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Looking to download free and discounted mystery ebooks? Well then, you sleuth, you’ve found the right place. Satisfy your crime solving needs in this category, and never pay more than what you should. We routinely feature the best authors of mystery ebooks, and they always promote their ebooks to you--for free or for a discount.
Definition of "Mystery Genre": Fiction in which a detective resolves a crime or series of crimes. This genre can also be referred to as detective or crime novels. The plot of a mystery ebook focuses on the crime that needs to be solved, and the detective that will solve it. Typical elements include the detective being in danger, a host of suspects with their own motives, and clues, motives and alibis. The genre can vary greatly dependent on the time in which the mystery is set, as that will drive what tools the detective has at his/her disposal.
Some examples of the best mysteries of all-time include Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon), Agatha Christie (Murder on the Orient Express), Caleb Carr (The Alienist), Lyndsay Faye (Dust and Shadow), James Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice). Of course, many of these are the best mystery ebooks of all time, as well as classics. We try to bring you free and discounted mystery ebooks on their way to being the tops in their genre.
Paradise has a dark side.
Surfing in Hawaii can be fame, talent and… murder.
Poised to win the prestigious Triple Crown of Surfing, Maui surf star Makoa Simmons washes up tragically dead. Detective Lei Texeira plunges into a high-profile case whose dark and tangled motives reach deep into the elite world of professional surfing on the North Shore of Oahu. Lei must follow her instincts into new territory even as husband Michael Stevens struggles with heartbreak of another kind.
“Another fantastic mystery featuring Lei Texeira and the wonderful, deftly drawn characters populating the Lei Crime Series.” Emily Kimelman, author of the Sydney Rye Mystery Series
***Winner! 2016 Independent Publishers AWARD (IPPY) Bronze Medal for Best Suspense/Thriller***
***WANT TO CATCH UP ON THE SERIES? LOOK FOR THE SPECIALLY PRICED BOX SET OF BOOKS 1-8 FOR YOUR NEXT BINGE READ! ***
This is the FOURTH book in Edgar-winner Julie Smith’s Rebecca Schwartz series.
"A delightfully modern sleuth." --Minneapolis Tribune
"If you haven't discovered Smith yet, now is the time to do so . . . Move over, Sara Paretsky." —KPFA-FM (Berkeley, CA)
WHAT'S THE ETIQUETTE WHEN YOUR HOSTESS IS ARRESTED FOR MURDER?
San Francisco lawyer Rebecca Schwartz has occasion to wonder when she and her weekend hostess, Marty Whitehead, find a body floating in the 30-foot kelp tower at the Monterey Aquarium, and Marty's promptly dragged off to the slammer.
Rebecca quickly grasps the Emily Post solution—sign on as Marty's lawyer, try to keep her client's two young kids out of the deep end, and somehow avoid drowning in the sea of lies gushing from Marty's mouth--and everyone else’s. There’s a lot of intrigue among the aquarium's oceangoing primates, as well as rumors of a pearl beyond price.
For Rebecca, the sea and all its animals have always held a huge attraction, but now her attention turns to a particularly fine specimen of homo sapiens--hot marine biologist Julio Soto. As her investigation picks up speed, she finds she better act fast to keep Julio from sleeping with the fishes he collects. Because if she doesn’t, he could be next in line for the shark tank—along with Rebecca herself.
Author's note: I wrote this after I'd written the first book in the Skip Langdon Police Procedural Series, which is a much darker proposition than the Rebecca Schwartz books. Usually. But some readers have remarked that this one is a good deal darker than the three previous titles in the series. It does have some scary scenes, but I think Rebecca kept her sense of humor. Try it--money back if you don't like it! I promise. Just write me at juleorleans@cox.net. --Thanking you in advance for your kind indulgence--Julie Smith
"Nobody gets inside her characters like Julie Smith." -Linda Barnes, author of the Carlotta Carlyle series
"Smith is a gifted writer." -The Washington Post Book World
A career soldier who survived a deadly riot in Cairo, and a reclusive mythology expert from Montana, race against time to find the product of legends that’s cutting a bloody path across the continent.
