Mystery Godoku Puzzle for October 10, 2011

A new Mystery Godoku Puzzle has been created by the editors of the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books and is now available on our website.

Godoku is similar to Sudoku, but uses letters instead of numbers. To give you a headstart, we provide you a mystery clue to fill in a complete row or column (if you choose to use it!).

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This week's letters and mystery clue:

A D E H K N O S W

This Motor City "crime" is in the title of the second Will Anderson mystery by D. E. Johnson (9 letters).

We now have two weeks of our puzzles on one page in PDF format for easier printing. Print this week's puzzle here.

Previous puzzles are stored in the Mystery Godoku Archives.

Enjoy the weekly Mystery Godoku Puzzle from the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, and Thanks for visiting our website!

Review: India Black and the Widow of Windsor by Carol K. Carr

India Black and the Widow of Windsor by Carol K. Carr. An India Black Mystery. Berkley Prime Crime Trade Paperback, October 2011.

There is plenty of derring-do in this historical mystery, close calls and narrow escapes and the like, but it is really accompanying India Black and the enigmatic French on their adventure that makes this book — and this series — so enjoyable.

Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: India Black and the Widow of Windsor by Carol K. Carr.

Review: The Burning by Jane Casey

The Burning by Jane Casey. A Maeve Kerrigan Mystery. Minotaur Books Hardcover, August 2011.

The author does a fine job of balancing the introduction of a new character with a solidly developed murder investigation. Fortunately, this storyline is strong enough to compensate for some of the clichéd situations of a woman working in a man's world.

Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: The Burning by Jane Casey.

Brown's Requiem by James Ellroy is Today's Amazon Kindle Daily Deal

MystereBooks is pleased to feature Brown's Requiem by James Ellroy as today's Amazon Kindle Daily Deal. The deal price of $1.99 is valid only for today, Sunday, October 09, 2011.

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Brown's Requiem by James Ellroy
Non-Series
Mysterious Press

This stand-alone novel, originally published in 1981, was adapted into the 2000 feature film Brown's Requiem starring Michael Rooker as Fritz Brown.

About Brown's Requiem (from the publisher): Fritz Brown's L.A. — and his life — are masses of contradictions, like stirring chorals sung for the dead. A less-than-spotless former cop with a drinking problem — a private eye-cum repo man with a taste for great music — he has ben known to wallow in the grime beneath the Hollywood glitter. But Fritz Brown's life is about to change, thanks to the appearance of a racist psycho who flashes too much cash for a golf caddie and who walked away clean from a multiple murder rap. Reopening this case could be Fritz's redemption; his welcome back to a moral world and his path to a pure and perfect love. But to get there, he must make it through a grim, lightless place where evil has no national borders; where lies beget lies and death begets death; where there's little tolerance for Bach or Beethoven and deadly arson is a lesser mortal sin; and where a private eye's unhealthy interest in the past can turn beautiful music into a funeral dirge.

Important Note: Prices can and do change without prior notice, so please confirm the price of the book before completing your purchase.

Download Link(s):

Amazon Kindle Daily Deal 10/09/2011 Download Link.

Review: The Killing Song by P. J. Parrish

The Killing Song by P. J. Parrish. Non-series. Pocket Books Mass Market Paperback, August 2011.

This stand-alone thriller features an engaging central character, a Miami crime reporter out of his element in Paris, searching for the man who killed his sister. A slightly disappointing aspect to the storyline is that it isn't all that suspenseful, as the killer's identity is known to the reader from the beginning, leaving very little new to discover.

Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: The Killing Song by P. J. Parrish.

Mystery, Suspense and Thriller Adventure and Casual Games, New This Week from BFG (111008)

Games of Mystery is pleased to announce the availability of new mystery, suspense and thriller adventure and casual games from Big Fish Games released during this past week. You can find out more about these games by visiting our Mystery Games: Big Fish Download Games page or by clicking on the links provided below.

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You play the role of Robert Cath, a fugitive American with a mysterious background, who is on the final journey of the Orient Express from Paris to Constantinople before World War I. Cath, already wanted by the French Police as a suspect of the murder of an Irish police officer, is contacted by an old friend Tyler Whitney through an urgent message in a letter to join him on the Orient Express. The said letter states that there is a possible exit from all of his troubles. Cath boards the train via a motorcycle while it was traveling from one station to another. As soon as Cath boars the luxurious train, he finds Whitney dead, killed by someone else on board the train. To blend in, he disposes of Whitney's body and takes his place, becoming involved in a web of treachery, lies, political conspiracies, personal interests, romance and murder.

Originally released in 1997, The Last Express was considered by game reviewers at the time to be one of the best point-and-click adventure games ever produced, though it was ultimately something of a commercial disappointment.

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Step into this mysterious adventure when Julien hires the world famous Detective Dupin to investigate the sudden death of his beloved Victorine. After her passing, Victorine’s husband, who she has no love for, has her buried incredibly quickly, making Julien uneasy. Become Detective Dupin’s assistant and use your talents to unravel the mystery!

