The Lincoln Lawyer (
$2.99 Kindle,
B&N and
Kobo
), the first title in the
Mickey Haller series by Michael Connelly, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day, but it isn't limited to Kindle at that price.
Book Description
This #1 bestselling legal thriller from Michael Connelly is a stunning display of novelistic mastery - as human, as gripping, and as whiplash-surprising as any novel yet from the writer Publishers Weekly has called "today's Dostoevsky of crime literature."
Mickey Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. Bikers, con artists, drunk drivers, drug dealers - they're all on Mickey Haller's client list. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence, it's about negotiation and manipulation. Sometimes it's even about justice.
A Beverly Hills playboy arrested for attacking a woman he picked up in a bar chooses Haller to defend him, and Mickey has his first high-paying client in years. It is a defense attorney's dream, what they call a franchise case. And as the evidence stacks up, Haller comes to believe this may be the easiest case of his career. Then someone close to him is murdered and Haller discovers that his search for innocence has brought him face-to-face with evil as pure as a flame. To escape without being burned, he must deploy every tactic, feint, and instinct in his arsenal - this time to save his own life.
The Skin Map (
$1.79 Kindle; $1.99
B&N), the first in the
Bright Empires series by Stephen R. Lawhead, is currently discounted on both Kindle and nook.
Book Description
It is the ultimate quest for the ultimate treasure. Chasing a map tattooed on human skin. Across an omniverse of intereing realities. To unravel the future of the future.
Kit Livingston's great-grandfather appears to him in a deserted alley during a tumultuous storm. He reveals an unbelievable story: that the ley lines throughout Britain are not merely the stuff of legend or the weekend hobby of deluded cranks, but pathways to other worlds. To those who know how to use them, they grant the ability to travel the multi-layered universe of which we ordinarily inhabit only a tiny part.
One explorer knew more than most. Braving every danger, he toured both time and space on voyages of heroic discovery. Ever on his guard, and fearful of becoming lost in the cosmos, he developed an intricate code--a roadmap of symbols--that he tattooed onto his own body. This Skin Map has since been lost in time. Now the race is on to recover all the pieces and discover its secrets.
But the Skin Map itself is not the ultimate goal. It is merely the beginning of a vast and marvelous quest for a prize beyond imagining.
The Bright Empires series--from acclaimed author Stephen Lawhead--is a unique blending of epic treasure hunt, ancient history, alternate realities, cutting-edge physics, philosophy, and mystery. The result is a page-turning, fantastical adventure like no other.
Refined by Fire (
$0.99 Kindle), a 2005 Gold Medallion Award finalist by Ginger Kolbaba, Brian Birdwell and Mel Birdwell, is discounted on Kindle.
Book Description
When hijacked American Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, LTC (RET) Brian Birdwell was only 15 to 20 yards away. He stepped out into the corridor and was instantly engulfed in flames—burns consumed 60 percent of his body, with almost 40 percent of them third-degree. Thirty-plus operations and countless physical therapy sessions later, his recovery has truly been remarkable, and spiritually he and his family are stronger than ever before. Brian and his wife, Mel, tell their captivating story of God's grace and sovereignty.
Poison Study (US/
UK), the first in the
Study series by Maria V. Snyder, is discounted to £1.49 ($2.45) for UK Kindle customers.
Book Description
Choose: A quick death...or a slow poison... About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She`ll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace - and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia. And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly`s Dust - and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonising death from the poison. As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can`t control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren`t so clear...
This Brave Balance (
$2.99), by Rusalka Reh and Katy Derbyshire (Translator), is one of the Amazon exclusive translations being published by AmazonCrossing.
Book Description
Teenagers age twelve to sixteen will love this story of athletes, physical and mental challenge, friendship, love, and suspense. In This Brave Balance, author Rusalka Reh does more than explore the fascinating and dangerous world of parkour. Sometimes referred to as freerunning, parkour is an elegant sport requiring strength, strategy, and agility to smoothly move through the obstacles of city spaces. Parkour athletes are called traceurs, and Dipper, Corone, Skylark, and Jay are seasoned traceurs capable of doing spins and aerial rotations with the best of them. They prefer to practice in old factories, parks, and fields, where impediments are in abundance and risks push them to their limits. However, when Corone’s former girlfriend, Kite, shows up, everything changes. There are signs of a budding relationship between Kite and Dipper, causing tension to build, tempers to flare, and old friendships to be questioned. When we learn that Corone has a sister, and that a dark cloud hangs over their story, we find ourselves carried beyond sports and into a world of mystery and family secrets. This is a page-turner of a novel, one that will undoubtedly compel readers to seek out the other works of this gifted author.
