I've moved!

I've moved!

Thanks for stopping by, but it appears you are using a (very) old address for my blog. I've moved to a Wordpress site and you'll need to update your bookmarks for Books on the Knob

I've moved!

Custom Search

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Bargain Book Roundup

Since the UK got all the deals yesterday, I'm starting off with a few US only bargains in this post (but may have one or two in there for those overseas, as well).

The logic game Strimko, by Braintonik Games, is currently on sale for 99 cents (and should go back up on Monday). All the active content apps and games are limited to those in the US.

Book Description
Discounted to $0.99 for a limited time (offer ends May 15).

Jump into Strimko and enjoy classic Sudoku gameplay with a twist!

The object of the game is to place a set of numbers in rows or columns without repeating them in any row or column. Strimko adds a concept of "streams" that crisscross throughout the puzzle. With streams, you must consider not only the rows and columns, but also the streams, and make sure that each contains different numbers.

You can choose from four different difficulty levels. Each difficulty level increases the size of the grid you play on: "Easy" has a 4x4 grid, while the "Master" level challenges you with a 7x7 grid. Each of the four difficulty levels has 30 different puzzles, allowing for a total of 120 different puzzles to play. A hint function can also let you keep playing if you get stuck.

Challenge yourself and tease your brain as you master the logic required to solve Strimko puzzles!


The matching puzzle game Next, by Mobigloo, is also on sale for 99 cents, but this price will last until May 26. Also limited to those in the US, this is one I'd held off on, but may go ahead and get at this price. With 128 levels, I could probably play it over and over (as I forget the solutions for ones I solved long ago, especially if I alternate with playing Strimko).

Book Description
NEXT is a matching puzzle game for Kindle that is easy to learn, but hard to master.

The objective of the game is to clear all the pieces off the game board. Game pieces disappear when they are matched with, and touch, other game pieces with the same symbol. Your job is to move the game pieces around the game board to make this happen. Clearing the board allows you to move the next level.

The challenge is that if you don't plan ahead, you might not be able get the pieces to the right location because they are blocked by other game pieces. Because sometimes there are an odd number of a certain types of game pieces, if you match them too soon, you risk leaving stray game pieces behind and then you won't be able to finish the level.

NEXT includes 128 levels of varying difficulty and is easy to learn, but hard to master -- give it a try, and you'll see what we mean!


The Bass Wore Scales ($0.99), by AUTHOR, is the fifth in the Liturgical MysteriesLiturgical Mysteries series. If you only picked up the first four before, be sure to get this one before it goes back up. If the only one in the series you skipped on was the last, which was $4.99, you may want to grab The Organist Wore Pumps now, as it's been marked down to $2.99. If you haven't read any of the series, start with The Alto Wore Tweed

Book Description
For Detective Hayden Konig, things are going well. He enjoys his two jobs, he’s independently wealthy, his girlfriend has agreed not to marry him, and no one has been killed in St. Germaine since Palm Sunday.

In spite of all this success, Hayden has one more dream to realize—he longs to be a writer. As the organist and choir director of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, he takes every opportunity to inflict his attempts at hard-boiled, musical detective stories on the choir, and, to boost his credibility, he’s even purchased Raymond Chandler’s actual typewriter. It doesn’t help.

Summers in North Carolina are usually peaceful, but when Kokomo, the world-famous signing gorilla, comes to town, suddenly there’s a dead body in the church and all the evidence points to the great ape. Can Hayden figure out the mystery in time to save Kokomo? (Well...of course he can...)


I didn't forget about those who may have already devoured the eight volumes of Mark Schweizer's series, as the ninth book is now out: The Countertenor Wore Garlic ($2.99). I haven't managed to get quite this far yet, but the first one was truly one of the funnier books I've read recently (laugh out loud funny).

Book Description
St. Germaine, North Carolina might be the most eccentric little town in the Appalachian Mountains ... at least that's what Hayden Konig, the Chief of Police thinks. Hayden has been the chief for nineteen years. As a detective, he's first rate. As the organist at St. Barnabas Church, he's one of the best ivory jockeys in the county. He's fabulously rich, has a beautiful wife, a cabin in the woods, a dog, a gun, and a pick-up truck. What more could any red-blooded American male want?

