Death by Dancing: a 1930s Cozy Murder Mystery (A Higgins & Hawke Mystery Book 4)


Lee Strauss - 2021
    Haley Higgins is surprised to discover the deceased is the widow of a man whose body still lay in the cold cabinets of her morgue. She has reasons to believe the man’s death wasn’t natural, and now, with his wife having succumbed to the same symptoms, her convictions of foul play are stronger than ever.With the help of investigative reporter Samantha Hawke, Haley works to determine which contestants in the dancing contest had means, motive, and opportunity. And most of all, how to keep the killer from striking again.

Holy Shroud


J.A. Bouma - 2018
    A sacred relic. A religious belief under siege. Silas Grey—ex-Army Ranger, professor of religious studies, and leading relics expert—is on the verge of rocking the religious and nonreligious alike with scientific proof of the Church’s central belief: Jesus Christ’s resurrection. Proof he believes has been hidden all along within the Shroud of Turin, the Christian relic purported to be the burial cloth of Jesus.But a series of suspicious deaths and devastating attacks not only threaten Silas’s shocking announcement and those close to him. They are a sign of an even greater threat reemerging from the shadows of history.Coming to his aid is the Order of Thaddeus, a religious order that has been battling for the very survival of the Church since its birth. Soon it becomes clear that an ancient cultic enemy has risen to once again wage war against the Church and destroy the Christian faith—beginning with its most sacred relic and teaching. Spanning the globe from Washington to Paris to Jerusalem, Silas and the Order combine forces to plunge into a desperate mission for the very survival of the Church and all it holds dear. Can they preserve the memory of its central belief before its archenemy erases it forever? Holy Shroud is the first book in the inventive bestselling Order of Thaddeus action-adventure thriller series leveraging the familiar conspiracy suspense and special-ops thrill of James Rollins, wrapped in the historical insight of Steve Berry and inspiration of Ted Dekker.Embark on this new action-packed adventure by emerging author J. A. Bouma that combines faith, fact, and fiction like few religious writers—delivering a “highly entertaining” and “compelling” page-turner people have all agreed “you won't want to put it down!”

The Gender Experiment


L.J. Sellers - 2016
    After discovering they were born at the same clinic two decades earlier, she investigates further and uncovers a startling list. With the realization that more gender-fluid people are targeted for elimination, Taylor kicks her investigation into high gear. But the researchers who conducted the experiment aren’t about to let anything interfere with their plans. Soon Taylor is in deep trouble and needs the help of FBI Special Agent Bailey. As Bailey scrambles to track down leads, events spin out of control and she finds herself blocked at every step by powerful military forces. With the clock ticking on Phase 2 of the experiment, can Bailey and Taylor uncover the truth in time to save the other subjects?

Gangsters of Shanghai


Gerry O'Sullivan - 2013
    Seek this superbly researched and deftly written novel out"Review By Peter Desmond'City Weekend' Magazine, Shanghai 10 December 2013The severed head in the bamboo birdcage swayed above the teeming marketplace. It told Constable Mike Gallagher everything he needed to know about Shanghai.It’s 1927. The son of a rural Irish cop, Gallagher joins the Shanghai Municipal Police. to escape an Ireland crippled by its recent bitter independence fight, and to trace the aristocratic woman whose memory still haunts him. They would venture together to China, Fiona once promised. Then the IRA torched her family estate. Everybody believes she died there. Everybody but Mike Gallagher.Shanghai. Pearl of the East or Whore of the Orient? Depends on who you ask. It’s a cesspool of poverty, thronged with refugees, gripped by civil war. But for some it’s still a fever dream: jazz clubs and opium dens, celebrities and spies, easy money and easier women. Gallagher encounters the city’s biggest philanthropist, a man called Big Ears Lu – who is also its creepiest racketeer. He falls for the beautiful courtesan Miriam Tsai. But does his collusion with Lu keep her trapped in the House of Multiple Joys? Shanghai in 1927 is a city where after dark anything seems possible. A city where anyone can be crushed, and anyone corrupted. Even an innocent Irish cop.From the wreckage of guerrilla war in Ireland to the dawn of world war in Asia, the international mystery thriller Gangsters of Shanghai seethes with 20th Century turbulence and temptation. Can Mike Gallagher escape the imploding city with his life, his self-respect – and the answer to Fiona’s fate? About The Author Of Gangsters Of Shanghai, The International Mystery Thriller.Gerry O'Sullivan was born in Limerick, Ireland in 1961, where he indulged his taste for historical fiction, intelligent action thrillers and men’s adventure books. A graduate of the University of Limerick, he moved to Australia in 1986 and worked in the international education sector. Gerry was inspired to write this action mystery by his granduncle, a Detective Inspector in the Shanghai Municipal Police during the 1920’s. Spellbound by old photographs and family lore, Gerry resolved to write an action adventure thriller with the accuracy of historical fiction. Gerry travelled to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Brandeis University, Boston where the top-secret files of the Shanghai Municipal Police Special Branch are kept on microfilm (they were smuggled out of Shanghai by the CIA in 1949).Gerry then moved to Singapore to immerse himself in the atmosphere of a fast paced English-speaking Asian city, as Shanghai was in the 1920’s and 1930’s. To achieve the pulse-quickening features of an action mystery with the demandingly accurate details of historical fiction, Gerry blended his granduncle’s stories about his Shanghai police work, years of scholarly research, and his own experiences of the city.

