Fictionwise has a 55% off coupon this weekend,
102811, which works on all ebooks except Samhain Publishing titles.
Two KSO offers end today:
A Field Guide to Demons, Vampires, Fallen Angels and Other Subversive Spirits (
$0.99), by Carol K. Mack and Dinah Mack, usually sells for $9.99 (with a list of $15). There is a thread at Amazon by people begging for 99 cent pricing on daily deals, along with a thread asking for non-fiction. Somehow, though, I doubt both crowds will be satisfied (although I'm going to look at the sample).
Book Description
Did you know the Mbulu of South Africa has a razor sharp tail with a mind of its own? Or that the Kuru-Pira of Brazil has eyes that glow like embers, and fangs ripping from its mouth? In this updated edition of A Field Guide to Demons, Carol and Dinah Mack bring to life some of the most horrific and fascinating creatures ever described in mythology and legend. With a deft pen and global perspective, the Macks profile over ninety bogies including: mermaids, ghouls, vampires, kelpies, werewolves, and more. Readers will delight in exploring the origin, characteristics, and cultural significance of each creature. Organized by “habitat,” this book will entertain readers of all ages, while shedding light on religious and cultural ideals from around the world. With vivid details and highly researched entries, A Field Guide to Demons is a must have for academics, writers, students, and anyone interested in mythology or the occult.
Have a Little Faith: A True Story ($6.97 Kindle;
$9.99 B&N), by Mitch Albom, is supposed to be the Nook Daily Find, but they still have it at full price on both the Find page and the nookBook page. If you want to read this one, I'd get it at Amazon.
Book Description
What if our beliefs were not what divided us, but what pulled us together?
In Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom offers a beautifully written story of a remarkable eight-year journey between two worlds--two men, two faiths, two communities--that will inspire readers everywhere.
Albom's first nonfiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, Have a Little Faith begins with an unusual request: an eighty-two-year-old rabbi from Albom's old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy.
Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he'd left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor--a reformed drug dealer and convict--who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof.
Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat.
As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Albom and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times. Although the texts, prayers, and histories are different, Albom begins to recognize a striking unity between the two worlds--and indeed, between beliefs everywhere.
In the end, as the rabbi nears death and a harsh winter threatens the pastor's wobbly church, Albom sadly fulfills the rabbi's last request and writes the eulogy. And he finally understands what both men had been teaching all along: the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself.
Have a Little Faith is a book about a life's purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man's journey, but it is everyone's story.
Ten percent of the profits from this book will go to charity, including The Hole In The Roof Foundation, which helps refurbish places of worship that aid the homeless.
If you weren't feeling the classical music yesterday, but need to spend that $2, I have a couple of more choices today, starting with
Halloween Scary Sounds (
$0.89), by Personalisongs (one of literally
hundreds of albums in this category). This is the type of music Dad played for Halloween night when we were little (and it cost a LOT more than 89 cents). Just be sure to keep the iPod and speakers inside, so the little goblins don't take off with them!
Another good classical choice would be
The 99 Darkest Pieces Of Classical Music (
$4.99), from X5 Music Group. It's not free and it's been on sale before, but with $2 off it's close to a steal for 11 hours of music. I keep waiting for them to discount
The 99 Most Essential Classical Pieces For Your Mind (
$6.99), though. For something totally different, you could look at
James Blake (
$3.99 Album of the Day price), Zee Avi's
Ghostbird [+Digital Booklet] (
$3.99), Tom Waits |'s
Bad As Me (
$5.99) or Brian Wilson's
In the Key of Disney (
$7.99), all new releases (and that last one an Amazon exclusive). I also noticed a new Christmas album in the new releases,
A Very She & Him Christmas (
$5.00).
Just remember, the credit is for "albums" only (even if the album is one or two songs, it counts), so don't try to use it on individual songs.
Scream Street: Blood of the Witch (
$1.99), by Tommy Donbavand, is for your middle grade readers.
Book Description
What better way to feed the neighborhood vampires than to pipe blood from residents’ cuts and nosebleeds straight into kitchen taps? And how better to foil Luke’s mission to free his folks than to cut off this vital (if icky) blood supply to Luke’s best vampire friend? What’s more, the local sewer rats have been accidentally turned into raging vampire rodents. Now Luke and his pals must keep the critters at bay while searching for the second crucial relic — a vial of witch’s blood — while avoiding being turned into vampires themselves.
Trick or Treat (Point Horror), by Richie Tankersley Cusick, a very popular YA horror title from the 80's, is just one of the books that Open Road has brought back into print for this author ... and they are all on sale this weekend, at
$2.99. Like most of their releases, these contain an illustrated biography of the author (including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection).
