Mystery Reads

Featured Book: Zero Alternative by Luca Pesaro

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About Zero Alternative by Luca Pesaro

“Sometimes you must destroy first”

Framed.
Hunted.
Betrayed.
Scott Walker is a fugitive from the quicksands of Finance, with one card to play, a silicon oracle coveted by billionaires, hitmen and hackers. As he fights for survival and vengeance, digging deeper into the dark heart of the global economy, one question torments him: what price will the world have to pay?

ZERO ALTERNATIVE is an action-packed conspiracy thriller that plucks at the base of human nature. When our grip on love, hope and morality starts to slide, the only future worth living is the one we choose for ourselves.

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The Bleak by Keith Dixon @keithyd6

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Sam Dyke is back! The private investigator who never gives up until the bad guys are caught—or worse.

For Sam, taking this particular case is not promising. His client is a secretary who’s watching her boss fall apart, and she can’t bear it. The case requires subtlety and finesse and so isn’t his usual kind of job. But he likes her and takes it anyway.

And he soon discovers that it’s not the pressures of work that are getting to her boss. It’s his colleagues, a group of cultish scientists. Their leader is a hyper-intelligent seer/visionary who has a personal philosophy that is taking him towards one final act—to produce a calamitous event that will destroy the lives of hundreds of people. Or more.

Dyke sets himself on a course to prevent this madman from achieving his ends. A course that endangers him, his new partner and it seems anyone else who gets in the way of this doomsday plan …

Targeted Age Group:: 16+

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
The Bleak is the fourth in a series featuring my character Sam Dyke. The premise of the story came to me when reading about a Japanese cult that attempted a series of mass murders in the 1990s.

The Doppelganger’s Dance by Libi Astaire

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Jane Austen meets Sherlock Holmes when a crime wave sweeps through Regency London’s Jewish community and the adventures of wealthy-widower-turned-sleuth Ezra Melamed are recorded for posterity by Miss Rebecca Lyon, a young lady not quite at the marriageable age.

In this fourth volume of the series, David Salomon, a young violinist and composer, has left New York to find fame and fortune in Regency London. But disaster strikes not long after he arrives. Someone is stealing his compositions before he can perform them and soon he is the laughingstock of the beau monde that he had hoped to conquer.

With few friends and even fewer resources, he turns to Ezra Melamed for help with finding the thief. But who would wish to harm a young stranger? The deeper Mr. Melamed looks into the violinist’s story the more jarring notes he finds, making The Doppelganger’s Dance one of the most discomposing mysteries of his career.

Targeted Age Group:: Adults

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
While doing research for an earlier book in my Ezra Melamed Mystery Series, which is set in Regency England, I ran across a mention of a piano-making shop. Since I love music, I had to read about this shop, the sorts of pianos that were made there, the new technologies that were being used in the race to construct a better pianoforte, etc. And as I was reading it occurred to me that I had found the subject of a future mystery story – which became The Doppelganger’s Dance, a mystery about technology, greed and, of course, music.

Featured Bargain Book: The End by Denise Moncrief

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About The End by Denise Moncrief

99¢ sale from May 3rd through May 12th

Almost a year after her husband dies, Ellie Marston opens the file for Tab’s unfinished manuscript, a thriller so compelling it reads like a true story. When Ellie adds the final chapter, it starts a chain of events that put her life in danger. When she turns to Det. Paul Santiago for help, they discover that not only is Tab’s story true, it is the key to exposing a conspiracy.

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Deadly Decor by Karen Rose Smith @karenrosesmith

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Book 2 in Karen Rose Smith’s Caprice De Luca cozy mystery series.

Quiet Kismet, Pennsylvania, may look like any other small town, but as a home stager, Caprice De Luca can see behind closed doors–and it seems someone has designs on murder. . .Life is a full house for Caprice these days. She’s dating, she’s rescuing adorable cocker spaniels, and she’s decorating the roomy interiors of Kismet’s most well-heeled residents with fun fantasy themes. But she’s worried about her pregnant sister. Bella’s marriage is coming apart like a bad wallpaper job, and to make matters worse, she’s decided to meet up with a former flame Bob Preston, a house painter Caprice frequently employs. When he’s found dead in a pool of green paint swirling with blood, it’s time for Caprice to stage an investigation. With all eyes trained on Bella’s husband, Caprice shifts her attention from finding the perfect curtains to finding the perfect culprit. . .

Catch up with Caprice’s adventures in STAGED TO DEATH, Book 1 of the Caprice De Luca home staging mystery series.
Book 3 GILT BY ASSOCIATION will be available in February 2015

Targeted Age Group:: 18 and up

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
Since this is book 2 in the Caprice De Luca Home-staging series, I wanted to continue Caprice’s interest in solving crimes, staging houses and taking in stray animals. I also wanted to resolve Caprice’s sister’s family problems.

Stealer of Horses by Vickie Britton and Loretta Jackson @vickiebrit

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The famous Carlo painting Stealer of Horses sells for cash in a small Wyoming town and gallery owner Sheldon Spence gives the $200,000 to his wife, who walks over to the bank to make the deposit…and never returns.

A witness claims to have seen a frightened-looking Susan Spence in a battered old Chevy, speeding out of town. And each succeeding clue reveals a different angle on her disappearance. Sheriff Jeff McQuede begins to wonder if this is more than a simple case of kidnapping and robbery. Was Sheldon involved in Susan’s disappearance? Or did Susan and a lover fake the scheme, planning to run off with the money they stole from Sheldon? The identity of a victim found shot behind the wheel of the Chevy holds the key to one ominous question: Is Susan Spence a kidnap victim—or is she part of some sinister ploy?

Targeted Age Group:: General Readership

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
We actually heard a similar story about a woman who went to make a large bank deposit and didn’t return for a long period of time. There were concerns at the time that she might have been kidnapped and abducted. While there was a logical reason for her temporary disappearance, this event inspired our story.

Stinger Maguire by Mike Bove @BoveMike

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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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