Too Close to Home: The Samantha Zaldivar Case


Laurinda Wallace - 2017
    This is one of them. Seven-year-old Samantha Zaldivar is reported missing in February 1997. Despite the best efforts of the community and law enforcement to find her, it seems the first grader has disappeared without a trace until the forensic evidence leads a multi-agency task force to an ugly possibility. Months later, an unlikely turn of events reveals the young girl’s fate, which rocks the rural county in Western New York. Dedicated and meticulous police work brings a murderer to justice, but not without a cost to those involved. Stephen C. Tarbell, a retired Wyoming County Sheriff’s investigator shares his personal account of the investigation into the disappearance and murder of Samantha Zaldivar.

Dixie's Last Stand: Was It Murder or Self-Defense?


John Ferak - 2015
    Then one summer day in 2002, Dixie’s mean and wicked husband was gone. Some of the local residents presumed that Scott packed his bags and left town. But others were skeptical. After all, Scott’s brown Ford pick-up truck was still parked in his driveway. The disappearance mystified Defiance for more than a year. Then in late October, 2003, the truth emerged … or did it?

Who Killed Little Johnny Gill?: A Victorian True Crime Murder Mystery


Kathryn McMaster - 2016
    He's your son. You wave goodbye to him one morning as he disappears into the swirling fog. And then he is gone. Forever. This gripping historical crime fiction novel, based on fact, is set in Bradford, England,1888. It explores the horrific murder of Johnny Gill; a murder and mutilation so gruesome, it stuns a nation. Even hardened detectives are affected by its savagery, swiftly comparing it to the work of Jack the Ripper. "Who Killed Little Johnny Gill?" is Kathryn McMaster's debut novel. It is a noir page-turner that immediately immerses you in a maelstrom of emotions, keeping you in suspense as Chief Detective Constable Withers and his dedicated team of British detectives try and gather sufficient evidence to bring a conviction against their suspect. In 1888, police procedures and knowledge of Forensic Science are rudimentary and juries are exposed to persuasive newspaper reports and public opinion. Will justice prevail, or will the guilty walk free? This is one crime fiction novel you won't be able to put down until the last page is turned!

Death's Confessor: A Civil War Murder Mystery


Phillip Bryant - 2016
    Pueblos, Apache, former Mexican citizens and the US Army collide in a tale of greed and murder. A new civil war mystery series by best selling author Phillip and Jennifer Bryant. Peter Thomas Smith's days on the post of Fort Craig, New Mexico territory, are spent fighting boredom, keeping cool, and giving the spiritual state of the 5th California Mounted Infantry volunteers a ready ear. As chaplain, he isn't asked to do much in the way of fighting Apaches and there have been no wounded in battle to tend to from fighting Confederates. He is content to let this state of affairs continue, that is until the Piro scout, Tafoya, brings in a soldier half dead with no name, no unit, and no reason for being there. Like his preferred namesake before him, Thomas the doubter, there are too many questions to ignore. Like historical murder mysteries? Find more civil war mysteries and historical fiction by searching Phillip Bryant or P.J. Bryant. If you like civil war fiction, be sure to hunt up The Shiloh Series by Phillip Bryant, a four novel set.

Small Town Ho: The Hilarious Story of Moving from the Big City to North Idaho


Duke Diercks - 2015
    No Jobs. No friends. Just buckets of our own ignorance. Follow along in horror and hilarity as the family acclimates to the new small town way of life and the author bounces from jobs working in a school cafeteria to selling women’s clothing in a call center to opening a barbecue restaurant. Written in a smart, self-deprecating, salty style, Small Town Ho is all at once poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, full of the struggle of an ordinary family consisting of three boys, one big black lab, one assassin of a cat, and two very tired parents.

