Every month Amazon releases a new selection of Kindle books priced $3.99 or less.
We've looked through the February 2013 books and listed below those in the "Mystery & Thrillers" category, together with a synopsis. Book prices range from 99 cents through $3.99.
Click on the book cover or title for more information or to purchase from Amazon.
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Andrew Morrison sacrificed everything — his childhood, his education, and the girl of his dreams — to look after his alcoholic mother. But enough is enough, and now he's determined to get out and live his life. That means trading the home he grew up in for a rented room in the house of an old childhood friend — both of which are in sorry shape.
The only thing worse than Drew's squalid new digs and sullen new roommate is the envy he feels for the house next door: a picture-perfect suburban domicile straight out of Norman Rockwell, with a couple of happy householders to match. But the better acquainted he gets with his new neighbors — especially the sweet and sexy Harlow Ward — the more he suspects unspeakable darkness beyond the white picket fence.
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In an attempt to soothe growing Cold War tensions between America and Russia, Premier Nikita Khrushchev visits the US to see all that his “enemy” has to offer. Top of his to-do list? A trip to Disneyland and an introduction to sexual icon Marilyn Monroe.
Thanks to the impossible security requirements, Disneyland is out of the question. Marilyn, on the other hand, jumps at the chance to put on a show for the Russian official. During her appearance, she overhears the details of an assassination plot designed to spark an atomic holocaust and devastate both superpowers. When the Secret Service refuses to believe her, Marilyn risks everything to whisk Khrushchev away to safety—in the happiest place on earth.
With US agents and the KGB hot on their trail, Marilyn and Khrushchev enjoy the thrills of the amusement park while fighting to stay one step ahead of the assassins and prevent the horrors of an unprecedented war that would annihilate millions.
True Detective by Max Allan Collins
A Nathan Heller Mystery (1st in series)
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In the mob-choked Chicago of 1932, Mayor Cermak aims to scrub up Chicago's rancid reputation for the World's Fair, and that daunting task comes down to the youngest plainclothes cop in town, Nathan Heller of the pickpocket detail.
When the Mayor's "Hoodlum Squad" brings Heller along on a raid with no instructions but to keep his mouth shut and his gun handy, he finds himself an unwitting, unwilling part of an assassination attempt on Al Capone's successor, Frank Nitti. Soon, he's smack in the middle of a power struggle between the mob and the mayor, and it's up to the young detective to upend a potentially nation-shaking political assassination in Miami Beach.
Midnight Alley by Miles Corwin
An Ash Levine Mystery (2nd in series)
Ash Levine, the top detective in the LAPD's elite Felony Special Squad, is called out to solve the murder of two young black men found shot to death in a Venice alley. The case is a high priority because one of the victims is the son of City Councilman Isaac Pinkney, a frequent critic of the LAPD.
Searching for the killer throws Levine into the world of Los Angeless Russian Mafia, Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and Middle Eastern archeologists. Ash's history as a child of a Holocaust survivor gives him a unique perspective on murder, redemption, and justice. His background as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces, and his relentless, single-minded focus on his investigations make him a thoroughly absorbing character.
As Ash closes in on the killer, the investigation becomes increasingly complex — and personal. Ash soon discovers that he is not just an investigator, but a target.
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Jack Schiavone wants to rebuild his life after an embezzlement scandal saw him drummed out of his high-paying advertising job. So he's reinvented himself as "Mr. Mattress", a discount bedding franchisee in Ebbets Beach, Brooklyn. Running a mattress store is a nice, quiet life—until Jack gets sucked into a simmering mob war that pits an ambitious Russian crime boss against a softening Italian don.
Soon everyone is "going to the mattresses".
Jack falls for the don's gorgeous black-sheep daughter, a legal aid attorney, making him the target of a jealous wise guy/lounge singer who's fixated on her too. And his new store manager — the don's gentle, stamp collecting, cottage cheese–eating former consigliere — proves as good at selling mattresses as he was at cooking the books for the mob. Then the Russians put on a show of force, and the don's only recourse is to call on the world's worst hit man: a mild-mannered chiropractor with an innovative killing technique.
When the smoke clears, who will be the don of Ebbets Beach?
Collateral Damage by H. Terrell Griffin
A Matt Royal Mystery (6th in series)
The quiet beauty of Longboat Key is shattered when a young groom is shot to death on the beach the day after his wedding. His father is an old army buddy of Matt Royal, and Matt tries to soften the anguish of his friend by finding his sons murderer.
Matt's search takes on added complexity when there appears to be a link between this murder and three seemingly unrelated murders that occurred on board a dinner cruise on Sarasota Bay the same day. Fortunately for Matt, his old buddies, Logan Hamilton and Jock Algren, show up to cover his back and to help investigate. But this case rekindles haunting events of Matts past and incites a web of doubt, deception, and even suspicion, among the closest of friends.
When Longboat Key detective, Jennifer Diane (J.B.) Duncan joins the investigation, Matt loses a little focus as he drifts toward more than just a professional relationship. But this distraction could cost lives when they encounter a shady and very dangerous cabal .