Trick or Treat (Point Horror)
Martha wants to be happy for her father. She likes his new wife—even if she’s a terrible cook—but she doesn’t understand why they had to leave Chicago and move to this horrible house in the country. It’s big, broken-down, and miles from anywhere, alone in the woods with nothing on the property but an overgrown cemetery. But at night it doesn’t feel empty.
Conor—her new, weird stepbrother—chose Martha’s new room for her. It’s dark and drafty, and no matter how she tries to fix it up, she can’t sleep easily there. At night, whispers come from the closet, filling Martha with a sense that something terrible happened here. She’s right. Not long ago, the house was the site of a gruesome murder. When Conor and Martha’s parents leave town on their honeymoon, the two teens will find out why the dead don’t rest easy at the old Bedford house.
Vampire
Darcy never expected to spend a summer vacation living with her long-lost uncle Jake. Although he’s only six years older than her, they have never met. By the end of the summer, she’ll know him better than she ever wanted.
Jake and his friends share a dark sense of humor. He lives in the Dungeon, a wax museum filled with gory scenes of famous monsters. His favorite is the statue of Dracula, which stares out with lifelike eyes and crimson lips. His friends seem to be obsessed with vampires, and one of them is even playing Dracula in a play. It’s all harmless fun until the bodies of murdered young girls start appearing in the back alleys of their small town—throats cut and necks bitten. One of Jake’s friends is playing vampire for real, and he has his eyes on Darcy’s neck.
Fatal Secrets
Two sisters walk through a snowy wood, collecting pinecones for Christmas decorations. Something has frightened Marisa, and she’s about to explain it to Ryan, her younger sister, when she steps onto a patch of thin ice. Marisa plummets into the frigid water below, and though Ryan tries to save her, there’s nothing she can do. Even though the accident wasn’t her fault, Ryan is consumed by guilt. But guilt is not what she should be afraid of.
Three weeks after Marisa’s death, Ryan sees her everywhere. At night she feels something following her, but when she turns around there’s nothing there. A creepy college friend of Marisa’s shows up at Ryan’s house, and her mother asks him to stay through Christmas. To free herself of guilt, Ryan must unlock Marisa’s terrible secret—before death takes her too.
Silent Stalker
Thunder bellows as Jenny and her father pull up to the gate of Worthington Hall. As they inch onto the grounds of the ancient estate, a disheveled young woman thrusts her head through the open window. “Leave!” she yells. “Before it’s too late! He’ll kill you. I swear.” Jenny is terrified, but her dad laughs it off. The girl is just an actress—part of the medieval fair being held on the castle grounds. But it’s not long before Jenny wishes they’d heeded the warning.
The house is a drafty maze of narrow hallways and dungeons. Jenny wants to flee, but her father is intent on the work he’s come to do. Soon the Worthington family sets upon young Jenny, playing twisted tricks on her until she forgets what’s real. The Worthingtons play cruel games—and if Jenny loses, it will mean her life.
The Mall
Working at the mall is supposed to be fun. Trish’s job at Muffin-Mania is hardly intellectually challenging and her boss is a piece of work, but it’s worth it to have a job in the same building as her two best friends, the Hanson twins. And the hot guys who hang out there are an added bonus. But something isn’t right about this mall.
It’s the oldest mall in the state, remodeled over a dozen times without rhyme or reason, and there are many strange nooks and secret passages behind the bright gleaming storefronts. Someone has been stealing housewares, furniture, and food, and now a mysterious man with ash-gray hair and a whisper-soft voice has started harassing Trish on the phone. He knows her secrets, and he has dark plans for her.
Help Wanted
All Robin wants is a part-time job. A friend has invited her on a Florida vacation that promises to be the trip of a lifetime, and Robin needs money for airfare. The ad on the school bulletin board is irresistible: “Get Rich Quick,” it promises, and Robin can’t say no.
Her new employer is the patriarch of the Swanson family, a wealthy bunch of weirdos who recently moved into Manorwood, a stately mansion that has been empty for as long as Robin can remember. Now its libraries are full of books that Robin must organize—books that belonged to a woman named Lilith who died in a gruesome suicide. Robin doesn’t think she can trust the Swansons, including Parker Swanson, heir to the family fortune and most popular boy in school. And when Robin finds a clump of bloody hair in the backyard, she begins to fear that the Swansons’ evil past is not past at all.
The Locker
If you move around enough, every new school starts to look the same. But it doesn’t take an hour for Marlee Fleming to realize that Edison, Missouri, has a sinister secret. There’s something strange about Marlee, a power she doesn’t quite understand. Certain objects make her hear and see things no one else can. This power makes her feel sick, and she wishes she knew how to make it stop. But when she opens her new locker on her first day in Edison, she hears screaming so loud she nearly passes out.
