Mystery Picks of the Day – September 10, 2014

Today the HBS Mystery Reader’s Circle features our Mystery Novels Picks of the Day. These are some of the BEST DEALS from outstanding Mystery Authors for the Kindle at Amazon.

Follow this blog for outstanding Mysteries and great prices.

A DEAD RED ALIBI

The Dead Red Mystery Series Book 4


Author: R.P. Dahlke

Price: FREE


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A successful, but reclusive young artist with a secret life.
A wannabe lawman and his dotty gun-toting granddad.
An abandoned mine pit, a curious dad and the local police chief found with him.
When Lalla and her dad take a trip to Arizona to inspect her new property, Dad disappears. But when Lalla enlists the help of a local tracker she's relieved to find him unharmed, but in the bottom of a mine pit.

Unfortunately, he's got company--a local police chief, and it looks like he's been murdered. Then too, a young woman artist living nearby has also been murdered. What're the chances that these two murders are going to be related? Well, if you're Lalla Bains, you don't guess, you start looking for the killer!

Author Genre: Mystery, Romance, Humor

Website: R.P. Dahlke
Author's Blog: R.P. Dahlke - Infrequent Blog
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Twitter: @rpdahlke
E-Mail: rp@rpdahlke.com
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Author Description:

R.P. (Rebecca) Dahlke was raised on her father’s 80 acres of Almonds & crop dusting ranch south of Modesto, California. She’s been writing since 1994, first with a writing group in the East Bay Area and then when she and her husband went sailing, via the Guppies of Sisters in Crime, National.

When they settled in Southern Arizona, Rebecca started a chapter of Sisters in Crime and A Dead Red Cadillac was published by Treble Heart Publishing.

She was doing the rewrite on her second Lalla Baines Novel, A Dead Red Heart when her son, John Shanahan, died in a tragic crop dusting accident in California. Writing about anything, much less crop-dusting became too painful and she stopped writing until 2010.

I sort of fell into the job of running a crop-dusting business when my dad decided he'd rather go on a cruise than take another season of lazy pilots, missing flaggers, testy farmers and horrific hours. After two years at the helm, I handed him back the keys and fled to a city without any of the above. And no, I was never a crop-duster.

The Wife of a Lesser Man


Author: Sandy Appleyard

Price: FREE

Book Trailer: The Wife of a Lesser Man

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They were deeply in love, their days and nights filled with scintillating romance and passionate love making—even after 20 years of marriage. Then fate delivered a hammer blow when a heart attack led to Mark’s impotency and Shelley’s unbearable frustration.

Encouraged by a friend, Shelley becomes flirtatious and unfaithful, finding those moments of glorious intimacy for which she hungered with another man. Mark, a police chief, suspects nothing as he channels all his time and energy into tracking down a serial killer. But when the murderer leaves a terrifying final clue too close to home, only Shelley can solve the case.

Author Genre: Romantic Suspense

Website: Sandy Appleyard - Author of Memoirs, Humour and Fiction
Twitter: @sandyappleyard
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Author Description:
Sandy writes in several genres, however romance and suspense are her favourites.

To be released in 2014: Don't Mess with Daddy's Girl, the follow-up to 'The Wife of a Lesser Man.

For self-help titles, please see 'How to Get Followers on Twitter' and 'Indie Writing Advice' under the pen name 'Denice Shaw'.

When Sandy isn't writing, she's reviewing books, blogging, or she can be found exercising, playing with her children and/or her cat, or obsessively cleaning her house. Sandy has been married for nine years and currently lives in Niagara Falls, Canada with her husband and two daughters.

The Ex Who Wouldn't Die

Charley's Ghost Book 1


Author: Sally Berneathy

Price: $ 0.99


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When Amanda's lying, cheating, scam-artist husband, Charley, saves her life in a near-fatal motorcycle accident, she can almost forgive him for dragging his feet on their divorce. Then she discovers he'd been dead for several hours at the time she thought he rescued her. And not just dead…murdered.

On the good side, at least they are no longer married.

But she's the primary suspect in Charley's murder and, as if that isn't bad enough, Charley's ghost shows up in her apartment. He was rejected, kicked back, not allowed to go into the light. The situation was bad enough when he was alive and trying to charm his way back into her life, but now he claims to be unable to go more than a few yards away from her. She can't even be certain he isn't peeking when she undresses for bed.