Twisted Justice by Patricia Gussin
A Laura Nelson Thriller (2nd in series)
Laura Nelson has it all — a successful career as a surgeon, five well-adjusted kids, and a gorgeous, prominent husband Steve, a nightly news anchor at the Tampa TV News.
Laura's seemingly perfect world shatters when she discovers that Steve is sharing much more than a news desk and a billboard with Kim, his sexy co-anchor. But Steves torrid fling with his coworker is about to come to an abrupt end.
When Kim is murdered, Laura is left holding the smoking gun. How far would Laura go to preserve her perfect life?
That's about to become yesterdays news. Now, Laura must fight to protect her freedom as lies, deception and dark secrets threaten to close in on her, and change her perfect life into a perfect nightmare. But, looks can be deceiving. And deceit can be deadly.
Kill My Darling by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
A Bill Slider Mystery (14th in series)
When Melanie Hunter goes missing, the men in her life come under suspicion. And there's plenty to suspect: lies, half-truths, deceptions. When you pull one thread, the whole fabric of family life can come apart.
There are secrets in Melanie's past, and pain she tried to hide from the world. Slider and his team need to answer two questions: who loved Melanie … and who loved her too much?
For five centuries adventurers, researchers and believers have searched for the Radix, the sacred relic thought to possess amazing powers to heal — or destroy.
John Brynstone doesn't have centuries. The president has ordered him to find the Radix now. But he's not alone in his quest. The modern-day descendents of the infamous Borgia family will stop at nothing to wield the power of the Radix.
At the same time, a secret religious organization wants the Radix for their own ends — and they've sent a nameless assassin to kill Brynstone before he can steal their prize.
Across continents and through ancient codes and mysteries, Brynstone will have to unravel riddles no one has been able to solve for hundreds of years … while racing for his life.
Fly by Night by Ward Larsen
A Jammer Davis Thriller
A top-secret drone crashes in the lawless Horn of Africa. The CIA is prepared to write off the loss until evidence surfaces that the wreckage of their prized aircraft is hidden in a hangar outside Khartoums main airport.
The hangar is owned by a shady cargo airline that flies ancient DC-3s across Africa and the Middle East. The name of the company does nothing to still concern: FBN-Fly by Night Aviation.
The U.S. government must find out what is in the hangar, and when an FBN airplane crashes, the opportunity arises for the National Transportation Safety Board to send an investigator to get to the bottom of things. Jammer Davis is the NTSBs biggest headache, but also its best solo operator. He goes to Sudan in the name of solving anair crash, but with the true aim of locating the priceless remains of Americas latest techno-logical marvel.
As Davis enters this inhospitable world, he finds the two disparate mysteries strangely intertwined. True to his nature, Davis barges ahead. Yet everything he finds takes him in reverse.
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
Summer, 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels has come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Along with his partner, Chuck Aule, he sets out to find an escaped patient, a murderess named Rachel Solando, as a hurricane bears down upon them.
But nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is what it seems.
And neither is Teddy Daniels.
Is he there to find a missing patient? Or has he been sent to look into rumors of Ashecliffe's radical approach to psychiatry? An approach that may include drug experimentation, hideous surgical trials, and lethal countermoves in the shadow war against Soviet brainwashing …
Or is there another, more personal reason why he has come there?
As the investigation deepens, the questions only mount:
• How has a barefoot woman escaped the island from a locked room?
• Who is leaving clues in the form of cryptic codes?
• Why is there no record of a patient committed there just one year before?
• What really goes on in Ward C?
• Why is an empty lighthouse surrounded by an electrified fence and armed guards?
The closer Teddy and Chuck get to the truth, the more elusive it becomes, and the more they begin to believe that they may never leave Shutter Island. Because someone is trying to drive them insane.
Missing Child by Patricia MacDonald
One morning Caitlin Eckhart receives a phone call that changes her life forever — her much-loved six-year-old stepson Geordie has disappeared from school. It soon becomes clear that someone must have deliberately taken him.
Distraught, Caitlin and her husband, Noah, make an anguished public appeal for his return. But Caitlin has a secret from her past that is about to catch up with her, and as Geordie's continued absence brings her relationship with Noah to breaking point, she stands to lose everything that she loves.
The Crocodile Bird by Ruth Rendell
When the police come to the door at the gatehouse of a remote British estate, sixteen-year-old Liza and her mother know that their lives are about to change forever. After all, Liza watched her mother kill a man — well, more than just one.
Having lived as a virtual hermit on the estate, Liza knows nothing of the outside world, but she sets off to find her way with the help of a newly won lover. As she learns about those around her, she begins to discover herself — and just how alike she and her mother might be.
Multiple Wounds by Alan Russell
Holly Troy's mind is a complex maze of myth and reality, multiple personalities vying for time in the spotlight. As an artist, she is creative and compelling. As a witness, she is painfully unreliable, unsure of even which person she was the night of the murder. Even Holly can't be sure of her own innocence.
