Mystery Reads

Gift Guide: The C ENIGMA by SPIROS Gratsias

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Targeted Age Group:: 16 to 100
Category: Mystery/Suspense

Print book price range: $13.39 – 14.99
eBook price range: $3.68

About The C ENIGMA:
A particular brand of evil has reared its ugly head at certain points throughout history, and humanity must fight to keep it in check. This balance is sometimes managed on the scale of world wars, but it can also come down to an individual’s actions. The C ENIGMA explores the premise that one man’s courage can influence the outcome of a war on evil as large and powerful as Hitler’s Nazism.

Chance—or perhaps fate—leads Matthias Adkins up to his grandfather’s attic, where he discovers a hidden picture of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the German secret service during WWII. A few other items reveal that his grandfather has left him a set of riddles that will lead him through three time periods—1945, 1988, and 2008—on a hunt for his family’s identity and his own destiny…which turns out to be a destiny beyond his wildest dreams.

Gift Guide: A Model Murder (Alicia Allen Investigates Book 1) by Celia Conrad

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Targeted Age Group:: Adult
Category: Mystery/Suspense

Print book price range: $18.99
eBook price range: $0.99-2.99

About A Model Murder (Alicia Allen Investigates Book 1):
A Model Murder is part 1 of the Alicia Allen Investigates crime trilogy featuring Alicia Allen, the Anglo-Italian Pringle munching lawyer with a passion for solving crime.

When an aspiring Australian model, Tamsin Brown, who lives in the apartment below Alicia’s is found raped and murdered and her body dumped in an alleyway in Soho, Tammy’s flatmate Kim begs for Alicia’s help. Alicia feels compelled to assist with the murder inquiry and having discovered that Tammy has been working in a hostess club in Piccadilly, Alicia is sucked into the sleazy world of nightclubs. Soon after, Alicia takes a new position at a firm where Kim works as a legal secretary, but it becomes clear that nothing is as it seems and nobody can be trusted. Is there some connection between the firm and Tammy’s murder? When her elderly neighbor Dorothy is brutally attacked for something she has witnessed in connection with the murder, Alicia risks everything to solve the crime thereby endangering herself and those around her in her quest to bring the perpetrator(s) to justice.

“A Model Murder by Celia Conrad is an appealing new modern crime story… Twists and turns abound as we are taken into the sleazy nightclub world and the inner workings of a law firm looking for the killer rapist.

I was hooked on page one and completely and pleasantly surprised when I reached the conclusion… Celia Conrad has jumped to the top of my favorite author list and Alicia Allen is without a doubt my favorite new fictional lawyer/investigator crime solver.”
READERS’ FAVORITE 5* Review

Gift Guide: The Orange Moon Affair (A Thomas Gunn Thriller) by AFN Clarke

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Targeted Age Group:: 18+
Category: Mystery/Suspense

Print book price range: $10 – $11
eBook price range: $0.99 – $2.99

About The Orange Moon Affair (A Thomas Gunn Thriller):
Thomas Gunn and his partner Julie are running for their lives. Who are they running from? And why? It all starts when Thomas (ex-Special Forces) decides to investigate the mysterious murder of his wealthy industrialist father. Billions have been funneled into a secret project he’s sure his father would never have willfully sanctioned. But when his every move is blocked or met with deadly force, frustration turns to anger, and he goes on the attack. Using his old skills in covert operations he relentlessly pursues a tangled web of clues across the UK, USA and Europe, racing to outwit an unknown enemy with more power and influence than he or Julie could ever imagine. An enemy out to destroy them!

Joining forces with British Military Intelligence they uncover an international conspiracy that puts the freedom of the western world at grave risk. But who are these ruthless conspirators that wield such unimaginable power? How are they connected to his father? And what dark secrets from the past will Thomas uncover in his relentless quest for the truth? This “gripping”, “thought-provoking”, “hard to put down” novel by a “master storyteller” keeps you on the edge of your seat and guessing to the very last page!

“…another 5-star novel by a 5-star author. If you have never read AFN Clarke, do yourself a favor and pick up this book, you won’t be disappointed.” Amazon review.

As the son of an MI6 operative, a former officer in Britain’s elite Parachute Regiment, a pilot, yachtsman, race car driver and bestselling author, AFN Clarke brings his own unique and eye-opening experiences to this first book of the Thomas Gunn thriller series that’s fast -paced, exhilarating and frighteningly real.

Featured Book: Deadeye by Michael Smart

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About Deadeye by Michael Smart

When Superintendent of Police Jolene Johanssen is dispatched to the scene of a vehicular accident on Union Island, and discovers a body in the wreckage, she knows she’s caught a case requiring delicate handling. It’s almost Christmas, the height of the tourist season; the victim an American businessman visiting the reclusive private resort on Petit St. Vincent. The case immediately proves anything but routine, and her frustration is compounded when a second high profile case, as delicate and explosive as the first, lands in her lap, the apparent suicide of a prominent Vincentian businessman and advisor to the Government. The two cases lead her on a chase culminating in New York City, where she uncovers a chilling conspiracy which threatens to destroy St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and where she faces an adversary tasked with protecting the conspiracy at all costs. Book #2 in the Bequia Mysteries, Deadeye is a compelling tale of mystery, danger and romance, involving the characters and locale introduced in Dead Reckoning.

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Featured Book: Empty Shell by Ashley Fontainne

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About Empty Shell by Ashley Fontainne

A pair of pink, silk underwear…

The quiet world of Melody and Jack Dickinson is about to be turned upside down. Twenty years of marriage hangs in the balance when Melody finds out about Jack’s infidelity. The betrayal is made worse when Melody discovers his lover is Serena Rowland, a young woman who works at Melody’s law firm.