That's easy! What he wants is to be a hard-boiled, noir, crime writer. Undeterred by what his audience calls a "conspicuous lack of talent," Hayden Konig has purchased Raymond Chandler's typewriter in a desperate bid to channel some of the master's wordcraft. It doesn't help.

Vicar Fearghus McTavish is a Calvinist Anglican priest with strict Scottish Presbyterian leanings not exactly the perfect interim priest for St. Barnabas. So when the church participates in the town Halloween carnival, it's only a matter of time before something goes terribly wrong. Suddenly there's a dead body, and Hayden Konig has his hands full with a Congregational Enlivener, the Zombies of Easter Walk, and a town packed with adolescent vampires. "Hey," says Hayden, "what's the worst that can happen...?"

Hayden Konig's 9th mystery -- The Countertenor Wore Garlic It's not what you expect... it's even funnier!


Live to Tell ($0.99), by Wendy Corsi Staub, has been reduced by HarperCollins to get you hooked on this author's work, before Hell to Payl is released in September. Since that's an Agency publisher, you'll find it at the same price at B&N and Kobo. Best of all, this author has several books out that are priced under $5 (self-published and with another publisher, in other series/story lines), if you do find yourself hooked and wondering what to read until September.

Book Description
Secrets can scandalize . . .

In a lovely suburban town just north of New York City, the gossip mill runs more efficiently than the commuter-train line. And in every impeccably decorated house, they're talking about Lauren Walsh. They say that nothing could be worse than being abandoned by your husband for another woman. They're wrong . . .

Secrets can shock . . .

All Lauren wants is to protect her children from the pain of her messy divorce. But when their father goes missing, a case of mistaken identity puts all their lives in danger, and a stealthy predator lurks in the shadows, watching . . . waiting . . .

Secrets can kill . . .

Lauren is about to uncover an unfathomable truth—a truth this cold-blooded mastermind would never let her live to tell . . .


If you picked up and enjoyed Naomi Kramer's DEAD(ish) (it's currently free), you might want to take a look at the next two in the series, (technically) DEAD and DEAD (as a doorpost). Both are fairly short, not much more than novelette (long short story) length.

Book Description
Cooper's dead. But what's a nerd to do when Heaven doesn't believe in technology, and hell's hotter than an overclocked CPU?

This is a very short book - novelette length. Contains frequent profanity, adult themes and Aussie insults. Not suitable for children.


Staying with the 99 cent range, H.P. Mallory is having a sale on all of her books this weekend, including To Kill A Warlock, an Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Romance (Dulcie O'Neil Series, Book #1): thru Sunday, they are all scheduled to be 99 cents. Looks to be a good time to try this author out (I have one of her novels, already) or to grab a few more in a series you have started.

Book Description
The murder of a dark arts warlock. A shape-shifting, ravenous creature on the loose. A devilishly handsome stranger sent to investigate. Sometimes working law enforcement for the Netherworld is a real bitch.

Dulcie O’Neil is a fairy. And not the type to frolic in gardens. She’s a Regulator—a law-enforcement agent who monitors the creatures of the Netherworld to keep them from wreaking havoc in the mortal world.

When a warlock is murdered and Dulcie was the last person to see him alive, she must uncover the truth before she’s either deported back to the Netherworld, or she becomes the next victim.

Enter Knight Vander, a sinfully attractive investigator sent from the Netherworld to work the case with Dulcie.

Between battling her attraction to her self-appointed partner, keeping a sadomasochistic demon in check, and fending off the advances of a sexy and powerful vampire, Dulcie’s got her hands full.

As the body count increases, Dulcie finds herself battling dark magic, reconnoitering in S&M clubs and suffering the greatest of all betrayals.


Leaving behind both the indie author and 99 cent selection, first up is Jeffrey Archer's As the Crow Flies ($2.99). I have several of the author's books (both in paper and Kindle editions), so quickly added this one to my collection.