Even death did not them part.

As Amanda puts her life in danger in an effort to bring Charley's murderer to justice and send him into the light or the dark or anywhere away from her, she learns her knowledge of Charley's misdeeds is only the tip of a toxic iceberg. Charley blackmailed his murderer, blackmailed Amanda's father, lied about his family being dead when he is actually related to half the town of Silver Creek, Texas, and, with his treachery, has stirred up secrets that will change Amanda's life.

Author Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Romance

Website: Sally Berneathy
Twitter: @sallyberneathy
E-Mail: sally@sallyberneathy.com
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Author Description:
I grew up in a small rural town in Oklahoma where our favorite entertainment on summer evenings was to sit outside under the stars and tell stories. When I went to bed at night, instead of a lullaby, I got a story. That could be due to the fact that everybody in my family has a singing voice like a bullfrog with laryngitis, but they sure could tell stories--ghost stories, funny stories, happy stories, scary stories.

For as long as I can remember I've been a storyteller. Thank goodness for computers so I can write down my stories. It's hard to make listeners sit still for the length of a book! Like my family's tales, my stories are funny, scary, dramatic, romantic, paranormal, magic.

Besides writing, my interests are reading, eating chocolate and riding my Harley.

Currently I have written four Death by Chocolate mysteries: Death by Chocolate; Murder, Lies and Chocolate; The Great Chocolate Scam; and Chocolate Mousse Attack as well as three Charley's Ghost mysteries: The Ex Who Wouldn't Die, The Ex Who Glowed in the Dark, and The Ex Who Conned a Psychic. More in each series will be released as soon as I can copy them from my brain to the computer!

I have sold fifteen romance novels ranging from comedy to dark suspense under the names Sally Carleen, Sally Steward and Sara Garrett. For these novels, I won several awards including National Readers' Choice, Romantic Times Best Silhouette Romance and two Rita finalist slots. Most of the Silhouettes are available as e-books, and I have e-pubbed six of the out-of-print single titles

Guidebook to Murder

A Tourist Trap Mystery


Author: Lynn Cahoon

Price: $ 0.99


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In the gentle coastal town of South Cove, California, all Jill Gardner wants is to keep her store--Coffee, Books, and More--open and running. So why is she caught up in the business of murder?

When Jill's elderly friend, Miss Emily, calls in a fit of pique, she already knows the city council is trying to force Emily to sell her dilapidated old house. But Emily's gumption goes for naught when she dies unexpectedly and leaves the house to Jill--along with all of her problems. . .and her enemies. Convinced her friend was murdered, Jill is finding the list of suspects longer than the list of repairs needed on the house. But Jill is determined to uncover the culprit--especially if it gets her closer to South Cove's finest, Detective Greg King. Problem is, the killer knows she's on the case--and is determined to close the book on Jill permanently. . .

Author Genre: Romance, Mystery & Thrillers, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Website: Lynn Cahoon
Author's Blog: Lynn Cahoon
Twitter: @LynnCahoon
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Author Description:
USA Today and New York Times, best-selling author, Lynn Cahoon is an Idaho native. If you'd visit the town where she grew up, you'd understand why her mysteries and romance novels focus around the depth and experience of small town life. Currently, she's living in a small historic town on the banks of the Mississippi river where her imagination tends to wander. She lives with her husband and four fur babies.

Our Hearts Entwined

An Entwined Series Novel


Author: Lilliana Anderson

Price: $ 0.99


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During a routine meeting at a special needs school in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, Mia is set to discuss the welfare of one of her students. It's here that she's introduced to Dr Cayd Donnelly, a man so devastatingly attractive that she almost forgot to say no when he asked her out - despite her loyalty to her long term boyfriend, Eric.

Shortly after, the usually predictable Mia becomes anything but. The change in her behaviour delights Eric, but concerns her best friend Louise when she stops signing while they talk.

After a month of worry and frustration, Mia finally seeks help. Help that comes in the form of an incredibly hard to resist doctor - Cayd.

From there, she discovers just how entwined her life and her heart is with those of others while she navigates a path of passion, treachery, and loss.

