Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Mystery Picks of the Day – October 21, 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.




Secret of the Scroll

Greg McKenzie Mysteries



Author: Chester D. Campbell

Price: FREE


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Retired Air Force OSI agent Greg McKenzie thinks his troubles with the Metro Nashville Police are a problem. Then he brings a "souvenir" Dead Sea Scroll home from the Holy Land and things go from bad to worse. A Palestinian terrorist group invades his home, fails to find the scroll, and takes his wife, Jill, hostage. Greg finds himself with an ancient Hebrew scroll worth millions, wanted by both the Palestinians and a radical far-right Israeli organization. When he tries to exchange it for Jill's freedom, everything goes wrong. Then the police target him as a suspect in his wife's disappearance, and he sets out alone on a perilous chase to save her life.


Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers

Website: Chester D. Campbell - Nashville Mystery Writer
Author's Blog: Chester D. Campbell Newsletter
Twitter: @ChesterCampbell
E-Mail: chester @ chesterdcampbell dot com
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Pinterest: Check Out Pinterest
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Author Description:
After following a snake-like career path that writhed about from newspapers to magazines to speechwriting to advertising to PR to association management, I settled on novel writing after retirement. I'm having a blast. My PI characters do things I'd never dare attempt. The reviewers love 'em, and so do the fans. Most of my stories are drawn from life, from all the weird and wonderful things that go on around me. Since I've been observing this for the last 86 years, there's no shortage of stuff to draw on. Lately I've been working on a trilogy of Post Cold War political thrillers. The first, Beware the Jabberwock, is now joined by Book 2, The Poksu Conspiracy. They're set in the early nineties, a time that arrived just after my retirement.


Death Turns A Trick

Rebecca Schwartz Mystery Series Book 1



Author: Julie Smith

Price: FREE


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Rebecca Schwartz, nice Jewish lawyer with a few too many fantasies, is happily playing the piano in a whorehouse when she suddenly finds herself assigned to make sure a near-naked state senator escapes a police raid. That dirty job done, a lovely evening turns even more delightful when she’s picked up by the cops and spends the next two hours at the Hall of Justice. Could this day get any worse? Of Course! Guess who arrives home to find a dead hooker on her living room floor!

Handsome Parker Phillips, Rebecca’s new beau and the most attractive man she’s met in ages, is arrested for the murder. (Worse, she suspects he might actually have done it.)

On the plus side, another very attractive man is following the case--reporter Rob Burns of the San Francisco Chronicle, a possible ally. And there are other possibilities.


Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Young Adult

Website: booksBnimble
Twitter: @booksbnimble
E-Mail: julieorleans@cox.net
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Author Description:
I first knew I wanted to be a writer at seven, knew it was mysteries I'd write at 12, was desperate to win the Edgar at 13, but became a journalist to...well...keep from starving till I had the courage to actually try it. I had a great time and learned more than ten colleges could have taught as a reporter for first the New Orleans Times-Picayune and later the San Francisco Chronicle. Finally, I wrote six or seven mysteries (I've lost count!) over a period of eight years, to absolutely no avail, and was about to give up when I made my first sale. DEATH TURNS A TRICK was my first published book, and the Rebecca Schwartz series was born. I later added a second San Francisco series, plus two in New Orleans, and guess what? My first New Orleans book, NEW ORLEANS MOURNING, won the Edgar for Best Novel.

So some dreams come true! Boy, it was hard, and it took forever, but mine actually did. I'm still pinching myself. After wanting something so much and finally getting it, who would have thought I'd turn to something else after twenty-one books? (That's right, twenty-one not counting a non-fiction one on writing itself. So, twenty-two, really.) My whole identity was writing. But along came ebooks! Suddenly a gigantic opportunity opened up. I realized I could be a publisher myself---I could help other people achieve their own dreams. I couldn't help it, I got the publishing bug. Bad.

In 2010, I founded www.booksBnimble.com, a digital publishing company that focused at first on video-enhanced ebooks, but now not so much enhanced as just great quality---and, as you might imagine, with an emphasis on mysteries. So far, we've published eight authors (including me). It's been a treat to learn to function in another whole world and it's been incredibly rewarding to be able to help other writers, to bring back people's backlists, and to discover new, exciting talent.


Home Grown


Author: Ninie Hammon

Price: $ 0.99


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Somebody murdered Jim Bingham, shot him dead in front of his own newspaper office in the small town of Brewster, Kentucky, and now his heartbroken daughter must abandon the world of academic journalism for the real world of running the newspaper he left behind.