***
One snowy evening, a stranger with a horribly scarred face stomps on the porch of Stella Hunter’s house, holding her latest book of myths and legends. He points to the bloody fingerprints of the book’s now deceased owner, marking a passage of the Peacetaker myth. When she asks how he came by the book, he tells her he took the controversial book from the lifeless hand of a traffic fatality in Cairo. And suddenly, Stella could swear that somewhere a clock started ticking down to doomsday. After all, the fate of humanity depends on whether she was right or wrong when she wrote her infamous book.
"The Room is a compelling story of possession, evil, and the struggle of a family dealing with the unknown."
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Don and Faith Paxton just moved into the house of their dreams--a 1929 remodel. Add a great job and two vibrant twins, and there's nothing else a family could ask for. Except for some peace. Before the smell of new paint fades away, the house's history starts seeping through. From an attic room, Don's transformation commences. His dreams become nightmares, his actions become inexplicable, and he slowly becomes the house. Can he save himself and his family before the transformation is complete? Or, will the room consume them all?
In Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti series, the Venetian inspector has been called on to investigate many things, from shocking to petty crimes. But in The Waters of Eternal Youth, the 25th novel in this celebrated series, Brunetti finds himself drawn into a case that may not be a case at all.
Fifteen years ago, a teenage girl fell into a canal late at night. Unable to swim, she went under and started to drown, only surviving thanks to a nearby man, an alcoholic, who heard her splashes and pulled her out, though not before she suffered irreparable brain damage that left her in a state of permanent childhood, unable to learn or mature. The drunk man claimed he saw her thrown into the canal by another man, but the following day he couldn’t remember a thing.
Now, at a fundraising dinner for a Venetian charity, a wealthy and aristocratic patroness--the girl’s grandmother--asks Brunetti if he will investigate. Brunetti’s not sure what to do. If a crime was committed, it would surely have passed the statute of limitations. But out of a mixture of curiosity, pity, and a willingness to fulfill the wishes of a guilt-wracked older woman, who happens to be his mother-in-law’s best friend, he agrees.
Brunetti soon finds himself unable to let the case rest, if indeed there is a case. Awash in the rhythms and concerns of contemporary Venetian life, from historical preservation, to housing, to new waves of African migrants, and the haunting story of a woman trapped in a damaged perpetual childhood, The Waters of Eternal Youth is another wonderful addition to this series.
From New York Times bestselling author Toni Anderson comes a heart-stopping Romantic Thriller...
An assassin risks everything when he falls in love with an FBI agent hunting her sister's killer.
“Sometimes, you have to take a chance.”
As a marketing executive, Heather Stanton is used to spinning anything negative that comes her way into gold, but now both her personal and professional lives have hit a glitch, so she cuts her losses and boards the first train out of town, leaving it all behind.
Heather never expects to run into her independent, free-wheeling Aunt Julia in a speck on the map called Willows Bend. Nor does she expect the turn her life takes when her aunt is suspected of murder.
Putting her own problems aside, Heather teams up with a handsome ex-private investigator to clear her aunt’s name. But will Julia’s innocence be questioned when the odds turn against her in a race to find the killer?
When the top American diplomat in Tokyo, Bernard Mattson, is killed, he leaves more than a lifetime of successful Japan-American negotiations. He leaves a missing manuscript, boxes of research, a lost keynote speech and a tangled web of relations.
When his alluring daughter, Jamie, returns from America wanting answers, finding only threats, Detective Hiroshi Shimizu is dragged from the safe confines of his office into the street-level realities of Pacific Rim politics.
With help from ex-sumo wrestler Sakaguchi, Hiroshi searches for the killer from back alley bars to government offices, through anti-nuke protests to military conspiracies. When two more bodies turn up, Hiroshi must choose between desire and duty, violence or procedure, before the killer silences his next victim.
THE MOVING BLADE is the second in the Tokyo-based Detective Hiroshi series by award-winning author Michael Pronko.
** #1 AMAZON BESTSELLER **
All Amber Evans has ever wanted is a normal life, but sometimes normal isn’t what’s meant to happen.
Blessed are the chosen.
Amber Evans has worked hard for a life and career she thought she’d never have. An exciting job, a loving husband, and an adorable daughter. The perfect life.
