough alone, she decides she’d be better off back on the road, but the murderer can’t let her go with everything she knows….
414 pages, 4 of 4 reviews are 5-star, Lending Enabled
Set amid the glamour of Paris on the brink of La Belle Époque, City of Light is a tale of murder, mystery, and masks where no one is quite what they seem…
City of Light, the second book in the City of Mystery series, opens in 1889 Paris on the eve of the Exposition Universelle, the ultimate World’s Fair which debuted Edison’s phonograph, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, and the Eiffel Tower. Detective Rayley Abrams has traveled from Scotland Yard to France to study the new science of forensics with the Parisian police. Lonely and awkward, Rayley easily falls under the spell of a beautiful British expatriate named Isabel Blout, a woman with a murky past and suspicious social connections.
Paris may be abuzz with excitement, but there are also rumors that the Exposition is running out of money and that Eiffel may not finish his celebrated tower in time for the opening day celebrations. The French police are so eager to present a perfect image to the eyes of the world that when a most unusual victim washes up on the banks of the Seine, they literally keep the murder under wraps.
Back in London, Queen Victoria has rewarded Rayley’s friend and rival, Trevor Welles, for his work on the Jack the Ripper case by naming him head of Scotland Yard’s first forensics unit. Trevor scrambles to assemble his team: Tom Bainbridge, an aristocratic young medical student, Emma Kelly, sister of the Ripper’s last victim, and Davy Mabrey, a bobby with profound common sense and a knack for earning the trust of witnesses. The unit is investigating a raid on a male brothel when an alarming telegram draws them to Paris and into the drama and intrigue surrounding the Exposition. But will Trevor and his team be able to unravel the web of deception in time to save Rayley?
Strictly Murder by Lynda Wilcox
281 pages, 4 of 4 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
The estate agent’s details listed two reception rooms, kitchen and bath. What they failed to mention was the dead celebrity in the master bedroom. Personal assistant Verity Long’s house hunt is about to turn into a hunt for a killer. It will take some fancy footwork to navigate the bitchy world of dance shows, television studios, and dangerously gorgeous male co-stars. When Verity looks like the killer’s next tango partner, she discovers that this dance is … Strictly Murder.
Buried in Benidorm by LH Thomson
285 pages, 5 of 5 reviews are 4-star
Polit
411 pages, 2 of 2 reviews are 5-star, Lending Enabled
Jim O’Connor, the Republican senator from Massachusetts, is a handsome, charismatic family man—and a future contender for the presidency.
But when O’Connor discovers his mistress brutally murdered in her apartment, he becomes a number-one homicide suspect of the Boston Police Department.
With November on the horizon and his campaign spinning out of control, the Senator must hunt down a killer in the capital of lies—in order to salvage his battered political career…and his own life.
Kill Smartie Breedlove by Joni Rodgers
249 pages, 2 of 2 reviews are 5-star, Lending Enabled
Recently widowed private dick Shep Hartigate, a dishonored cop reduced to chasing cheating spouses for a ruthless Houston divorce lawyer, teams up with free-spirited pulp fiction writer Smartie Breedlove to find out who’s killing the inconvenient exes of Texas—including Smartie’s BFF, Charma Bovet, a centerfold with a heart of gold.
Could Shep’s gorgeous but unscrupulous employer really have a secret bimbo/mimbo hit list? Or is Smartie Breedlove a few peeps shy of an Easter basket?
A colorful cast of problematic lovers, longsuffering family, and stalwart friends (both two-legged and four-legged) close ranks around Smartie and Shep as they sift clues and maneuver to stay alive. Calling on her longtime companions Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Daphne du Maurier, Smartie finds a roadmap to the hardboiled plot twists and U-turns drawing her perilously close to a damaging past that left her scarred and now threatens to destroy her.
NYT bestselling ghostwriter, author and indie publisher Joni Rodgers is known for creating characters that resonate, dialogue that crackles with wit, and plots that surprise. If you love a great mystery woven with skill, humor and compassion, KILL SMARTIE BREEDLOVE will not disappoint.
The Forgotten King by RL Edinger
225 pages, no reviews, Lending Enabled
Robert LaRue is dead! That much is certain. A security guard is the one who found him while on his rounds. There are no wounds or marks of any kind on the body of the late curator of the Bayport Historical Museum. To preserve the authenticity of the exhibit, there are also no security cameras either. Detective Sergeant Brennen of the Bayport police department is at his wits end and enlists Andrew Knight’s help, to piece together the clues.
As Andrew discovers each clue, he will help you piece together the reason for the murder of Robert LaRue. He discovers it more than just a Pharaoh’s curse as some have come to believe. Now all you have to do is sit back and let Andrew take you on a mystery adventure which will keep you on the edge of your seat, excitedly waiting for the next clue and help you find the final resting place of The Forgotten King!
DeVilliers County Blues: 1972 by John Cassell
508 pages, 6 of 10 reviews are 5-star, Lending Enabled, Previously Free
Four young people find themselves victims of an Organized Crime experimental human warehouse scheme. Overcoming doubts about themselves and mistrust of each other, the four very different young people join forces to break out of the mental hospital in which they are held, then find and punish the persons responsible.
A story of brotherhood tested to the limit, this book draws heavily on the author’s over 27 year career as policeman and prosecutor. This fight against impossible odds examines in some detail both the heroes and villians of modern day law enforcement, all cleverly wrapped within a suspense thriller you will not want to put down until you’re finished.
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I have not read any of these books, so they may not be any good. Some of the books from previous Free Book posts are still available for free. If you want to see all free books as they come out you should follow Books on the Knob on their RSS or Twitter Feed. Or Ireaderreview or the many free book threads on Amazon’s Message Boards.
As always please check to make sure the books are still free before you “buy” them, especially from Amazon. Prices can change quickly. This may be a one day offer. Pick it up quick. If you do buy a book and realize later you have been charged for it, here is a guide on how to return a kindle book.