Book Description
Growing up in the slums of East End London, Charlie Trumper dreams of someday running his grandfather's fruit and vegetable barrow. That day comes suddenly when his grandfather dies leaving him the floundering business. With the help of Becky Salmon, an enterprising young woman, Charlie sets out to make a name for himself as "The Honest Trader". But the brutal onset of World War I takes Charlie far from home and into the path of a dangerous enemy whose legacy of evil follows Charlie and his family for generations.

Encompassing three continents and spanning over sixty years, As the Crow Flies brings to life a magnificent tale of one man's rise from rags to riches set against the backdrop of a changing century.


Vanished ($2.99), by Joseph Finder, is another from an author where I have several books already in my collection (but, not this one ... yet).

Book Description
Nick Heller is tough, smart, and stubborn. And in his line of work, it's essential. Trained in the Special Forces, Nick is a high-powered intelligence investigator--exposing secrets that powerful people would rather keep hidden. He's a guy you don't want to mess with. He's also the man you call when you need a problem fixed.

Desperate, with nowhere else to run, Nick's nephew, Gabe makes that call one night. After being attacked in Georgetown, his mother, Lauren, lies in a coma, and his step-dad, Roger, Nick's brother, has vanished without a trace.

Nick and Roger have been on the outs since the arrest, trial, and conviction of their father, the notorious "fugitive financier," Victor Heller. Where Nick strayed from the path, Roger followed their father's footsteps into the corporate world. Now, as Nick searches for his brother, he's on a collision course with one of the most powerful corporations in the world--and they will stop at nothing to protect their secrets.


Android Karenina ($4.71), by Leo Tolstoy and Ben H. Winters

Book Description
It’s been called the greatest novel ever written. Now, Tolstoy’s timeless saga of love and betrayal is transported to an awesomer version of 19th-century Russia. It is a world humming with high-powered groznium engines: where debutantes dance the 3D waltz in midair, mechanical wolves charge into battle alongside brave young soldiers, and robots—miraculous, beloved robots!—are the faithful companions of everyone who’s anyone. Restless to forge her own destiny in this fantastic modern life, the bold noblewoman Anna and her enigmatic Android Karenina abandon a loveless marriage to seize passion with the daring, handsome Count Vronsky. But when their scandalous affair gets mixed up with dangerous futuristic villainy, the ensuing chaos threatens to rip apart their lives, their families, and—just maybe—all of planet Earth.

The Meowmorphosis ($7.52), by Franz Kafka and Cook Coleridge, is a bit above the usual price range here, but I loved the cover when I stumbled upon it. Then, I read the synopsis! I'll definitely check out the sample on this one. If you'd rather read Kafka's original, there are numerous editions out for Kindle, including Metamorphosis and Other Stories ($1.90). Unfortunately (at least, for me), all the free editions on Kindle are in the original German.

Book Description
“One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an adorable kitten.”

Thus begins The Meowmorphosis—a bold, startling, and fuzzy-wuzzy new edition of Kafka’s classic nightmare tale, from the publishers of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! Meet Gregor Samsa, a humble young man who works as a fabric salesman to support his parents and sister. His life goes strangely awry when he wakes up late for work and discovers that, inexplicably, he is now a man-sized baby kitten. His family freaks out: Yes, their son is OMG so cute, but what good is cute when there are bills to pay? And how can Gregor be so selfish as to devote all his attention to a scrap of ribbon? As his new feline identity threatens to eat away at his personality, Gregor desperately tries to survive this bizarre, bewhiskered ordeal by accomplishing the one thing he never could as a man: He must flee his parents’ house.

50% off a Roku Streaming Player (KSO)

This offer is for those with the Kindle Wi-Fi with Special Offers only. View the Special Offers on your Kindle (Menu, Special Offers) and you should see a new promotion (if you don't, turn on your wireless, click Menu, Sync & Check for New Items, then after the sync has completed, go to the Special Offers screen):

50% off a Roku Streaming Player at Amazon.com

Click on offer, then click on the link on the offer page sign up and get an email with the promotion code. Sign-up for this offer expires on May 16.