But Sarabeth Bingham soon discovers that marijuana-growing has corrupted the idyllic small town where she grew up.

The sheriff can't get a marijuana conviction because the county's jury pool is tainted.

Her cousin grows weed and has lost his wife and daughter to the world of drugs.

Sarabeth finds herself falling for a handsome bourbon distillery owner she's convinced is financing his business with dope money.

And a ruthless farmer named Bubba Jamison will do anything--absolutely anything--to protect his empire.

After 3 children find dope money in an abandoned building and the dopers kidnap them to get it back, Sarabeth heeds the words on the plaque that has hung above her father's desk for as long as she can remember: "Don't mess with a man who buys ink by the barrel!"

In a blazing front-page editorial in the next issue of the Tribune, Sarabeth declares war on the marijuana-growing industry! Now, the growers have to shut her up and she soon learns a terrifying lesson: dopers fight dirty.


Author Genre: Suspense, Thriller, Fiction

Website: Ninie Hammon - Suspense colored with hope…
Author's Blog: Ninie Hammon 9e's Blog
Twitter: @niniehammon
E-Mail: niniehammon@niniehammon.com
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Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook

Author Description:
I think I might be able to grab and hold your attention here if I set myself on fire.

That's probably the only way, though, and since I'm neither that desperate for you to find out about my life nor that mentally unstable, I think I'll pass.

In truth, my life isn't really all that interesting. Which is OK because you don't buy my books to find out about me. You buy my books to find out about my characters. And they ARE interesting. Oh, my goodness yes! Industrial-strength interesting. Interesting on steroids!

There's Princess from Five Days in May, the inmate set for execution who knows things she can't possibly know and is determined to carry to her grave an incredible secret about the little sister she confessed to beheading thirteen years ago.

There's Will from Black Sunshine, who has returned after 20 years to man up to what he did in the coal mine that day AFTER the explosion that killed 27 miners.

There's Anne from The Memory Closet, who has forgotten her entire childhood but has pledged to do whatever it takes to recover those memories--even if it costs her sanity or her life.

There's Bubba Jamison, the brutally vicious dope grower from Home Grown, Slap-Yo-Mama Carmichael, the old black stand-up comic from The Last Safe Place, Ron Wolfson, the crusading photojournalist from Sudan and Grayson Addington, the shattered Vietnam vet from When Butterflies Cry. (Set for release fall of 2014.)

You want interesting--I got interesting! Pull up a chair, sit down by the fire, open one of my books and let the suspense start to build. Or less idylically, grab a seat on the A Train to Brooklyn or the Piccadilly Line to London Waterloo Station and fire up your Kindle.

But since this is MY biographby, after all, I should give you a thumbnail--which is all the space it takes to tell my story. I grew up on the endless prairie of the west Texas High Plains--in Muleshoe, (No, I am not making that up.) where you could put both the city limits signs on the same post. I wrote my first book at age 8, a gripping, spell-binding page-turning thriller about two bees that decided to make chocolate instead of honey. After that august start, short stories, skits, poetry and endless journals warred with the dust bunnies for under-my-bed real estate.

I wrote commercials for a television station when I was a college English major at Texas Tech University, but beyond that, it was years before I finally landed a job where somebody actually paid me to put words on paper. In 1980, I became a newspaper reporter. Of course, I didn't know jack about journalism, but my first editor told me, "If you can write, I can teach you the rest of it. If you can't write, the rest of it doesn't matter." I could write and during a 25-year-career in journalism, I won boatloads of writing awards--even started my own newspaper.

But that career came to an abrupt end when my husband became the director of Young Life in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Scandinavia and we moved to England! For the first time in a quarter of a century, I wasn't writing every day. Within a week, so many words had backed up in my head it was either write a book or have a stroke. I picked Door #1.

The only thing I took away with me from my newspapering days was my muse. Or musES. The California Raisins--you know, the heard-it-through-the-grapevine, tada, tada raisins. Hardees Restaurant once gave out little raisin action figures with their burgers and I collected the set. They're never far from me when I write. They whisper story ideas into my ear. Without a word of additional input from me, my raisins have enough backlogged plots--chock full of action, adventure, mystery and suspense and a wee bit of romance--to carry me through 2046.