Holiday Heist at Dunhaven Castle: A Cate Kensie Mystery (Cate Kensie Mysteries Book 3)


Nellie H. Steele - 2020
    When Cate recognizes one of the stolen necklaces from when she traveled back in time to the year 1856 to solve a murder mystery, Cate knows there’s only one thing left for her to do. Despite the hectic holiday season approaching, complete with two grand holiday events, Cate must travel to 1925 and unravel the mystery surrounding the jewelry theft. However, things take an unexpected turn when she arrives. As Cate discovers more unanswered questions, she starts to wonder if there’s a piece to the puzzle she has yet to uncover. While Cate and estate manager, Jack, try to unravel the puzzle in the past, another mystery brews in the present for Cate. Strange and eerie nightmares centered around a bookcase in Dunhaven Castle’s library disrupt Cate’s sleep, rattling her mind even during her waking hours. She wonders if these are connected to the jewelry theft or if something darker lurks in Dunhaven’s halls.Can Cate solve the mysterious theft of her family’s jewelry? Will the bookcase hold the secrets to the past? If it does, will Cate be able to decipher the clues on its shelves? Or is there something more sinister at work in Dunhaven Castle? Find out if Cate has what it takes to solve the newest mysteries at Dunhaven Castle in Holiday Heist at Dunhaven Castle, book three of the riveting cozy mystery series Cate Kensie Mysteries.

Ridgetop


Carol Ervin - 2015
    If Angela sings—even speaks—she could ruin her voice for good, but she faces another threat: falling hard for Rudy, her first love, the man she abandoned to follow her career. Over the next few days the three will meet again in Winkler, the small town where the Ridgetop festival takes place. All three will be forever changed. All three will run for their lives

The Unlucky Woman


Jonathan Dunsky - 2018
    She may live to regret it.Hilda Lipkind is sure her husband is cheating on her. So she hires Adam Lapid to find out with whom.Adam expects this to be a short, ordinary investigation.Both he and his client are in for a surprise.For what starts as a routine case soon turns out to be anything but.To succeed in his mission, Adam must dig deep into both past and present, and cut through layers of lies and secrets.And in the end, he must uncover an unexpected truth that may do his client more harm than good.You will love The Unlucky Woman because it's a fast-paced mystery story with twists and turns.Get it now!

An Unlamented Death


William Savage - 2015
    Adam Bascom trips over a body in Gressington churchyard, he never imagines it will change the whole direction of his life. As a recently-qualified physician trying to establish a practice in a small market town in north Norfolk, Adam should be devoting all his energy to his business. But it soon becomes clear that the authorities are intent on making sure the death is accepted as an accident and refuse any deeper investigation. Adam’s curiosity and sense of justice cannot accept this. He knows there are many unanswered questions about the death, but he has no standing that would allow him to become involved formally. Instead, he uses friends, old and new, unexpected contacts and even his own mother to help him get to the truth. Set against the turbulence of late-Georgian England, a country on the brink of war with Revolutionary France, the book reveals a land where spies keep constant watch on everyone the government deems ‘undesirable’, religion is polarised between the established church and a mass of dissenting sects, and the perennial ‘Irish question’ has at last spilled over into outright terrorism. Bad weather, poor harvests and enclosure have driven many people in the countryside into abject poverty. Only the smugglers along the coast offer regular and highly-paid ‘work’ helping to unload contraband. Yet here too, the Revenue’s Riding Officers, backed up by troops of dragoons, are waging an increasingly successful campaign to stamp out the major gangs. Adam must thread his way through all of this, encountering many new demands along the way, from a family torn apart by religious bigotry, and a teenage thief turned informer, to a secret section of The Alien Office, a government department dedicated to keeping a close eye on anyone likely to prove a threat to the realm. As he becomes more and more essential to the government’s efforts to combat internal dissension and prepare for war, Adam finds he must draw on all his medical and personal skills to bring the case to a successful conclusion.

Sherlock Holmes: and the Mystery of the Broken Window


William Todd - 2016
    The only clue: her window had been smashed through by a rock thrown by an unknown person the night before. With little to go on and no help from the local police, the great detective seems sure of only one thing: if he and Watson cannot find her before dawn, she will be lost forever.

Size Matters


John Locke - 2019
    Beat him to death with a tree branch after he threatened to rape her. But what started as self-defense became problematic for two reasons. First, she killed Robert Sims after he’d been rendered completely defenseless. And second, she inadvertently left her fingerprints at the scene. Allie is young, beautiful, the smartest person in any room. But she’s also been diagnosed as clinically insane. As her past catches up with her and her marriage starts to crumble, Allie is determined to survive at all costs. Size Matters is a taut, compelling novel that teaches us never to underestimate a woman with nothing to lose. PRELIMINARY REVIEWS: “Size Matters is so full of twists and turns and surprises I couldn’t have flipped the pages faster if you paid me! This novel surprised and delighted and kept me shaking my head time and again. Fans of Donovan Creed should be aware that he and Callie make a brief appearance that furthers their saga.” “‘I’ve done bad things,’ says Allie McPherson, ‘but that doesn’t make me a bad person.’ Well, that’s one opinion!” “This book is crazy! There are twists and turns on virtually every page! While I consider myself an expert on Locke novels, I have to admit he took me on a wild ride that made me guess wrong every single time.” “Size Matters is a cross between Alfred Hitchcock and Quentin Tarantino. From start to finish I was shocked, surprised, and hopelessly entertained.”