Marlee’s new friends—talkative Noreen, handsome Tyler, and bad-boy Jimmy Frank—say the locker belonged to Suellen Downing, a student who vanished the year before. Marlee doesn’t want to get involved with small town mysteries; she just wants to keep her head down and do her work. But Suellen calls to her every time she opens her locker, and she cannot ignore the cries of the dead.
The Drifter
Though Carolyn’s mother never expected to inherit Glanton House from long-lost Aunt Hazel, she wants to make the most of the opportunity. Planning to turn the creaky waterfront mansion into a hotel, she moves Carolyn down to the seashore. But this house has a nightmarish history.
As the story goes, Captain Glanton spent so long at sea that his wife, believing him dead, took a new lover. When her husband finally returned, her new love—a mysterious drifter—brutally murdered him, and she went mad with grief. It is said her ghost still haunts Glanton House, awaiting her husband’s return. Carolyn is terrified: Are the strange stains that cover the attic walls the marks of a ghost? And who is Joss Whitcomb, the icy-palmed handyman who wants a job at the new hotel? And why is no one sure what actually happened to Aunt Hazel? The answers to Carolyn’s questions lie in the sea, and in its chilling siren song.
Dark Territory (
$1.12) is the first title in
The Tracks series by J. Gabriel Gates and Charlene Keel
Book Description
Star-crossed love, supernatural evil, and martial arts meet at the abandoned tracks in the deceptively quaint village of Middleburg . . .
When Ignacio Torrez moved from the rough streets of Los Angeles to a small town dead smack in the middle of nowhere, he never expected to find himself in the midst of a gang war. But, he soon learns, these are no ordinary gangs. The wealthy, preppie Toppers on one side of the tracks and the working-class Flatliners on the other adhere to a strict code of honor and use their deadly martial arts skills, taught to them by the wise Master Chin, to battle one another for pride, territory, and survival. When Raphael, leader of the Flatliners, falls forAimee, a Topper girl, the rival gangs prepare for a bloody, all-out war. The only hope for peace between them lies within the dark territory of the abandoned train tunnels where the tracks cross. Under the direction of the mysterious and frightening Magician, the awesome power within the crossing sends the rivals on a terrifying mystical quest to fight the malevolent force that threatens the existence of Middleburg—and quite possibly, the world.
Charlie Wilson's War (
$3.00), by George Crile, was the Nook Daily Deal yesterday; today you can get it on Kindle for that price (yay!).
Book Description
Crile's book is the true story of how a Texas Congressman and a rogue CIA agent conspired to launch the biggest, meanest, and most successful CIA campaign ever -- the operation to fund the mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet army that had invaded Afghanistan. Moving from the back rooms of the Capitol to secret chambers at Langley, from arms dealers' conventions to the Khyber Pass, Charlie Wilson's War presents an astonishing chapter of our recent past, and the key to understanding what helped trigger the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union and ultimately led to the emergence of a brand-new foe in the form of radical Islam.
Waiting for Autumn (
$0.89), by Scott Blum, is one of two editions of this inspirational volume from Hay House (
the other is $1.99 and is both smaller in size and Mobi formatted; this one is Topaz). An expanded edition of
Summer's Path is also on sale for $1.99 (Topaz format).
Book Description
In the tradition of the bestseller Eat, Pray, Love and spiritual classics such as The Alchemist, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, and The Celestine Prophecy, Waiting for Autumn is an enchanting semiautobiographical parable that reveals a deep and powerful message. This book follows Scott, an inquisitive seeker who meets a mysterious cardboard-sign-toting homeless man named Robert who has a sleepy black Lab puppy at his side and a penchant for changing lives.
Sparked by Robert’s unconventional wisdom, Scott is thrust into a spiritual adventure where he attempts to heal his past while confronting the spirit of his dead fiancée. He ultimately faces an extraordinary dilemma between his spiritual calling and earthly responsibilities.
Join Scott as he visits unseen worlds on his unique journey of self-discovery, where various spiritual modalities are revealed, including shamanic soul retrieval, energy healing, conscious eating, nature-spirit communication, kirtan, ancestral healing, and more. This metaphysical page-turner is a fascinating exploration of one humble soul’s profound awakening—with a surprise ending that will warm your heart.
The Christmas Shoes (
$2.99), by Donna VanLiere, is currently being discounted by St. Martin's Press.
Book Description
Sometimes, the things that can change your life will cross your path in one instant-and then, in a fleeting moment, they're gone. But if you open your eyes, and watch carefully, you will believe....