The Song of the Mockingbird

Jack McNamara Chronicles Book 1



Author: Bill Cronin

Price: FREE


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Reynolds and Ryan Publishing paid best-selling author, Jack McNamara, more than a million dollars in advanced royalties for three action-adventure novels. Only one problem: Jack cannot write a single word. Devastatingly depressed and hopelessly blocked Jack embarks on a personal journey back to the summer of 1961 when three childhood events created a psychological time-bomb that, thirty-five years later, threatened to destroy his marriage and end his writing career.

Vibrant characters, settings like Charleston, Savannah and Key West and a tightly wound plot make this novel a “must read.” The Song of the Mockingbird is Bill Cronin’s second novel following five-star reviews for his first novel “Dial Tone.”


Author Genre: Mystery, Contemporary, Fiction

Website: Bill Cronin
Twitter: @billcroninwrite
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Facebook: Check Out Facebook

Author Description:
After a 30 year career in the telecommunications industry, Bill sold a telecommunications and business management consulting practice in 2000 to pursue a writing career. Bill wrote for the Orlando Sentinel briefly following military service during the Vietnam War and during his career as a consultant, Bill wrote frequently for the NTCA Rural Telecommunications Magazine. In 1995 Bill wrote a non-fiction book on the opportunities for local telephone companies to resell long distance service.

In 1994, Bill began work on his first novel, “Dial Tone” which he published as an e-book on Amazon/Kindle in July 2012. Since the mid-1990s Bill wrote a second novel “The Song of the Mockingbird” which he also published as an e-book on Amazon/Kindle in February 2013. Bill is currently editing and preparing to publish “No Place for a Lady” in mid-2013. Two other novels; “Ruby’s Story” and “Night Fire.” are also underway. Look for them in 2014.

Bill and his wife Linda divide their time between the North Georgia Mountains and the East Coast of Central Florida


Shannon's Law

Passion Patrol. Hot Cops. Hot Crime. Hot Romance. Book 2



Author: Emma Calin

Price: $ 0.99


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Moved out from the city after one-too-many maverick missions, Shannon discovers there's more going on in the sleepy country village than meets the eye. The son of a local aristocrat arouses suspicion of drug crime activity... but his widower father arouses more animal instincts!

Could she really mix with the British royal family? Can she risk her heart and career on yet another high risk unauthorised investigation?

Can she get justice for an innocent boy? Dare a kid from the gutter dream of being a countess?

Wild child inner city cop Shannon Aguerri walks a dangerous line between her methods and justice. When the bosses lose their nerve, she is transferred to green pastures to play out the role of a routine village cop. In Fleetworth-Green she encounters signs of people and drug trafficking and homes in on serious millionaire criminals.

As a loner she has attracted men but nothing has stuck. When she meets Spencer, the hunky and widowed Earl of Bloxington, there is an immediate rapport between them. Their social differences mean nothing to their passion and need. Already in the mix is an upper class female rival who has long plotted her way into the Earl's bed. The jealousy is an evil shade of green and the anger is a violent scarlet.

Often inhibited by a sense of duty and honour, Spencer is slow to reveal his feelings. When Shannon confronts him with the need to choose between her word and that of her rival, he does not immediately support her.

All the same, when they are forced together to carry out a desperate rescue mission, their love is stronger than everything ranged against them.


Author Genre: Romance, Thriller, Contemporary

Website: Emma Calin - Hot Cops. Hot Crimes. Hot Romance.
Twitter: @EmmaCalin
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Facebook: Check Out Facebook

Author Description:
Emma Calin was born in London in 1962. She currently lives in France and the UK.She has been writing since childhood and has won numerous local, national and international prizes for poetry and short stories.
Sponsored by: HBSystems Publications
Publisher of ebooks, writing industry blogger and the sponsor of the following blogs:
eBook Author’s Corner
Top Shelf Author Advice
HBS Author's Spotlight

HBS has verified prices when this article was posted. Please verify the price before buying and its availability at your location for that price.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Mystery Picks of the Day – October 15, 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.




SNAP: The World Unfolds


Author: Michele Drier

Price: $ 0.99


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SNAP, a multinational celeb TV show and magazine, is the holy grail for Maxie Gwenoch. When she snags the job as managing editor, she's looking for fame, fortune and Jimmy Choos. What she finds is a media empire owned by Baron Kandesky and his family. A family of vampires. They're European, urbane, wealthy and mesmerizing. And when she meets Jean-Louis, vampire and co-worker, she's a goner.