You'll get an email (right away), with a promise to send you the promotional code within 2 business days. Once you have the promotional code, you have until Aug 16 to complete your purchase. Details and terms are on this page. Like previous offers, this one requires you to use the full checkout process in order to enter your promotional code. Also, like all Amazon sales that use promotional codes, if you have a gift card balance, you must use it for the payment (if there is not a sufficient balance, then you can pick which credit card or other payment to use).

This is one of the advertised Kindle Special Offers that I have been looking forward to. I've kicked around the idea of getting a Roku player (and you can get the Roku HD, Roku XD, or Roku XDS) and at this price, I'm going to go ahead and get one. There isn't a channel yet that allows you to play your Amazon Cloud music straight off the Roku, but with the Roku XDS, you can hook up an external hard drive via USB. It's pretty cheap now to buy a one or two terabyte drive, so I can download my music there and play it on my stereo without having to have another computer up an running. We also have Netflix, so can watch movies there and can download Amazon Instant Videos to watch (I find the downloaded versions on my computer much easier to watch than the streaming ones ).

Friday, May 13, 2011

New Kindle App - Daily Horoscopes 2011 - 2012

Daily Horoscopes 2011 - 2012 (Your Daily Horoscope on Kindle) ($2.99) is a new Kindle app from Sonic Boom, makers of Hangman and Match Genius.

Book Description
Check your Daily Horoscope on Kindle.

Daily Horoscopes offers astrological advice based on the positions of your Zodiac sign through 2012. Features include daily astrological predictions for each of the 12 signs of the Zodiac, lucky numbers based on your birthday, and advice on love and friendship. You can also bookmark meaningful predictions for easy reference later. In addition, celebrity birthdays are included for each day of the year. Written by professional astrologers, Daily Horoscopes offers you advice on your goals and provides day to day suggestions.

See what your daily horoscope has to say today!

New Kindle App - Converter

Although there are a couple of MobileReference books that have been free lately that promise to help you with conversions, I think that Converter (Easy Conversions for Kindle) ($0.99), by 7 Dragons, will be a lot easier to use, as it does all that pesky math for you.

Book Description
Converter is a simple utility that lets you convert between different units of measure on your Kindle and answer common conversion questions. How many Cups are in a Quart and how many Teaspoons are in a Tablespoon? Having trouble converting between Celsius and Fahrenheit while visiting a foreign country? Quickly convert among 76 units of measure in these 11 categories:
- Angle
- Area
- Energy
- Length/Distance
- Power
- Pressure
- Speed
- Temperature
- Time
- Volume
- Weight

Converter also supports shortcuts that allow you to quickly change the type of conversion, the unit you are converting from, and the unit to which you are converting.

Let Kindle help you with conversions today!

Units of measure include: [Angle] radian, gradian, degrees, [Area] square inch, square foot, square yard, square mile, square mm, square cm, square m, square km, are, hectare, acre, [Energy] joule, erg, calorie, kilocalorie, watt hour, kilowatt hour, [Length/Distance] nanometer, micrometer, millimeter, centimeter, meter, kilometer, inch, foot, yard, mile, nautical mile, [Power] watt, kilowatt, horsepower, btu/second, btu/hour, joule/second, calorie/hour, kcal/hour, [Pressure] pascal, bar, atmosphere, pound/sq inch, mm mercury, [Speed] kilometer/hour, meter/second, mile/minute, mile/hour, foot/second, knot, [Temperature] Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin, [Time] second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, [Volume] liter, milliliter, gallon us, quart us, pint, fluid ounce, cup, tablespoon, teaspoon, [Weight/Mass] milligram, gram, kilogram, tonne, ounce, pound, short ton us.

Bargain Books for UK and Canada

I'm cheating a bit, in that all but one of these is actually a bargain in the UK alone, but the first one is also a great deal for those in Canada, as well (it's $9.99 for those in the US). I'm giving the prices in US dollars, but will include UK links for those who have moved their accounts. These Kindle UK sale prices seem to be in response to a big £1.99 ebook sale at Waterstone's (a UK only bookstore).