Robert is a successful attorney who has everything in life-and nothing at all. Focused on professional achievement and material rewards, Robert is on the brink of losing his marriage. He has lost sight of his wife, Kate, their two daughters, and ultimately himself. Eight year old Nathan has a beloved mother, Maggie, whom he is losing to cancer. But Nathan and his family are building a simple yet full life, and struggling to hold onto every moment they have together. A chance meeting on Christmas Even brings Robert and Nathan together-he is shopping for a family he hardly knows and Nathan is shopping for a mother he is soon to lose. In this one encounter, their lives are forever altered as Robert learns an important lesson: sometimes the smallest things can make all the difference. The Christmas Shoes is a universal story of the deeper meaning of serendipity, a tale of our shared humanity, and of how a power greater than ourselves can shape, and even save, our lives.
Under the Green Hill (
$2.99), by Laura L. Sullivan
Book Description
Meg and her siblings have been sent to the English countryside for the summer to stay with elderly relatives. The children are looking forward to exploring the ancient mansion and perhaps discovering a musty old attic or two filled with treasure, but never in their wildest dreams did they expect to find themselves in the middle of a fairy war.
When Rowan pledges to fight for the beautiful fairy queen, Meg is desperate to save her brother. But the Midsummer War is far more than a battle between mythic creatures: Everything that lives depends on it. How can Meg choose between family and the fate of the very land itself?
Dragon Fire (
$2.99), by William S. Cohen
Book Description
William S. Cohen, former Secretary of Defense, US Senator and Congressman, has walked the most powerful corridors in the world. Now, in Dragon Fire, he takes us with him into the top-secret rooms where the fate of the world is held in the hearts and minds of men with dangerous and hidden agendas. Packed with action and espionage, intrigue and romance, Dragon Fire is a riveting, intricate, ripped-from-the-headlines thriller that so convincingly written, readers will wonder just how much of it is true.
Upon the assassination of the Secretary of Defense, former senator and Vietnam POW, Michael Patrick Santini, is called upon by his President to fill the vacancy. Once there, he discovers that the United States is under attack by a silent, sinister force, someone determined to alienate our allies and undermine our position as a global superpower. But America is hours away from going to war--with the wrong enemy. Rejecting direct orders from the president, Santini races across the world in a desperate attempt to prevent a catastrophic global war.
When Democratic President Bill Clinton chose Republican William S. Cohen to join his staff in 1997 as the 20th Secretary of Defense, it was the first time in modern U.S. history that a president selected a member of the opposing party for his cabinet. Cohen, the first Secretary of Defense to make biological warfare and terrorism almost a personal crusade, was integral in orchestrating a comprehensive strategy to deal with the threat of terrorism. In Dragon Fire, he takes his experience, knowledge, expertise, passion, and fears and melds fact and fiction into a political thriller only he could write.
100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know: Engagement Chicken and 99 Other Fabulous Dishes to Get You Everything You Want in Life (
$2.99), by Cindi Leive and the Editors of Glamour
Book Description
Once upon a time, there was an easy roast chicken recipe, handed down by a fashion editor at Glamour magazine to her assistant, who was in search of a dish to prepare for dinner with her boyfriend. She made the chicken. Her boyfriend loved it. He had seconds. And shortly thereafter, he proposed. But that's not all: Three more young women at the magazine made the chicken for the men in their lives who then, in short order, popped the question. Glamour published the recipe--dubbing it, naturally, Engagement Chicken--and since then, the magazine's editors have heard from more than 60 women who have gotten engaged after making the dish.
Commitment-phobes be warned: This bird means business!
Of course, there is more to life than weddings. And there's more to this cookbook than Engagement Chicken. 100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know also includes 99 of the magazine's other most-loved, best-reviewed dishes, all designed to get you exactly what you want in life, exactly when you want it. From Prove to Mom You're Not Going to Starve Meat Loaf to Impress His Family Chardonnay Cake, these recipes will help you cook with passion and persuasion. And they're all written with your real life and real needs in mind. Because whether you're a novice or an expert, cooking should never be intimidating--and it should always be fun.
Don't miss these easy, essential recipes:
- He Stayed Over Omelet Skinny Jeans Scallops
- No Guy Required Grilled Steak
- Let's Make a Baby Pasta
- Forget the Mistake You Made at Work Margarita
- Bribe a Kid Brownies
- Hers and His Cupcakes
Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman (
$2.99) is a collection of articles originally published in a newspaper by Lisa Scottoline, the popular author of crime fiction such as
Final Appeal ($2.99). I nearly bought it for the title alone, but waited to took the plunge until I'd read the title essay (she's right - when did Americans go from single dog families to multiple dogs?). Fair warning to the guys - the audience for this is women, but not in a romance novel sort of way.
Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman
A hilarious collection of stories from the life of the New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline. At last, together in one collection, are Lisa Scottoline’s wildly popular Philadelphia Inquirer columns. In her column, Lisa lets her hair down, roots and all, to show the humorous side of life from a woman’s perspective. The Sunday column debuted in 2007 and on the day it started, Lisa wrote, “I write novels, so I usually have 100,000 words to tell a story. In a column there’s only 700 words. I can barely say hello in 700 words. I’m Italian.” The column gained momentum and popularity. Word of mouth spread, and readers demanded a collection. Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog is that collection. Seventy vignettes. Vintage Scottoline.
In this collection, you’ll laugh about:
- Being caught braless in the emergency room
- Betty and Veronica’s Life Lessons for Girls
- A man’s most important body part
- Interrupting as an art form
- A religion men and women can worship
- Real estate ads as porn
- Spanx are public enemy number one
- And so much more about life, love, family, pets, and the pursuit of jeans that actually fit!
Final Appeal
Grace Rossi is starting over after a divorce, and a part-time job with a federal appeals court sounds perfect. But she doesn't count on being assigned to an explosive death penalty appeal. Nor does she expect ardor in the court in the form of an affair with the chief judge. Then Grace finds herself investigating a murder, unearthing a secret bank account and following a trail of bribery and judicial corruption that's stumped even the FBI. In no time at all, Grace under fire takes on a whole new meaning.
Macmillan is having a sale on
Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone Mystery series and the prices have finally started working their way thru to more than just the Kindle store. Links and prices below are for the Kindle editions, but you can check
Barnes & Noble (no updates yet),
Books on Board,
Kobo
and
Sony. Not all prices are the same, despite the Agency pricing contracts, so check before clicking. With the sale prices (one of them just over my usual limit), I completed my set of these (I was missing four), so I'm ready for a reading marathon before
V is for Vengeance is released.
"A" is for Alibi ($2.99)
When Laurence Fife was murdered, few mourned his passing. A prominent divorce attorney with a reputation for single-minded ruthlessness on behalf of his clients, Fife was also rumored to be a dedicated philanderer. Plenty of people in the picturesque southern California town of Santa Teresa had a reason to want him dead. Including, thought the cops, his young and beautiful wife, Nikki. With motive, access, and opportunity, Nikki was their number-one suspect. The jury thought so, too.
Eight years later and out on parole, Niki Fife hires Kinsey Millhone to find out who really killed her late husband.
A trail that is eight years cold. A trail that reaches out to enfold a bitter, wealthy, and foul-mouthed old woman and a young boy, born deaf, whose memory cannot be trusted. A trail that leads to a lawyer defensively loyal to a dead partner--and disarmingly attractive to Millhone; to an ex-wife, brave, lucid, lovely--and still angry over Fife's betrayal of her; to a not-so-young secretary with too high a salary for too few skills--and too many debts left owing: The trail twists to include them all, with Millhone following every turn until it finally twists back on itself and she finds herself face-to-face with a killer cunning enough to get away with murder.
"N" is for Noose ($2.99)
Kinsey Millhone should have done something else--she should have turned the car in the direction of home. Instead, she was about to put herself in the gravest jeopardy of her career.
Tom Newquist had been a detective in the Nota Lake sheriff's office--a tough, honest cop respected by everyone. When he died suddenly, the townsfolk were saddened but not surprised: Just shy of sixty-five, Newquist worked too hard, smoked too much, and exercised too little. That plus an appetite for junk food made him a poster boy for an American Heart Association campaign. Newquist's widow didn't doubt the coroner's report. But what Selma couldn't accept was not knowing what had so bothered Tom in the last six weeks of his life. What was it that had made him prowl restlessly at night, that had him brooding constantly? Selma Newquist wanted closure, and the only way she'd get it was if she found out what it was that had so bedeviled her husband. Kinsey should have dumped the case. It was vague and hopeless, like looking for a needle in a haystack. Instead, she set up shop in Nota Lake, where she found that looking for a needle in a haystack can draw blood. Very likely, her own."N" Is for Noose: a novel in which Kinsey Millhone becomes the target and an entire town seems in for the kill.
"O" is for Outlaw ($2.99)
Through fourteen books, fans have been fed short rations when it comes to Kinsey Millhone's past: a morsel here, a dollop there. We know of the aunt who raised her, the second husband who left her, the long-lost family up the California coast. But husband number one remained a blip on the screen until now.