Things will never be the same for Mia again…

Author Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult, Biographies

Website: Lilliana Anderson
Twitter: @Confidante_Lili
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Author Description:
Bestselling Author of the A Beautiful Series, Alter and the Confidante Trilogy, Lilliana has always loved to read and write, considering it the best form of escapism that the world has to offer.

Australian born and bred, she writes New Adult Romance revolving around her authentically Aussie characters as well as a biographical trilogy based on an ex-Sydney sex worker, named Angelien.

Lilliana feels that the world should see Australia for more than just it's outback and tries to show characters in more of a city setting.

When she isn't writing, she wears the hat of 'wife and mother' to her husband and four children.

Before Lilliana turned to writing, she worked in a variety of industries and studied humanities and communications before transferring to commerce/law at university.

Originally from Sydney's Western suburbs, she currently lives a fairly quiet life in suburban Melbourne.
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HBS has verified prices when this article was posted. Please verify the price before buying and its availability at your location for that price.

R.P. Dahlke - A Dead Red Oleander is featured in the HBS Mystery Reader's Circle

The Showcase is a special feature of the Author's Spotlight. It is designed to highlight Spotlight author's NEW releases and their soon to be released novels.

From December 5th through the 12th:
A Dead Red Oleander will be on sale at $ 0.99.

A Dead Red Oleander

The Lalla Bains mystery series

Author: R.P. Dahlke


AVAILABLE
Amazon


"The main protagonists and all the supporting characters, have larger than life personalities, which lend themselves to some great dialogue exchanges and some pretty strange and esoteric action scenes. In preparation for the couple's forthcoming nuptuals, Lalla's relatives have arrived in California, from Texas and now the fun really starts!!"

When a late in the season emergency forces Lalla Bains to accept a greenhorn ag pilot for her dad's cropdusting business, she sighs in relief . After all, he comes highly recommended, his physical is spotless, and with a name like Dewey Treat, what could possibly go wrong?

Then her quirky relatives arrive from Texas and things go south in a hurry: Dewey Treat drops dead, his tearful widow claims he was murdered, clobbers Sherriff Caleb Stone with his own gun, and makes a run for it. Lalla, convinced the widow is innocent, sets out to prove it--against the express wishes of fiancé Caleb Stone.

Feds, local law, suspicious ag-pilots, nutso relatives, and her daddy's new sidekick, Bruce the goat, make life a living hell for Lalla. Will her nosey nature solve the crime and save the day? Or put them all in mortal danger?

Excerpt

Chapter One:

The world is flat. I know it is, because for the last five hours the view has been exactly the same. Only the sun has done any traveling, working its long shadows through straight lines of harvested cotton. A few crows shop the furrowed rows for worms, weevils, and grasshoppers. One hops over to inspect the truck I’m lying under, cocks a beady black eye, probably attracted to the shiny metal police-issued handcuffs, my hand in one of the cuffs, dangling from wrist to arm, and finally down to me, Lalla Bains, aero-ag pilot, sometime busybody, meddling where I shouldn’t—again.

I’m dirt smeared and sweaty, thinking if I get out of this alive, if the killer doesn’t return to finish me off, I’ll foreswear all future sleuthing. My dad, Caleb my fiancé, my best friend Roxanne, and half of Stanislaus County will be pleased to bear witness to that promise.

I will, this time. Really, I will.

I waggle my grubby, unpainted, and unadorned fingers at the crow. Too bad I didn’t have on my engagement ring; maybe I could get him to peck at the lock mechanism and open it. Yeah, right, and while I’m hallucinating, maybe get him to bring me a nice cold Pepsi.

I never wear the ring when I’m working, and I’d worked today, starting at three a.m. as I usually do during the long hot season of flying cropdusters. I spread chemicals over cotton fields like this one to keep the aforementioned weevils from devouring the plants. Today was my last flight, and probably my last job as an aero-ag pilot, since my dad’s business will soon be absorbed by another, larger outfit in Merced.

The crow is unimpressed with my status—after all, I’m the one recumbent under a truck, unable to move. His sharp black eyes take in the cuff and then my hopeful face. Any interest he may have had in my predicament is answered with a fluff of wings, and I swear—a wink. Then he flaps up on to the hood and his sharp claws rat-tat-tat across the top of the cab. He lands in the empty bed of the truck and a quick, sharp, whistle says he’s found that wadded up McDonald’s bag from yesterday. Yesterday, when I still had a life that didn’t include murderous suspects. He fusses at the paper bag for a few more minutes until it’s agreed there’s nothing left but a greasy wrapper. I hear his wings flap again, and wheels up, he flies off to the freedom I can only dream about.