The Kandesky vampire family rose in Hungary centuries ago. They gave up violence and killing to make a killing on the world's commodities markets and with that beginning they built SNAP, an international celebrity multimedia empire. Now cultured...and having found food substitutes for killing...they’ve cornered the world market for celebrity and gossip journalism.

They haven't fully left the past behind. Their Hungarian neighbors and rival vampire clan, the Huszars are starting to ramp up attacks, maybe looking to start a war to take over all the Kandeskys have built.

Maxie believes she's found her ultimate career. She doesn't realize that she's found a family feud like none other, a centuries-old rivalry between vampire families, with her as the linchpin. Bells ring with Jean-Louis, but she doesn’t realize they’re alarm sirens until she learns that Jean-Louis is second in command of the Kandeskys…but by then it's too late.


Author Genre: Romance, Mystery

Website: Michele Drier
Twitter: @MicheleDrier
E-Mail: mjdrier@gmail.com
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook

Author Description:
I was born in Santa Cruz, California to a family that migrated west to San Francisco in 1849. Unfortunately, they never found gold, nor did they buy (and hang onto) any California land. My mother named me Michael, after author and actress Blanche Oelrichs, who wrote under the name of Michael Strange. After months of saying, "Yes, she's a girl.

Yes, her name is Michael," my mother finally caved and I became "Michele." I was read to as a child, and needed always to have a book with me. My maternal grandmother belonged to a writing club in San Francisco in the early part of the 20th century and wrote poems and jingles--one of which won her a travel trailer during the Depression. I've lived in San Francisco, the Bay Area, the Central Valley, the Sierra, Southern California and the North Coast. My first career was in journalism, and I spent seven years as a staff writer with the San Jose Mercury News. After returning to Humboldt State University to complete school and work on a master's, I fell into my second career, as a non-profit administrator.I spent time as a reporter and editor for daily papers in California. I was the city, metro and executive editor for daily newspapers in California's Central Valley and managed non-profit agencies, including a legal organization serving roughly 10,000 senior citizens in Alameda County. I'm a member of the Society of California Pioneers and Sisters in Crime and live in California's Central Valley with a cat, skunks, wild turkeys and an opossum (only the cat gets to come in the house).


Death at a Drop-In

A Myrtle Clover Mystery Book 5



Author: Elizabeth S. Craig

Price: FREE


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Cosette Whitlow is a society matron…if tiny Bradley, North Carolina, has one. She kindly volunteers for all the town's charities, but isn’t nearly as kind to her own family, neighbors, and friends. In fact, Cosette is emphatically disliked by much of the town—including octogenarian Myrtle Clover. And Myrtle knows that dislike in Bradley can quickly turn deadly.

No one seems surprised when Cosette’s body is discovered during a party she’s hosting—she was struck on the head with a croquet mallet. Wanting to restore order to the small town, Myrtle resolves to track down the killer—before the killer strikes again.


Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers

Website: Elizabeth Spann Craig
Author's Blog: Elizabeth Spann Craig
Facebook: Riley Adams Author
Twitter: @elizabethscraig
E-Mail: elizabethspanncraig (at) gmail (dot) com
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Facebook: Check Out Facebook

Author Description:
Elizabeth writes the Memphis Barbeque mystery series for Penguin/Berkley (as Riley Adams), the Southern Quilting mysteries for Penguin/NAL, and the Myrtle Clover series for Midnight Ink and independently. She blogs at Mystery Writing is Murder, which was named by Writer's Digest as one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers for 2010--2013.

A lifelong resident of the South, she enjoys finding inspiration for her mysteries in the beautiful states of North and South Carolina.


Liveon - No Evil


Author: Stacy Eaton

Price: $ 0.99


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Jacquelyn Liveon is a small time detective who loves her job, but hates attention. When she steps in front of heartthrob silver screen actor, Ryan Palmer, to stop a gunman, she finds herself dangling in to the public spotlight. Ryan can’t believe a woman would save him and not want more from his glamorous life. Could the words “I Fear No Evil” that are printed on her shirt be more correct than he thought?

When Jacquelyn goes undercover, she gets submerged into a world she never wanted to understand. How does she deal with the threats against Ryan? What happens with a major event flips the movie set upside down and injures people that they care about?

Join Jacquelyn and Ryan as they act out the relationship for the assignment, and try to survive the secrets, the threats and the explosive relationship that burns behind the scenes.