Limitless ($1.14 Canada; $1.64 UK), by Alan Glynn, is the book the upcoming movie of the same name is based upon. (UK link)

Book Description
Imagine a drug that made your brain function with perfect efficiency, tapping into your deepest resources of creativity, intelligence and drive. A drug that can help you learn a foreign language in a day. A drug that can help you process information so fast you can see patterns in the stock market.Just as his life is fading into mediocrity, Eddie Spinola discovers such a pill: MDT-48, Viagra for the brain. But while the benefits of such a mind-drug quickly start to materialise, so too do the side-effects. And when Eddie tries to track down other users, to help him kick his addiction, he finds out that they’re all dying, or dead…

Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You: A Guide to the Universe ($3.26 UK), by Marcus Chown (UK link)

Book Description
The two towering achievements of modern physics are quantum theory and Einstein’s general theory of relativity. But, almost a century after their advent, most people haven’t the slightest clue what either is about. Did you know that there’s so much empty space inside matter that the entire human race could be squeezed into the volume of a sugar cube? Or that you grow old more quickly on the top floor of a building than on the ground floor? Get set for the most entertaining science book of the year.

The Uncommon Reader ($3.32 UK), by Alan Bennett (UK link)

Book Description
The Uncommon Reader is none other than HM the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. She reads widely ( JR Ackerley, Jean Genet, Ivy Compton Burnett and the classics) and intelligently. Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people like the oleaginous prime minister and his repellent advisers. She comes to question the prescribed order of the world and loses patience with much that she has to do. In short, her reading is subversive. The consequence is, of course, surprising, mildly shocking and very funny.

The Private Patient ($3.32 UK), by P. D. James (UK link)

Book Description
When the notorious investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn booked into Mr Chandler-Powell’s private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar, she had every prospect of a successful operation by a distinguished surgeon, a week’s peaceful convalescence in one of Dorset’s most beautiful manor houses and the beginning of a new life. She was never to leave Cheverell Manor alive. Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate the murder, and later a second death, which are to raise even more complicated problems than the question of innocence or guilt.A new detective novel by P. D. James is always keenly awaited and The Private Patient will undoubtedly equal the success of her worldwide bestseller The Lighthouse. It displays the qualities which P. D. James’s readers have come to expect: a masterly psychological and emotional richness of characterisation, a vivid evocation of place and a credible and exciting mystery. The Private Patient is a powerful work of contemporary fiction.

Rifles ($3.32 UK), by Mark Urban (UK link)

Book Description
As part of the Light Division created to act as the advance guard of Wellington's army, the 95th Rifles are the first into battle and the last out. Fighting, thieving and raping their way across Europe, they are clearly no ordinary troops. The 95th are in fact the first British soldiers to take aim at their targets, to take cover when being shot at, to move tactically by fire and manoeuvre. And by the end of a six-year campaign they have not only proved themselves the toughest fighters in the army, they have also - at huge personal cost - created the modern notion of the infantryman.

Blood Rain ($3.32 UK), by Michael Dibdin (UK link)

Book Description
Despite his best efforts to please everyone and keep out of trouble, the veteran Italian Criminalpol officer Aurelio Zen has made more enemies than friends over the years. Now it's payoff time. After his last case, amid the gentle hills and lush vineyards of Piedmont, Zen finally receives the order he has been dreading all his professional life: his next posting is to Sicily, heart of the Mafia's power.

The gruesome discovery of an unidentified, decomposed corpse sealed in a railway wagon on a deserted part of the island marks the beginning of Zen's most difficult and dangerous case. And indeed, it soon turns out that he will need all his cunning and skill to survive in a world where unwritten rules are enforced with ruthless violence, where one false step can prove fatal, and where the truth must be paid for in blood.

Set against the backdrop of the three-thousand-year-old city of Catania, in the shadow of the smoldering volcano of Etna, Blood Rain reveals Aurelio Zen at his most desperate and driven, and Michael Dibdin's writing at its most darkly atmospheric, galvanizing best.