I roll onto a shoulder so I can look out from under the truck. North. We’re facing north, where I’ve been hooked up and alone for most of the day, without water, a cell, or hope.

I follow the tracks as they roll over the berm, cutting twin ruts in the banked up earth, the crazy, jigsaw pattern of my reckless descent. Trucks and drivers intent on dinner, home, family whiz past—I wish I were one of them.

Someone could notice. I think. There are those lines leading down through the harvested cotton and finally to me under my dad’s old Ford. That is, if the driver in one of those big semis took his eyes off the road, and turned his head for a quick glance at the dry, flattened, and totally unappealing two hundred acres. I’m sure he would see the hump of a faded blue cab sprouting like an odd weed in the sea of cotton. I sure wouldn’t give it a second glance.

A car slows and rolls to a stop. A door slams. My heart quickens and in the heat of late summer a feathery light shiver of fear runs across my skin. I lie waiting.

I hear dirt clods tumble as footsteps make their way through the ruined plants, a curse as one sticks to his pant leg. A pair of brogues—black, with enough shine on them to reflect part of a tan pant leg with a navy blue stripe. His knees pop as he squats, and he eyeballs my cuffed wrist to the bumper, and finally to the rest of me, snuggled in between the row of cotton under the1958 rusted bucket my daddy refuses to part with.

He removes the California Highway Patrol cap, and first thing I notice are the stripes on his sleeve—a sergeant, maybe someone bright enough to figure out I’m not a criminal.

My blonde hair, which usually counts for a few points with most men, is presently adorned with cotton stems and fluffy balls. The rest of me is streaked with dirt. Not my best look.

We stare at each other for a minute.

I’m parched. My lips are cracked, my tongue is dry, and it sticks to the roof of my mouth. I need that Pepsi, maybe a rum and Coke, before I can possibly say a word. I swallow, thinking nothing will come out.

But then he does the one thing guaranteed to fix my pipes.

“So,” he drawls, “what’s your story, little lady?”

Author Genre: Mystery, Romance, Humor

Website: R.P. Dahlke
Author's Blog: R.P. Dahlke - Infrequent Blog
Blog: All Mystery E-newsletter
Twitter: @rpdahlke
E-Mail: rp@rpdahlke.com
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Pinterest: Check Out Pinterest


Author Description:
R.P. (Rebecca) Dahlke was raised on her father’s 80 acres of Almonds & crop dusting ranch south of Modesto, California. She’s been writing since 1994, first with a writing group in the East Bay Area and then when she and her husband went sailing, via the Guppies of Sisters in Crime, National.

When they settled in Southern Arizona, Rebecca started a chapter of Sisters in Crime and A Dead Red Cadillac was published by Treble Heart Publishing.

She was doing the rewrite on her second Lalla Baines Novel, A Dead Red Heart when her son, John Shanahan, died in a tragic crop dusting accident in California. Writing about anything, much less crop-dusting became too painful and she stopped writing until 2010.

I sort of fell into the job of running a crop-dusting business when my dad decided he'd rather go on a cruise than take another season of lazy pilots, missing flaggers, testy farmers and horrific hours. After two years at the helm, I handed him back the keys and fled to a city without any of the above. And no, I was never a crop-duster.


Author's Book List
Hurricane Hole - #2 in Pilgrim's Progress-A Romantic Sailing Mystery Trilogy
While anxiously awaiting confirmation on the renewal of her TV contract, Leila Hunter Standiford, opts for a sail on the boat she and her sister co -own in Mexico. But when she impetuously invites a family friend, and fugitive from justice, Gabe Alexander, as crew, she has no idea of the trouble that will follow. Now, at the end of her vacation in Puerto Felice, all she wants is to get Gabe off her boat.

Then a beautiful vintage Alden sails into the anchorage, and though she admires the boat, and the handsome captain, she doesn't realize the lovely yacht will soon burn to the water line, or that a dead body will be found below, or that the captain, who may or may not be the killer, might also be the man of her dreams.