A receipt from an overpriced hotel…

Harsh words are exchanged before Melody storms off to work, determined to have Serena fired. But when Melody hears Serena was murdered over the weekend, everything changes. Serena’s body is found beaten and strangled with a pair of pink, silk panties, in the same hotel that Jack had admitted staying at over the weekend. Within seconds of hearing the news, Melody’s life spins out of control when Jack calls in a panic. The police are at their home to arrest him for Serena’s murder.

Pictures of a young woman’s scantily clad torso on a cell phone…

Was she married to a monster? One who beat and strangled the young woman to death, or was Jack set up? Did Melody’s own dark secret, hidden inside her heart for years, have something to do with the nightmare they suddenly find themselves in?

Melody and Jack are about to discover that one fateful mistake will destroy many.

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Featured Book: Bribing Saint Anthony by Rita Moreau

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About Bribing Saint Anthony by Rita Moreau

Bribing Saint Anthony will be featured on Kindle Countdown for 99 cents on August 15, 16, 17 and 18. Grab it while you can!

Bribing Saint Anthony is an entertaining and humorous mystery.
A missing husband.
A plot to blow up a national treasure.
Fortune telling aunts.

Mary Catherine, MC for short, didn’t move as the Queen of Boca Vista, Babbs La-Fleur, placed a pile of cash, which appeared out of a purse she knew cost more than her car, smack dab in the middle of her desk.

Word at all the cocktail parties was that MC had a skill that came in handy for an aging socialite going through a divorce. She was good at finding cash in hidden bank accounts. Cash to pay for a nip and tuck and a new identity: Cougar.

Hired that day by Queen Babbs to find her bad boy husband, Charlie, MC was back on familiar ground, tracking down bad guys through clues left in the DNA of their paper life.

Asking her Aunt Sophia to read the family fortune telling cards might have helped. Instead, the paper trail Charlie left takes MC from a murder in the world of rich socialites to working with covert government agents deep in the world of counter terrorism.

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Featured Book: The Bride Wore Dead, A Josie Tucker Mystery by EM Kaplan

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What good is a food critic with a stomach ache? About as much good as a used bridesmaid’s dress. Tough-girl Josie Tucker is saddled with both.

Just days after Josie is the last-minute bridesmaid at a massive Boston Brahmin wedding, the lovely bride dies on her honeymoon at an exclusive Arizona resort. The mother of the bride thinks Josie, with her…unique people skills, can find out what really happened. Josie discovers the dead bride may not have been the first dead girl. And to Josie’s horror, the killer has set his sights on her next.

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Stinger Maguire by Mike Bove

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Taryn Maguire was good at hitting the shot called a stinger, good enough to get on the PGA Tour.
Taryn was called “Stinger.” He was a top golfer and known as a humanitarian.
He was brutally murdered after returning to his hometown, Willowtree, Arizona, for a charity event.
Bruce DelReno, a retired postman and golf enthusiast, found the body and becomes emotionally involved in the murder investigation.
With his friends, including Ben Samuel, his Apache sidekick, he uncovers secrets long held by people in Willowtree.
When Stinger’s own secret is discovered it becomes a bigger story than his death.
Fans of “Willowtree,” the first Bruce DelReno Mystery, will find more of Bruce’s unique relationships with friends, the police, witnesses, and suspects.
And, of course, more of his dry humor, and love of his wife, dog, food, and golf.

Targeted Age Group:: YA/Adult

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
The second of my Bruce DelReno Series, this book continues the adventures of a senor sleuth and his friends. Aside from the mystery and its resolution, this story deals with a major concern of our society, heightened in recent sports news. That underlying theme is a simple commentary on our society. To name it here would be a spoiler.

Four Days with Hemingway's Ghost

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Four Days with Hemingway’s Ghost is not a story of spooks and goblins. It’s a powerful story about two men from two very different times. One man is mortal, the other is immortal. One is painfully ordinary, the other world famous.

Jack Phelan is a forty-two-year-old underachiever who lives in South Florida. Although he mows lawns for a living, he’s not what you might expect. He’s got an exceptionally sharp mind and is a self-educated Hemingway aficionado.

After Jack gets into an unlikely accident he’s flown by helicopter to the nearest hospital, where he remains in a coma for four days. But somehow, minutes after he blacks out, he finds himself in Key West, Florida–rubbing shoulders with an aged Ernest Hemingway.

Hem has been sent back down to help determine whether or not Jack has what it takes to write a book for “The Main Man above the clouds.” But what Ernest doesn’t know is that the book is to be about him. And that its purpose is to change the world’s perception of the swaggering, hard-knuckled, macho myth he has become.

Over the next four days, Jack Phelan and Ernest Hemingway travel to the legendary author’s old haunts and meet up with many of his long gone friends. Some of these reunions are rollicking good times, others are highly emotional tests of strength. But wait. When their time together comes to an end, the story is still not over. That’s when things really get interesting.

Tom Winton was born and raised in New York City. During his working career he has done everything from working on a railroad gang in the Colorado Rockies to driving a taxicab in Manhattan. He has also been a mailman, a salesman, an entrepreneur and more. He lives in Hobe Sound, Florida, with his wife Blanche and their ill-tempered, but loveable, Jack Russell terrier, Ginger. They spend part of their time in Carmel, Maine. Tom’s debut novel, Beyond Nostalgia, was released in February of 2011. This book has more than once been likened to such classics as Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird. Praised as “a 20th century Gone with the Wind,” Beyond Nostalgia has been on four different Amazon Bestseller lists. Mr. Winton’s second novel, The Last American Martyr, came out in August of 2011. It has been on six Bestseller lists, at the same time.

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