The call comes on a Monday morning from a guy who scavenges defaulted storage units at auction. Last week he bought a stack. They had stuff in them--Kinsey stuff. For thirty bucks, he'll sell her the lot. Kinsey's never been one for personal possessions, but curiosity wins out and she hands over a twenty (she may be curious but she loves a bargain). What she finds amid childhood memorabilia is an old undelivered letter.
It will force her to reexamine her beliefs about the breakup of that first marriage, about the honor of that first husband, about an old unsolved murder. It will put her life in the gravest peril."O" Is for Outlaw: Kinsey's fifteenth adventure into the dark side of human nature.
"B" is for Burglar ($3.99)
Beverly Danziger looked like an expensive, carefully wrapped package from a good but conservative shop. Only her compulsive chatter hinted at the nervousness beneath her cool surface. It was a nervousness out of all proportion to the problem she placed before Kinsey Millhone. There was an absent sister. A will to be settled--a matter of only a few thousand dollars. Mrs. Danziger did not look as if she needed a few thousand dollars. And she didn't seem like someone longing for a family reunion.
Still, business was slow, and even a private investigator has bills to pay. Millhone took the job. It looked routine.
Elaine Boldt's wrappings were a good deal flashier than her sister's, but they signaled the same thing: The lady had money. A rich widow in her early forties, she owned a condo in Boca Raton and another in Santa Teresa. According to the manager of the California building, she was last seen draped in her $12,000 lynx coat heading for Boca Raton. According to the manager of the Florida building, she never got there. But someone else had and she was camping out illegally in Mrs. Boldt's apartment. The job was beginning to seem a bit less routine.
It turned tricky when Beverly Danziger ordered Millhone to drop the case and it took on an ominous quality when Aubrey Danziger surfaced, making all kinds of wild accusations about his wife. But it only became sinister when Millhone learned that just days before Elaine Boldt went missing, her next-door neighbor and bridge partner had been murdered and the killer was still at large.
A house destroyed by arson. A brutally murdered a woman. A missing lynx coat. An apartment burgled of valueless papers, another ransacked in a melée of mindless destruction. And more murder. As Millhone digs deeper into the case, she finds herself in a nightmarish hall of mirrors in which reality is distorted by illusion and nothing--except danger--is quite what it seems.
"M" is for Malice ($3.99)
"M" is for money. Lots of it. "M" is for Malek Construction, the $40 million company that grew out of modest soil to become one of the big three in California construction, one of the few still in family hands.
"M" is for the Malek family: four sons now nearing middle age who stand to inherit a fortune--four men with very different outlooks, temperaments, and needs, linked only by blood and money. Eighteen years ago, one of them--angry, troubled, and in trouble--went missing.
"M" is for Millhone, hired to trace that missing black sheep brother.
"M" is for memories, none of them happy. The bitter memories of an embattled family. This prodigal son will find no welcome at his family's table. "M" is for malice.
And in brutal consequence, "M" is for murder, the all-too-common outcome of familial hatreds.
"M" is for malice . . . and malice kills.
"C" is for Corpse ($4.99)
He was young-maybe twenty or so-and he must once have been a good-looking kid. Kinsey could see that. But now his body was covered in scars, his face half-collapsed. It saddened Kinsey and made her curious. She could see he was in a lot of pain. But for three weeks, as Kinsey'd watched him him doggedly working out at the local gym, putting himself through a grueling exercise routine, he never spoke.
Then one Monday morning when there was no one else in the gym, Bobby Callahan approached her. His story was hard to credit: a murderous assault by a tailgating car on a lonely rural road, a roadside smash into a canyon 400 feet below, his Porsche a bare ruin, his best friend dead. The doctors had managed to put his body back together again-sort of. His mother's money had seen to that. What they couldn't fix was his mind, couldn't restore the huge chunks of memory wiped out by the crash. Bobby knew someone had tried to kill him, but he didn't know why. He knew he had the key to something that made him dangerous to the killer, but he didn't know what it was. And he sensed that someone was still out there, ready to pounce at the first sign his memory was coming back. He'd been to the cops, but they'd shrugged off his story. His family thought he had a screw loose. But he was scared-scared to death. He wanted to hire Kinsey.
His case didn't have a whole lot going for it, but he was hard to resist: young, brave, hurt. She took him on. And three days later, Bobby Callahan was dead.
Kinsey Millhone never welshed a deal. She'd been hired to stop a killing. Now she'd find the killer.
"K" is for Killer ($4.99)
Lorna Kepler was beautiful and willful, a loner who couldn't resist flirting with danger. Maybe that's what killed her.