The Detachment (
$5.99 pre-order), by Barry Eisler, is just above my usual cut-off, but I suspect the price may rise as it nears publication or shortly thereafter. You can get a small sample of his writing, free, in the collection
2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake.
Book Description
John Rain is back. And “the most charismatic assassin since James Bond” (San Francisco Chronicle) is up against his most formidable enemy yet: the nexus of political, military, media, and corporate factions known only as the Oligarchy.
When legendary black ops veteran Colonel Scott “Hort” Horton tracks Rain down in Tokyo, Rain can’t resist the offer: a multi-million dollar payday for the “natural causes” demise of three ultra-high-profile targets who are dangerously close to launching a coup in America.
But the opposition on this job is going to be too much for even Rain to pull it off alone. He’ll need a detachment of other deniable irregulars: his partner, the former Marine sniper, Dox. Ben Treven, a covert operator with ambivalent motives and conflicted loyalties. And Larison, a man with a hair trigger and a secret he’ll kill to protect.
From the shadowy backstreets of Tokyo and Vienna, to the deceptive glitz and glamour of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and finally to a Washington, D.C. in a permanent state of war, these four lone wolf killers will have to survive presidential hit teams, secret CIA prisons, and a national security state as obsessed with guarding its own secrets as it is with invading the privacy of the populace.
But first, they’ll have to survive each other.
The Detachment is what fans of Eisler, “one of the most talented and literary writers in the thriller genre” (Chicago Sun-Times), have been waiting for: the worlds of the award-winning Rain series, and of the bestselling Fault Line and Inside Out, colliding in one explosive thriller as real as today’s headlines and as frightening as tomorrow’s.
Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror (
$1.69 Kindle), by Charles Fried and Gregory Fried
Book Description
Elevating the torture and privacy debate, this book brilliantly challenges the knee-jerk responses of those in media and government.
Can torture ever be justified? When is eavesdropping acceptable? Should a kidnapper be waterboarded to reveal where his victim has been hidden? Ever since 9/11 there has been an intense debate about the government’s application of torture and the pervasive use of eavesdropping and data mining in order to thwart acts of terrorism. To create this seminal statement on torture and surveillance, Charles Fried and Gregory Fried have measured current controversies against the philosophies of Aristotle, Locke, Kant, and Machiavelli, and against the historic decisions, large and small, of Jefferson, Lincoln, and Pope Sixtus V, among many others. Because It Is Wrong not only discusses the behavior and justifications of Bush government officials but also examines more broadly what should be done when high officials have broken moral and legal norms in an attempt to protect us. This is a moral and philosophical meditation on some of the most urgent issues of our time.
The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret (
$1.24), by Seth Shulman
Book Description
A gripping intrigue at the heart of one of the world’s most important inventions.
While researching Alexander Graham Bell at MIT’s Dibner Institute, Seth Shulman scrutinized Bell’s journals and within them he found the smoking gun, a hint of deeply buried historical intrigue. Delving further, Shulman unearthed the surprising story behind the invention of the telephone: a tale of romance, corruption, and unchecked ambition.Bell furtively—and illegally—copied part of Elisha Gray’s invention in the race to secure what would become the most valuable U.S. patent ever issued. And afterward, as Bell’s device led to the world’s largest monopoly, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, he hid his invention’s illicit beginnings. In The Telephone Gambit, Shulman challenges the reputation of an icon of invention, rocks the foundation of a corporate behemoth, and offers a probing meditation on how little we know about our own history.
Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet (
$2.98), by Lisa Wolverton
Book Description
A dazzling intellectual history of the West served up with verve and insight by two brilliant young historians.
Here is an intellectual entertainment, a sweeping history of the key institutions that have organized knowledge in the West from the classical period onward. With elegance and wit, this exhilarating history alights at the pivotal points of cultural transformation. The motivating question throughout: How does history help us understand the vast changes we are now experiencing in the landscape of knowledge?
Beginning in Alexandria and its great center of Hellenistic learning and imperial power, we then see the monastery in the wilderness of a collapsed civilization, the rambunctious universities of the late medieval cities, and the thick social networks of the Enlightenment republic of letters. The development of science and the laboratory as a dominant knowledge institution brings us to the present, seeking patterns in the new digital networks of knowledge.
Full of memorable characters, this fresh history succeeds in restoring the strangeness and the significance of the past.