A Pale View of Hills ($3.26 US), by Kazuo Ishiguro (UK link)

Book Description
In his highly acclaimed debut, A Pale View of Hills, Kazuo Ishiguro tells the story of Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living alone in England, dwelling on the recent suicide of her daughter. Retreating into the past, she finds herself reliving one particular hot summer in Nagasaki, when she and her friends struggled to rebuild their lives after the war. But then as she recalls her strange friendship with Sachiko - a wealthy woman reduced to vagrancy - the memories take on a disturbing cast.

Smokeheads ($3.26 UK), by Doug Johnstone (UK link)

Book Description
Four friends, one weekend, gallons of whisky. What could go wrong?

Driven by amateur whisky-nut Adam, four late-thirties ex-university mates are heading to Islay - the remote Scottish island world famous for its single malts - with a wallet full of cash, a stash of coke and a serious thirst.

Over a weekend soaked in the finest cask strength spirit, they meet young divorcee Molly, who Adam has a soft spot for, her little sister Ash who has all sorts of problems and Molly’s ex-husband Joe, a control freak who also happens to be the local police. As events spiral out of control, they are all thrown into a nightmare that gets worse at every turn.

A wild trip to the Scottish Highlands, Doug Johnstone’s debut on the Faber crime list is a classic violent thriller, doused with black humour.


Saints and Sinners ($3.32 UK), by Edna O'Brien (UK link)

Book Description
A new collection of short stories by award-winning Irish author Edna O'Brien.

A woman walks the streets of Manhattan and contemplates with exquisite longing the precarious affair she has embarked on, amidst the grandeur and cacophony of the cityscape; a young Irish girl and her mother are thrilled to be invited to visit the glamorous Coughlan's but find - for all the promise of their green gorgette, silver shoes and fancy dinner parties - they leave disappointed; an Irishman in north London retraces his life as a young lad with his mates digging the streets and dreaming of the apocryphal gold, an outside both in Ireland and England, yet he carries the lodestar of his native land.A collection characterised by all of Edna O'Brien's trademark lyricism, powerful evocations of place and a glorious and an often heart-breaking grasp of people and their desires and contradictions.


Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen ($3.32 UK), by Giles Tremlett (UK link)

Book Description
The image of Catherine of Aragon has always suffered in comparison to the vivacious eroticism of Anne Boleyn. But when Henry VIII married Catherine, she was an auburn-haired beauty in her 20s with a passion she had inherited from her parents, Isabella and Ferdinand, the joint-rulers of Spain who had driven the Moors from their country.This daughter of conquistadors showed the same steel and sense of command when organising the defeat of the Scots at the Battle of Flodden and Henry was to learn, to his cost, that he had not met a tougher opponent on or off the battlefield when he tried to divorce her.Henry introduced 4 remarkable women into the tumultuous flow of England's history; Catherine of Aragon and her daughter 'Bloody' Queen Mary; and Anne Boleyn and her daughter, the Virgin Queen Elizabeth.'From this contest, between 2 mothers and 2 daughters, was born the religious passion and violence that inflamed England for centuries' says David Starkey.Reformation, revolution and Tudor history would all have been vastly different without Catherine of Aragon.Giles Tremlett's new biography is the first in more than four decades to be dedicated entirely and uniquely to the tenacious woman whose marriage lasted twice as long as those of Henry's five other wives put together. It draws on fresh material from Spain to trace the dramatic events of her life through Catherine of Aragon's own eyes.

The Red Coffin ($3.32), by Sam Eastland (UK link)

Book Description
It is 1939. The world stands on the brink of Armageddon. In the Soviet Union, years of revolution, fear and persecution have left the country unprepared to face the onslaught of Nazi Germany. For the coming battles, Stalin has placed his hopes on a 30-ton steel monster, known to its inventors as the T-34 tank, and, the 'Red Coffin' to those men who will soon be using it. But the design is not yet complete. And when Colonel Nagorski, the weapon's secretive and eccentric architect, is found murdered, Stalin sends for Pekkala, his most trusted investigator. Stalin is convinced that a sinister group calling itself the White Guild, made up of former soldiers of the Tsar, intend to bring about a German invasion before the Red Coffin is ready. While Soviet engineers struggle to complete the design of the tank, Pekkala must track down the White Guild and expose their plans to propel Germany and Russia into conflict.