But lurking under the skin of suburbia is something dark and dangerous. A secret past that Amber has been trying to escape for almost twenty years. Only the people who know her best have ever been told, but Amber was raised in a religious cult that doesn’t let go of its members easily.
A terrifying kidnapping leaves Amber shaken to her core, and her husband in the hospital. They’re running out of time to find their daughter and regain the sense of stability she’s worked so hard to maintain for her family.
After twenty years of pretending the past was gone, when it all comes rushing back, will Amber be able to escape the clutches of the very people she’s tried so hard to leave behind? Or will her past consume her and leave everything she’s built in ruins?
In the third The third Marc Kadella legal mystery, an adorable—and photogenic—two-year-old girl is kidnapped, and, when her remains are found, her twenty-two-year-old widowed mother Brittany is charged with her murder. But before she can even be charged she’s been tried and convicted by the media, at the center of which is Melinda Pace, a cynical, mostly-functioning alcoholic Minneapolis television personality with a “legal news” show called The Court Reporter. Not even in the alternative universe of television news could she be described as a reporter, since she makes no attempt at or pretense of presenting the truth, or even the facts. She does do a great job of producing through-the-roof ratings and whipping the public into a frenzy—with tragic consequences.
Marc is brought into the case early on, before it’s clear it will erupt into a media circus that brings out every goofball, crackpot, and member of the aluminum foil helmet club, along with a publicity-hungry state attorney general.
The prosecution feeds the media monster by painting Brittany as a neglectful mother who got rid of her child because motherhood interfered with her partying.
Marc throws himself heart and soul into saving Brittany from the maw of media justice, and all his associates rally to support him in any way they can. Gorgeous P.I. Maddy Rivers, who is on the case 24/7, reveals a different side as she becomes a sort of big sister to Brittany, providing the TLC that might have kept Brittany out of this mess if she’d gotten it from her controlling mother. Marc’s lady love Judge Margaret Tennant is, as always, sensitive to the needs of an attorney in the throes of a huge case and, as always, eager to meet those needs.
This one’s sure to please fans of the most beloved lawyer sleuth of all time, Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason, who brought the television camera into the courtroom in the first place, and the nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts expertise of legal eagles John Grisham and Richard North Patterson.
Crickett is the EIGHTH mystery in the highly entertaining Dev Haskell Private Investigator mystery series.
Mike Faricy once again proves himself to be Minnesota's Master of the Bizarre.
When the city's laziest Private Investigator Dev Haskell spots his old flame Karen Riley in The Spot bar, she's changed--for one thing she's no longer Karen Riley, now she's Crickett, and then there's the stroller with ten month old Oliver. Dev hangs on and does the math: ten months plus nine months equals when?
It seems Crickett's sometime lover Daryl has been caught in possession of some drugs, and she thinks they may have been planted on him. But five million dollars worth? Tough to hide that much in your pocket. Dev starts looking under rocks and quickly uncovers local crime lord Tubby Gustafson and his psychopathic enforcer, Bulldog. Things seem to go downhill rather quickly from there as Dev finds himself literally running for his life.
Crickett is a hilariously entertaining hard-boiled mystery, with just enough chills to keep you on the edge of your seat. A delightful read with a heavy dose of corner cutting and misbehavior to go with the beverage of your choice.
"Faricy is the next Carl Hiaasen." -Crime Scene
"Faricy is America's hottest new mystery writer ... and Dev Haskell is one of the looniest and most enjoyable characters inhabiting the world of fictional PIs out there today." -The Dirty Lowdown
FBI Agent Katie Freeman’s life has been upended. After being reassigned from Louisiana to middle Tennessee, her new bosses suspect that her reassignment is due to an indiscretion with her previous partner. Now, she and her new partner, Michael Powell, are asked to assist on the bewildering case of a woman who was kidnapped, tortured and left for dead on her own front porch. Before they can make any headway, a second woman disappears. As the number of missing women rises, Katie and Michael must work to figure out how the women are being abducted and where they are being held. Will they be too late to save the latest woman?
Complicating matters even further is a cold case left behind by Michael’s former partner. Who murdered Henry Stephens twenty-six years ago? What happened to Henry’s wife? And why does one of the suspects act like he knows Katie?