Author Genre: Crime, Thriller and Mystery

Website: Stacy Eaton
Author's Blog: Stacy Eaton, Author
Amazon Author Page
Twitter: @StacySEaton
E-Mail: Mybloodrunsblue@aol.com
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Author Description:
Stacy is a full-time police officer who enjoys crime scene investigation above all else, taking a passion in putting the pieces together to figure out the crime. She is also a business owner where she helps people get the awareness out for the causes they care most about. She is a mother of two, a son proudly serving in the United States Navy and a young daughter. Her husband is also in law enforcement. Stacy is also currently serving on the board of directors for her local domestic violence center. She is very much into photography and carries her Nikon Digital SLR with her almost everywhere, just in case.


Vampire in Denial

Family Blood Ties



Author: Dale Mayer

Price: FREE


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Blood doesn't just make her who she is...it also makes her what she is. Like being a sixteen-year-old vampire isn't hard enough, Tessa's throwback human genes make her an outcast among her relatives. But try as she might, she can't get a handle on the vampire lifestyle and all the...blood. Turning her back on the vamp world, she embraces the human teenage lifestyle--high school, peer pressure and finding a boyfriend. Jared manages to stir something in her blood. He's smart and fun and oh, so cute. But Tessa's dream of a having the perfect boyfriend turns into a nightmare when vampires attack the movie theatre and kidnap her date. Once again, Tessa finds herself torn between the human world and the vampire one. Will blood own out? Can she make peace with who she is as well as what?


Author Genre: Science Fiction, Thrillers, Historical Fiction

Website: Bob Mayer
Author's Blog: Write on the River
Twitter: @Bob_Mayer
E-Mail: bob@bobmayer.org
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Author Description:
NY Times Bestselling Author Bob Mayer graduated West Point and served in the Infantry & Special Forces. He commanded recon teams, a Green Beret A-Team and held other positions in Special Operations, where many of his bestselling ideas were formulated.

Mayer's obsession with mythology and his vast knowledge of the military and Special Forces, mixed with his strong desire to learn from history, is the foundation for his science fiction series Atlantis, Area 51 and Psychic Warrior. Mayer is a master at blending elements of truth into all of his thrillers such as The Green Beret Series, The Shadow Warrior Series, The Presidential Series as well as his historical fiction, leaving the reader questioning what is real and what isn't.

Bob has lived all over the world, but has settled down on Write on the River with his wife and 2 yellow labs, 'Cool' Gus and 'Sassy' Becca. He spends his free time running with the dogs, biking, kayaking, and watching or reading whatever his much smarter wife tells him to. She controls the remote. He has a grandson, whom he is training to be the leader of the resistance against the machines.


Messages

The David Chance Series Book 1



Author: John Michael Hileman

Price: FREE


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The David Chance Series: Messages, Voices, Lies

David Chance can see messages in the sea of words around him, messages that warn him of future events.

Words are everywhere-- on labels, magazines, sign posts, t-shirts-- everywhere. And as much as David Chance would like to hide from them, he can't. Words keep leaping off objects around him, forming messages in his mind. But how is this possible? Has his brain suddenly taken an evolutionary leap forward, or are the mysterious messages proof of divine intervention?

Driven to answer a question he'd long ago abandoned, and stalked by the killer he's trying to stop, David risks everything to follow the messages to a dirty bomb set to go off in the heart of Boston. But can he trust the author of the messages to protect him from a terrorist who seems to know his every move.


Author Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Young Adult, Supernatural Thriller

Website: JMH
Twitter: @JohnHileman
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook

Author Description:
Regarding Suspense Mystery and Supernatural Thriller author John Michael Hileman: After serving in the U.S. Army, John Michael Hileman started a small 3D animation company. From there he was hired as production director for a television station, where he oversaw the production of three semi-national television programs. In his spare time, while being a faithful husband and father, he authored his first book, VRIN: ten mortal gods, which later placed in the top four of a national writing competition. Encouraged by this, John went on to write the #1 best selling supernatural thriller MESSAGES. He now has six bestsellers and another on the way. Books in order of release: VRIN, Messages, Unseen, Voices, Lies, The End Came With A Kiss.
Sponsored by: HBSystems Publications
Publisher of ebooks, writing industry blogger and the sponsor of the following blogs:
eBook Author’s Corner
Top Shelf Author Advice
HBS Author's Spotlight

HBS has verified prices when this article was posted. Please verify the price before buying and its availability at your location for that price.