Her death had raised a host of tough questions. The cops suspected homicide, but they could find neither motive nor suspect. Even the means were mysterious: Lorna's body was so badly decomposed when it was discovered that they couldn't be certain she hadn't died of natural causes. In the way of overworked cops everywhere, the case was gradually shifted to the back burner and became another unsolved file.
Only Lorna's mother kept it alive, consumed by the certainty that somebody out there had gotten away with murder.
In the ten months since her daughter's death, Janice Kepler had joined a support group, trying to come to terms with her loss and her anger. It wasn't helping. And so, leaving a session one evening and noticing a light on in the offices of Millhone Investigations, she knocked on the door.
In answering that knock, Kinsey Millhone is pulled into the netherworld of unavenged murder, where only a pact with the devil will satisfy the restless ghosts of the victims and give release to the living they have left behind.
Eleven books into the series that has won her readers around the world, Sue Grafton takes a darkside turn, pitching us into a shadow land of pain and grief where killers still walk free, unaccused, unpunished, unrepentant. With "K" is for Killer she offers a tale that is dark, complex, and deeply disturbing.
"L" is for Lawless ($4.99)
Kinsey's skills are about to be sorely tested. She is about to meet her duplicitous match in a couple of world-class prevaricators who quite literally take her for the ride of her life.
"L" Is for Lawless: Call it Kinsey Millhone in bad company. Call it a mystery without a murder, a treasure hunt without a map, a quest novel with truly mixed-up motives. Call it the return of Kinsey as bad girl-- quick-witted and quicksilvery, smart-mouthed and smart-alecky-- poking her nose into everyone's dirty laundry as she joins up with a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde in an Our Gang comedy that will take her halfway across the country and leave her with a major headache and an empty bank balance.
America's favorite borderline delinquent is back with her one-liners on tap and her energy level on high, romping through her fastest and funniest adventure in this, her twelfth foray into the alphabet of crime.
"D" is for Deadbeat ($5.99)
He called himself Alvin Limardo, and the job he had for Kinsey was cut-and-dried: locate a kid who'd done him a favor and pass on a check for $25,000. It was only later, after he'd stiffed her for her retainer, that Kinsey found out his name was Daggett. John Daggett. Ex-con. Inveterate liar. Chronic drunk. And dead. The cops called it an accident--death by drowning. Kinsey wasn't so sure.
Pulled into the detritus of a dead man's life, Kinsey soon realizes that Daggett had an awful lot of enemies. There's the daughter who grew up with a cheating drunk for a father, and the wife who's become a religious nut in response to an intolerable marriage. There's the lady who thought she was Mrs. Daggett--and has the bruises to prove it--only to discover the legal Mrs. D. And there are the drug dealers out $25,000. But most of all, there are the families of the five people John Daggett killed, victims of his wild, drunken driving. The D.A. called it vehicular manslaughter and put him away for two years. The families called it murder and had very good reason to want John Daggett dead.
Deft, cunning, and clever, this latest Millhone mystery also confronts some messy truths, for, as Kinsey herself says, "Some debts of the human soul are so enormous only life itself is sufficient forfeit"--but as she'd be the first to admit, murder is not a socially acceptable solution.
"J" is for Judgment ($5.99)
"J" is for Jaffe: Wendell Jaffe, dead these past five years. Or so it seemed until his former insurance agent spotted him in the bar of a dusty little resort halfway between Cabo San Lucas and La Paz.
"In truth, the facts about Wendell Jaffe had nothing to do with my family history, but murder is seldom tidy and no one ever said revelations operate in a straight line. It was my investigation into the dead man's past that triggered the inquiry into my own, and in the end the two stories became difficult to separate."
Five years ago, when Jaffe's thirty-five-foot Fuji ketch was found drifting off the Baja coast, it seemed a sure thing he'd gone overboard. The note he left behind admitted he was flat broke, his business bankrupt, his real estate gambit nothing but a huge Ponzi scheme about to collapse, with criminal indictment certain to follow. When the authorities soon after descended on his banks and his books, there was nothing left: Jaffe had stripped the lot.
"Given my insatiable curiosity and my natural inclination to poke my nose in where it doesn't belong, it was odd to realize how little attention I'd paid to my own past. I'd simply accepted what I was told, constructing my personal mythology on the flimsiest of facts."
But Jaffe wasn't quite without assets. There was the $500,000 life insurance policy made out to his wife and underwritten by California Fidelity. With no corpse to prove death, however, the insurance company was in no hurry to pay the claim. Dana Jaffe had to wait out the statutory five years until her missing husband could be declared legally dead. Just two months before Wendell Jaffe was sighted in that dusty resort bar, California Fidelity finally paid in full. Now they wanted the truth. And they were willing to hire Kinsey Millhone to dig it up.