Everybody dies. Nobody leaves . . . Award-winning author Scott William Carter returns with his tenth novel, a spellbinding tale of a man who bridges both sides of the great divide.
After narrowly surviving a near-fatal shooting, Portland detective Myron Vale wakes with a bullet still lodged in his brain, a headache to end all headaches, and a terrible side effect that radically transforms his world for the worse: He sees ghosts. Lots of them.
By some estimates, a hundred billion people have lived and died before anyone alive today was even born. For Myron, they're all still here. That's not even his biggest problem. No matter how hard he tries, he can't tell the living from the dead.
Despite this, Myron manages to piece together something of a life as a private investigator specializing in helping people on both sides of the great divide—until a stunning blonde beauty walks into his office needing help finding her husband. Myron wants no part of the case until he sees the man's picture ... and instantly his carefully reconstructed life begins to unravel.
"Carter's writing is on target." – Publishers Weekly
“The Sixth Sense meets Spenser For Hire in Scott William Carter’s magnificent Ghost Detective.” – Michael J. Totten, author of Taken
“Scott is one of those rare writers who can and does cross genres, and do it well. You never know what kind of story you’ll get from him, but you do know that it’ll be good.” – Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Hugo award-winning author of The Disappeared
From the author of The Gray and Guilty Sea and Wooden Bones, comes this riveting novel of a man cursed with a terrible gift. In a world where everybody dies but nobody leaves, Myron Vale is the rare individual who completely straddles both sides of the great divide. His strange ability resulting from a gunshot to the head while serving as a Portland police officer, a few years later he recovers to forge a new life as private investigator catering to both the living and the dead. With its memorable characters, taut prose, and spellbinding story, Scott William Carter's Ghost Detective will haunt you long after you finish the final pages — a promising launch to what will hopefully be a long-running series.—FRP
First in the USA-Today and Kindle Top Ten bestselling Leigh Koslow Mystery Series!
"A funny, fast-paced, clever, and unusual mystery that will have readers clamoring for more. Sheer delight." --Carolyn Hart
The truth about what happened in 1949 went to Paul Fischer's grave... Too bad his body didn't!
Advertising copywriter Leigh Koslow doesn't pack heat--just a few extra pounds. And she doesn't go looking for trouble. When she moved into her cousin Cara's refurbished Victorian house, she wasn't planning on discovering a corpse--certainly not one that had been embalmed ten years before. But as anyone in the small Pittsburgh borough of Avalon could tell her, her cousin's house has a history attached. A history dating back to two mysterious deaths in the summer of 1949.
Someone wants Leigh and Cara out of the house--someone who has something to hide. But that someone doesn't know Leigh's impetuous cousin, and when Cara digs her heels in, Leigh looks to her old college chum, local policewoman Maura Polanski, for help. But the answers the trio find only point to more questions. Were the scandalous deaths of fifty years ago really an accident and a suicide? Or were they murder?
The nearer the women get to the truth, the more desperate someone becomes. Because some secrets are better off kept. Especially when they hit close to home!
"A thoroughly delightful debut. Bright, breezy, and witty. I couldn't put it down."--Tamar Myers
Originally published in mass market paperback by NAL/Penguin, Putnam, Inc. in 1999. Large-Print Edition published by Thorndike, 2002.
Autumn disappeared from his life once. And he's not going to let her do it again.
Zack Aukey hates Christmas—despises it, actually. December carries painful memories of his first love Autumn Cleary, who left him during the holiday season. But when Autumn mysteriously shows up in Nashville on Christmas night bearing gifts and apologies, Zack knows this is a holiday he won't soon forget.
And then he sees the police report.
From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes her first Christmas story, marrying the magic of the season with her signature thriller twist.
Breeston. The jewel the Grand Guild, a city now in decay. It's citizens suffer, so a rebellion is afoot. An underground league named the Yellow Hand is moving in, and through circumstance, two brothers are stuck between them. Doing the unthinkable to survive?