The Somme Stations ($3.32 UK), by Andrew Martin (UK link)

Book Description
On the first day of the Somme enlisted railwayman Jim Stringer lies trapped in a shell hole, smoking cigarette after cigarette under the bullets and the blazing sun. He calculates his chances of survival – even before they departed for France, a member of Jim's unit had been found dead. During the stand-off that follows, Jim and his comrades must operate by night the vitally important trains carrying munitions to the Front, through a ghostly landscape of shattered trees where high explosive and shrapnel shells rain down. Close co-operation and trust are vital. Yet proof piles up of an enemy within, and as a ferocious military policeman pursues his investigation into the original killing, the finger of accusation begins to point towards Jim himself . . .

QI: The Book of General Ignorance - The Noticeably Stouter Edition ($3.32 UK), by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson (UK link)

Book Description
The indispensable compendium of popular misconceptions, misunderstandings and common mistakes culled from the hit BBC show, QI.The noticeably stouter QI Book of General Ignorance sets out to show you that a lot of what you think you know is wrong. If, like Alan Davies, you still think the Henry VIII had six wives, the earth has only one moon, that George Washington was the first president of the USA, that Bangkok is the capital of Thailand, that the largest living thing is a blue whale, that Alexander Graeme Bell invented the telephone, that whisky and bagpipes come from Scotland or that Mount Everest is the world’s tallest mountain, then there are at least 200 reasons why this is the book for you.

An Expert in Murder ($3.32 UK), by Nicola Upson (UK link)

Book Description
An Expert in Murder is the first in a new series that features Golden Age crime writer Josephine Tey as its lead character, placing her in the richly-peopled world of 1930s theatre which formed the other half of her writing life. It’s March 1934, and Tey is travelling from Scotland to London to celebrate what should be the triumphant final week of her celebrated play, Richard of Bordeaux. However, a seemingly senseless murder puts her reputation, and even her life, under threat. An Expert in Murder is both a tribute to one of the most enduringly popular writers of crime and an atmospheric detective novel in its own right.

Suffer the Children ($3.26 UK), by Adam Creed (UK link)

Book Description
London. A city where no-one feels safe and one man’s crime is another man’s justice. A pedophile is brutally murdered in his own home, and to protect other known offenders the police must haul the families of their victims down to the station for questioning. It’s just another day in the life of D. I. Will Wagstaffe; better known to friends and enemies alike as Staffe. In this case nothing is simple, least of all Staffe’s personal life. There’s heartache from Sylvie, his estranged lover, and the dark shadow of Jessop, his mentor. And as he digs for answers into the grime of the city he finds the boundaries between right and wrong have been blurred, but the main question remains: just how far would you go to protect your children?

Critique of Criminal Reason ($3.26 UK), by Michael Gregorio(UK link)

Book Description
It's 1793, and Hanno Stiffeniis is a magistrate in Prussia. He has been called to investigate a spate of murders which has reduced the city to a state of terror, under the watchful gaze of his mentor, Kant. Four people have died, and there is no sign of an end to the killing spree. Tension inside the city is heightened by the imminent threat of invasion; Napoleon is menacing the borders of Prussia, so whilst hunting for the murderer, the city of Konisberg is forced to deal with scheming whores, necromancers who claim to speak with the victims, and the scum of the Prussian army. When the killer tries to murder him, the magistrate finds himself confronted by the demons of his own past. Therein lies the sinister source of those murders, and the true reason he has been enticed back to Konigsberg . . .Hugely atmospheric, entertaining and intelligent, Critique of Criminal Reason is the first in a series of compelling crime novels set in Prussia featuring Hanno Steffeniis.