Consequential Strangers: The Power of People Who Don't Seem to Matter. . . But Really Do (
$1.53), by Melinda Blau and Karen L. Fingerman
Book Description
Our barista, our mechanic, our coworker—they populate our days, but we often take them for granted. Yet these are the people who bring novelty and information into our lives, allow us to exercise different parts of ourselves, and open us up to new opportunities. In their unprecedented examination of people on the periphery, psychologist Karen Fingerman, who coined the term “consequential strangers,” collaborates with journalist Melinda Blau to expand on and make her own groundbreaking research come alive. Drawing as well from Blau’s more than two hundred interviews with specialists in psychology, sociology, marketing, and communication, the book presents compelling stories of individuals and institutions, past and present. A rich portrait of our social landscape—on and off the Internet—it presents the science of casual connection and chronicles the surprising impact that consequential strangers have on business, creativity, the work environment, our physical and mental health, and the strength of our communities.
A Congregation of Jackals (
$3.79), by S. Craig Zahler
Book Description
Four former members of a bank-robbing gang are reuniting for a wedding. But there will be an uninvited guest—another old member of the gang who’s bringing some men of his own to exact the vengeance he’s been after for years.
The Vaults (
$2.99 Kindle,
B&N,
Kobo), by Toby Ball
Book Description
In a dystopian 1930s America, a chilling series of events leads three men down a path to uncover their city's darkest secret.
At the height of the most corrupt administration in the City's history, a mysterious duplicate file is discovered deep within the Vaults---a cavernous hall containing all of the municipal criminal justice records of the last seventy years. From here, the story follows: Arthur Puskis, the Vault's sole, hermit-like archivist with an almost mystical faith in a system to which he has devoted his life; Frank Frings, a high-profile investigative journalist with a self-medicating reefer habit; and Ethan Poole, a socialist private eye with a penchant for blackmail.
All three men will undertake their own investigations into the dark past and uncertain future of the City---calling into question whether their most basic beliefs can be maintained in a climate of overwhelming corruption and conspiracy.
Siren (
$3.79 Kindle; $3.99
B&N), by John Everson
Book Description
Evan is entranced by the alluring song of the beautiful naked woman he saw in the surf one lonely night. But this is no mere seductress. She is a siren, one of the legendary sea creatures who prey on unsuspecting men. And she has claimed Evan as her next lover.
Soul Circus (
$1.99 Kindle,
B&N,
Kobo), by George Pelecanos, is the third in his
Derek Strange and Terry Quinn series.
Book Description
A Washington, D.C., crime lord fights for his life in court while P.I. Derek Strange finds a woman whose testimony could mean death or freedom for the crime lord.
Angel Burn (
$3.49 Kindle,
Kobo; $3.99
B&N), by L. A. Weatherly
Book Description
Willow knows she’s different from other girls, and not just because she loves tinkering with cars. Willow has a gift. She can look into the future and know people’s dreams and hopes, their sorrows and regrets, just by touching them. She has no idea where this power comes from. But the assassin, Alex, does. Gorgeous, mysterious Alex knows more about Willow than Willow herself does. He knows that her powers link to dark and dangerous forces, and that he's one of the few humans left who can fight them. When Alex finds himself falling in love with his sworn enemy, he discovers that nothing is as it seems, least of all good and evil. In the first book in an action-packed romantic trilogy, L. A. Weatherly sends readers on a thrill ride of a road trip — and depicts the human race at the brink of a future as catastrophic as it is deceptively beautiful.
Unholy Ghosts (
$0.99 Kindle,
B&N,
Kobo), by Stacia Kane, is the book I've just started reading (now that I've finished Anthony Francis'
Blood Rock). This is the first title in Kane's
Downside series and the next two are also currently marked down (to $4.99):
Unholy Magic and
City of Ghosts.
Book Description
THE DEPARTED HAVE ARRIVED.
The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen, and the living are under attack. The powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased. Enter Chess Putnam, a fully tattooed witch and freewheeling ghost hunter. She’s got a real talent for banishing the wicked dead. But Chess is keeping a dark secret: She owes a lot of money to a murderous drug lord named Bump, who wants immediate payback in the form of a dangerous job that involves black magic, human sacrifice, a nefarious demonic creature, and enough wicked energy to wipe out a city of souls. Toss in lust for a rival gang leader and a dangerous attraction to Bump’s ruthless enforcer, and Chess begins to wonder if the rush is really worth it. Hell, yeah.
The Murder at the Vicarage, by Agatha Christie, is free for US customers in the Kindle store and from Barnes & Noble, thanks to HarperCollins.