Order the Book From: Amazon

A DANGEROUS HARBOR - Pilgrim's Progress
"This is an engaging, well-written mystery with characters that took up residence in my imagination; moving in with all their baggage and quirks. I found them incredibly difficult to dislodge even several days after I had finished reading the book. I loved the setting; the beauty of the waters and the lovely hillsides existing alongside the abject poverty and ugliness of the slummy, sleazy habitats of those less fortunate. The day to day uncertainly of life is realistically portrayed in an area where powerful drug cartels operate from shadowy positions in almost all levels of government..." LauriJ's Reviews for Night Owl Reviews Reviewer Top Pick

"Take a San Francisco police officer who is on leave for shooting a man who threatened her sister, send her on a sailing trip into Mexican waters where she finds the body of a murdered teenage girl, and you've got the mix for an intriguing mystery. Add an irresistible Mexican-Italian man who happens to be the lead investigator on the case and the romance begins to sizzle. I loved the vivid descriptions of this coastal Mexican town, and the methodic way in which officer Katy Hunter helps with the investigation. A satisfying ending in which all the threads come together into a neatly plotted book." - Connie Shelton, author of the best-selling Charlie Parker mysteries and the new Samantha Sweet mysteries

Here's the set-up:
Bleary-eyed and sleep deprived after a long overnighter into Mexico, solo sailor and SFPD police detective, Katrina Hunter, thinks the mermaid twenty yards behind her thirty-two foot Westsail is nothing more than a sailor's hallucination But everything she knows about floaters convinces her to turn her boat around for another look.

Now, alone and isolated in the Mexican port's police station for six hours she's convinced that reporting a floater to authorities was a mistake. Even the arrival of a handsome, if somewhat dour, Mexican/Italian investigator does nothing to dispel her growing anxiety that she's about to be charged with the murder.

Chief Inspector, Raul Vignaroli, is as surprised by the attractive solo-sailor as he is to find that she's a respected member of the San Francisco police force, and after some well-placed phone calls he's sure that he's found the perfect partner to help him solve a murder, if not the cure for his broken heart. Released, she's free to go. But leaving the police station hits a snag when two policemen march in, dragging a listless prisoner between them. But before Katy can dodge them for the exit, the prisoner raises his head and a startling pair of aquamarine eyes meet hers.

He straightens his back, wincing at the angle of his cuffed wrists. "What the... Whisper?"

Suddenly, the sound of the ceiling fan is terribly loud. Blood pounds in her ears, her mouth goes dry, her palms are damp and her feet are nailed to the floor. In a knee jerk reaction, she hisses, "Don't call me that!"


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A DEAD RED HEART - The Lalla Bains Series
When a lovesick, homeless veteran litters her vintage red caddy with paper snowflakes, Lalla Bains, Aero Ag pilot figures it's time for a showdown. Unfortunately, someone else has the same idea leaving Lalla with a dying man at her feet, and only his strange last words, "The more there is, the less you see," as a clue to his killer.

Compounding her life her tightwad, widowed father becomes a born-again ladies man, a disreputable competitor tries to push her out of business, and last but not least, her antennae twitches that the sultry redhead in Modesto's police department may be vying for Sheriff Caleb Stone's affections.

It soon becomes crystal clear that the police are totally off base on this murder investigation and someone else is going to have to suit up to solve this case. Someone who is just exasperating, pushy, and tenacious enough to get the job done--and that person will be none other than:Ms. Lalla Bains.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble
A DEAD RED CADILLAC
"I've been married so many times, they should revoke my license," says NY model, and reluctant pilot Lalla Bains.

Running her dad's Crop-Dusting business in Modesto, California she's hoping to dodge the inevitable fortieth birthday party. But when her trophy red '58 Cadillac is found tail-fins up in a nearby lake, the police ask why a widowed piano teacher, who couldn't possibly see beyond the hood ornament, was found strapped in the driver's seat.

Reeling from an interrogation with local homicide, Lalla is determined to extricate herself as a suspect in this strange murder case. Unfortunately, drug running pilots, a cross-dressing convict, a crazy Chihuahua, and the dead woman's hunky nephew throw enough road blocks to keep Lalla neck deep in an investigation that links her family to a twenty-year old murder only she can solve.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble
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Check out the index of other Spotlight authors. Spotlight Index.