As Kinsey pushes deeper into the mystery surrounding Wendell Jaffe's pseudocide, she explores her own past, discovering that in family matters as in crime, sometimes it's better to reserve judgment.
"J" is for judgment: the kind we're quick to make and often quicker to regret.
"J" Is for Judgment: Kinsey Millhone's tenth excursion into the dark places of the heart where duplicity is the governing rule and murder the too-frequent result.
"I" is for Innocent ($6.99)
Her most intricately plotted novel to date, it is layered in enough complexity to baffle even the cleverest among us.
Lonnie Kingman is in a bind. He's smack in the middle of assembling a civil suit, and the private investigator who was doing his pretrial legwork has just dropped dead of a heart attack. In a matter of weeks the court's statute of limitations will put paid to his case. Five years ago David Barney walked when a jury acquitted him of the murder of his rich wife, Isabelle. Now Kingman, acting as attorney for the dead woman's ex-husband and their child (and sure that the jury made a serious mistake), is trying to divest David Barney of the profits of that murder. But time is running out, and David Barney still swears he's innocent.
Patterned along the lines of a legal case, "I" Is For Innocent is seamlessly divided into thirds: one-third of the novel is devoted to the prosecution, one-third to the defense, and a final third to cross-examination and rebuttal. The result is a trial novel without a trial and a crime novel that resists solution right to the end.
When Kinsey Millhone agrees to take over Morley Shine's investigation, she thinks it is a simple matter of tying up the loose ends. Morley might have been careless about his health, but he was an old pro at the business. So it comes as a real shock when she finds his files in disarray, his key informant less than credible, and his witnesses denying ever having spoken with him. It comes as a bigger shock when she finds that every claim David Barney has made checks out. But if Barney didn't murder his wife, who did? It would seem the list of candidates is a long one. In life, Isabelle Barney had stepped on a lot of toes.
In "I" Is For Innocent, Sue Grafton once again demonstrates her mastery of those telling details that reveal our most intimate and conflicted relationships. As Kinsey comments on the give-and-take by which we humans deal with each other, for better and sometimes for worse, the reader is struck yet again by how acute a social observer Ms. Grafton can be. Frequently funny and sometimes caustic, she is also surprisingly compassionate-- understanding how little in life is purely black and white. Except for murder.
Somewhere out there, a killer waits to see just what Kinsey will find out. Somewhere out there, someone's been getting away with murder, and this time it just might turn out to be Kinsey's.
"I" Is For Innocent is Sue Grafton in peak form. Fast-paced. Funny. And very, very devious.
"E" is for Evidence ($6.99)
It was the silly season and a Monday at that, and Kinsey Millhone was bogged down in a preliminary report on a fire claim. Something was nagging at her, but she couldn't pin it. The last thing she needed in the morning mail was a letter from her bank recording an erroneous $5,000 deposit in her account. Kinsey had never believed in Santa Claus and she wasn't about to change her mind now. Resigning herself to a morning of frustration, she phoned the bank and, assaulted by canned carols, waited on hold for an officer to clear up the snafu.
It was with something less than Christmas cheer that Kinsey faced off only minutes later with California Fidelity's Mac Voorhies. Voorhies was smart, humorless, stingy with praise, and totally fair. He was frowning now.
"I got a phone call this morning." he said, his frown deepening. "Somebody says you're on the take."
Suddenly the $5,000 deposit clicked into place. It wasn't a mistake. It was a setup.
"E" is for evidence: evidence planted, evidence lost. "E" is for ex-lovers and evasions, enemies and endings. For Kinsey, "E" is for everything she stands to lose if she can't exonerate herself: her license, her livelihood, her good name. And so she takes on a new client: namely, Kinsey Millhone, thirty-two and twice-divorced, ex-cop and wisecracking loner, a California private investigator with a penchant for lost causes--one of which, it is to be hoped, is not herself.
As Kinsey begins to unravel the frame-up, she finds that her future is intimately tied to one family's past and to the explosive secret it has protected for almost twenty years. Digging deeper, she discovers that probing the past can have lethal consequences as she follows a trail of murder that leads to her own front door. And in what may well be her most challenging case, Kinsey comes up against the fact that sometimes, "E" is forever.
For those of you that can use EPUB (or just like to report to Amazon on inconsistent Agency pricing; all of these are publisher Penguin), you'll find these titles cheaper at Books on Board ($6.99 instead of $7.99)
Prayers for Today (US/UK), by Kurt Bjorklund, was originally a freebie available to all, billed as a 30 day sample of the book. The ASIN has been retitled and now appears to contain the entire book (there is no sample or other edition and the description has changed) and is free for UK Kindle customers only.