Homicide detective Orson Cheever never thought he would find himself playing psychologist to a Greek goddess in a modern-day murder investigation, but many of Holly's personalities come straight from classical mythology, from Cronos and Pandora to the Fates. As Cheever attempts to unravel truth from myth, he learns that there is even more to Holly than meets the eye. One personality in particular — that of a five-year-old girl — hits a little too close to home, and Cheever is forced to finally pull back the dark curtains of his own past in order to uncover the truth.
The Frailty of Flesh by Sandra Ruttan
A Nolan, Hart, and Tain Mystery (2nd in series)
When a young boy is found murdered in a park, the boy's brother says that his sister was the murderer — but she's nowhere to be found. Constables Hart and Tain find evidence that the sister is innocent and is actually a potential victim herself. Now they need to find her before she — and the rest of her family — is killed.
Secrets To Die For by L. J. Sellers
A Wade Jackson Mystery (2nd in series)
When young social worker Raina Hughes arrives at a ramshackle trailer outside of town, she's on a mission to protect a small boy from abusive parents. But when Detective Wade Jackson arrives at the same location hours later, his mission is far grimmer: investigating Raina's murder.
The victim's vicious death is a shocking event for laid-back Eugene, Oregon — and even more chilling when one of Jackson's fellow officers suspects an elusive rapist whose appetite is turning murderous. Jackson thinks he's got a tight case against the meth-head dad who menaced Raina, but the evidence seems to leave his suspect in the clear — and a homicidal sex offender still on the loose. What Jackson fears is that his new love affair with nurse Kera Kollmorgan may be knocking him off his game. And what he never expects is to find an ally in savvy reporter Sophie Speranza, who may have stumbled on the killer's shocking motive. But even as Jackson and Sophie team up to tighten the noose, their quarry zeroes in on his next victim — ready to take his twisted game to the next level.
Nick Copeland has lost his mind only twice in his forty-eight years — once in college on a bad acid trip, and once at this very moment, as the mountain of bills he's been hiding from his family finally topples. But Nick's chance meeting with an old friend, Rob Johnson, pulls on the memory wires. Rob — who's already lost his wife and job — seems resigned to a life of basic cable and Chinese takeout. Suddenly, the answer to their problems arrives: two airtight jars of high-grade heroin they'd buried under the football field of their old college campus.
Returning to the scene of the crime-that-never-happened seems like a cinch — that is, until Nick takes a trip down Memory Lane and a sharp right turn on Law Enforcement Drive. This is not the beads-and-bellbottoms of their youths, but maybe the Stones were right, anyway: you can't always get what you want.
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After fleeing to Paris to escape communist rule, Polish émigré and piano player Jerzy Wozzeck finds it nearly impossible to support his family on his low-paying bistro gigs. So when a friend offers a fat payoff for handling a string of deliveries, Jerzy quickly finds himself in the uneasy employ of an anonymous suit and his sensual assistant. With a couple of flawless jobs under his belt, Jerzy starts living the good life — until, on one such run, he stumbles across a corpse and realizes his benefactors will go to any lengths to protect their operations.
To ensure his loyalty, Jerzy's patrons ply him with every possible temptation, from the purest drugs to the most willing women — and he begins selling his soul piece by piece to maintain his illusion of prosperity. But when rival crime lords and hit men enter the fray, Jerzy plots to escape his boss's dirty dealings — only to discover he's in too deep to get out alive.
The Discover of Light by J. P. Smith
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Divorced American academic David Reid teaches English by day and spends his free time writing mystery novels that nobody reads. In London he meets his new editor, Kate. Blonde and beautiful, she is also mysterious and aloof — and soon captivates David.
The feeling seems mutual and the two are soon wed, but Kate quickly spirals into a deep sadness. In less than two years, she leaves David and heads to New York City. Just as the shock of her absence sets in, David receives a call announcing Kate's instant death under a subway train.
Was Kate trying to return to David when she was killed? Was it an accident? A suicide? A murder? The more David learns, the less he wants to know — especially when he discovers Kate had been having an affair with French novelist Marc Rougemont, whose work she was allegedly translating.
As David searches for the truth about his wife, he becomes fixated on two paintings of women by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, for whom David and Kate shared a passion that bordered on obsession. Was his wife as unknowable as the subjects of these cryptic, beautifully rendered portraits?
Paying the Piper by Simon Wood
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For years, the serial kidnapper known as the Piper got rich by abducting children from San Francisco's wealthiest families.
When crime reporter Scott Fleetwood gets a call from a man identifying himself as the Piper and offers an exclusive interview, Fleetwood jumps at the chance. But the caller turns out to be a fake, and the rash decision costs the life of the real Piper's latest victim.
For eight long years, Fleetwood has lived with unbearable guilt—and the enduring disdain of the entire Bay area. Now he hears from the real Piper — and it's not for an interview. The kidnapper has the reporter's son. But he doesn't want money … he wants blood. And he's going to use Fleetwood to get it.
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Important Note: Any prices mentioned above were correct as of the date and time of this post. Prices are subject to change without notice. The price displayed on the vendor website at the time of purchase will be the price paid for the book. Please confirm the price of the book before completing your transaction.
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