Deadly Illusions is the debut book from Robert Brown. A thrilling ride through the streets of London in a crime thriller that’s simply magic! Follow the suspense as it twists and turns in this highly rated debut book from an up and coming crime author
Cael Adler is a private detective with an eye for detail and a steady knack for solving complex cases. But when his dinner date with the stunning Kelly is interrupted, by the discovery of part of a murdered woman’s torso, he doesn’t at first realize that his skills will be tested to their limits.
Called to remote corner of Epping Forest by his friend and Metropolitan Police veteran Tyler Easton, Cael is shocked at what he finds. But worse follows, when it becomes apparent that the murder is just the beginning of something much bigger and that a pitiless serial killer is at large.
As the two men begin to unravel the horrific crimes they close in on the predator and his ruthless agenda. But all is not as it seems, and the case soon becomes more personal for Tyler, when his wife becomes the next target of the madman.
Lured to a theater on the pretext of attending a show, Samantha Easton comes face to face with the killer and it’s up to Cael and Tyler to stop him. But will they solve the clues fast enough to save her from a horrific end?
NOTE: THIS BOOK IS NOT A SHIFTER/WEREWOLF ROMANCE/EROTIC STORY. IT IS AN URBAN FANTASY MYSTERY THRILLER!
Fans of werewolves & shifters stories are in for a real treat with Ethan Sandlow's first Werewolf Novella. "The Hidden" which is the first in the series of werewolf short stories. This action-packed werewolf novella introduces Fenris Lyall to the world, and he is not somebody who is going to be forgotten in a hurry. If you like reading books about werewolves and shape-shifters then let this paranormal fantasy thriller take to where you have never been before!
Fenris stands head and shoulders above any werewolf who has ever lived. He has wandered the earth for centuries ensuring that anyone who discovered his existence, or his true ancestry was never left alive to tell the tale. However, things are about to change.
Even readers who do not normally read Werewolf books or shifter suspense stories have commented on how much they have enjoyed reading about the complex character which Fenris is. Read the reviews and see why readers find it hard to put this werewolves and shapeshifters book down once they have started it. If you are a fan of Werewolf horror books, and are looking for a werewolf mystery and suspense book which is going to keep you guessing right until the end, you are not going to be disappointed!
Fenris had been on the verge of leaving Columbus, until by chance he had caught the scent of the shifters. Undecided as to whether he should kill them or ignore them, he settled on the idea that he would wait to see what they were doing there before making his decision.
On finding out that the shapeshifters were there for the girl, left Fenris with a problem. He knew that the Faction had sent the shape-shifters to abduct the girl. It wasn't his business but his curiosity had been aroused, why did they want her? Who or what was she? She certainly wasn't a shifter.
The Faction had been hunting, recruiting and killing people with special abilities for centuries. Fenris had been cautious and ruthless in his attempts to prevent the Faction from discovering his existence. He was no ordinary Lycan, and if they were to discover that there was a werewolf such as Fenris walking the earth, all their attention would turn to him. He discovers that the girl who had got the Faction’s attention was a Psychic, or to be more precise, an Empath. Would he put himself at risk or walk away?
Don't even think about messing with her.
From Amazon bestselling author Jenifer Ruff—a new, dark suspense thriller featuring a fascinating, twisted protagonist. Brooke Walton will make you wonder just how well you know your friends, neighbors, and classmates.
Fans of James Patterson, Karin Slaughter, Hannibal Lecter, the Dexter series, and Gone Girl will be hooked.
Two young American tourists are brutally murdered in Cancun. A private investigator in Connecticut is desperate to uncover the truth about a missing coed. At the heart of both matters is Brooke Walton, a young medical student. When her summer internship in a Medical Examiner’s Office exposes a disturbing mystery and her ruthless brilliance, authorities take a closer look. Can Brooke save her own beautiful skin with someone watching her every move? Will one more murder solve her urgent problems, or dig her an even deeper grave?
“From the delightfully creative mind of Jenifer Ruff, The Intern delivers chills, suspense, and an ending that was completely unpredictable.”- -Allison Maruska, author of The Fourth Descendant
“Brooke Walton is a top-of-her-class medical student and destined for success as a surgeon. But, the bodies . . . they keep piling up. A nail biter and a compelling psychological portrait.” – Reita Pendry, author of China White