This special collector's edition includes an integrated strategy guide, bonus gameplay, wallpapers and screensavers, concept art, musical soundtrack, the original story from which the game is adapted, and early access.

See also the other games in this series, Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat and Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder in the Rue Morgue.

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Get any standard game for $6.99 with a Big Fish Game Club membership. Other benefits include the $2.99 Daily Deal, Tomorrow's Game Today, and special member rewards. And if you purchase any 6 games within a single month, you earn a free game with the Big Fish Game Club Monthly Punch Card! (Collector's Editions earn 3 punches each, half-way towards your free game!)

Read Ms. Terri's reviews of the adventure and casual mystery games featured on our site, including Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy, Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses!, Enlightenus, and many more!

Big Fish Games: Bestsellers

Big Fish Games: New releases

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Games of Mystery is your source for mystery-themed video, electronic, and board games, parties for kids and adults, and murder mystery weekends and mystery getaway vacations!

Penumbra by Carolyn Haines is Today's Featured Free MystereBook

MystereBooks is pleased to feature Penumbra by Carolyn Haines as today's free mystery ebook. We don't know how long it will be offered at this special price (typically only until a certain number of downloads have been completed), so we urge you to download it while it is still available for free.

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Penumbra by Carolyn Haines
Non-Series
Tyrus Books

This noir stand-alone, originally published in hardcover in 2006 by Minotaur Books, is written by the author of the cozy Southern Belle mystery series featuring Sarah Booth Delaney.

About Penumbra (from the publisher): Jade Dupree is a beautician and an undertaker’s assistant with a gift for smoothing the ravages of death from the faces of her clientele. But her strange talent isn’t the only thing that sets her apart from the townspeople of tiny Drexel, Mississippi. Jade is half-black and the unacknowledged bastard daughter of Drexel’s “first lady,” the imperious Lucille Longier. Jade’s half sister, the pale, fragile, and legitimate Marlena, is married to Lucas Bramlett, the wealthiest man in the region. While the entire town knows of the blood bond between the two women, no one dares speak the truth out loud. Though her talents as a hairdresser are highly sought after by Drexel’s elite, Jade accepts that she’ll never truly be part of the town and lives her life the best she can.

But on one hot summer day in 1952, Jade’s world is turned inside out when Marlena, on a tryst with her lover, is savagely beaten and her young daughter kidnapped. Determined to find her niece before it’s too late, Jade accepts help from a white sheriff’s deputy, Frank Kimble. The forbidden attraction that ignites between them threatens to add to the violence already brewing in town.

Important Note: Prices can and do change without prior notice, so please confirm the price of the book before completing your purchase.

Download Link(s):

Amazon Free Kindle Edition Download Link.

For more free mystery ebooks, visit our Free MystereBooks page.

Winners of the 2011 CWA Dagger Awards Announced

The winners of the 2011 CWA Dagger Awards have been announced by the Crime Writers' Association at an awards ceremony this evening at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel. And they are …

• Gold: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (Macmillan)
• Ian Fleming Steel: The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Orion)
• John Creasey New Blood: Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson (Doubleday)

Recently Published Indie Mysteries (111007)

We're always on the lookout for new mystery, suspense and thriller books, and with this series of recurring posts, we're looking at Indie Mysteries, books published by small, independent publishers, or self-published, that recently caught our eye ... and may be of interest to you too. Most of these titles, selected primarily from the Smashwords website, are ebook only, though some may also be available in a print format.

Important Note: The prices indicated for these books are current as of the date of this post, may differ between vendors, and can and do change without notice. Please confirm the price of the book before completing your purchase.

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Dead in the Rose City
by R. Barri Flowers
A Dean Drake Mystery
Self Published (Ebook)
October 2011
Price as of the date of this post: $3.49

Dean Jeremy Drake, nicknamed D.J., is a private investigator and ex-homicide detective for the Portland Police Bureau. He is six-five, hip, tough, armed with a .40 caliber Glock, and courts danger and romance with equal abandon. These qualities are put to the test when Drake is framed for murder in the midst of two seemingly unrelated cases. The more he investigates, the more he realizes they are intricately and dangerously connected. It literally becomes a life and death issue as Drake has to use all his detective skills, and then some, to fit all the pieces together in a deadly, high stakes whodunit and why.

Also available: Kindle edition.

Stalking Sydney
by Andie Alexander
Non-Series
Self Published (Ebook)
October 2011
Price as of the date of this post: $0.99

When Sydney Burke is almost strangled by a serial killer with a penchant for poetry, she becomes the focus of a certain FBI agent named Joe Ross, who’s hunting for the serial killer. Sydney is a stringer—a freelance journalist who races to newsworthy scenes to get video to put on the air for a fee. She unwillingly becomes a target for the serial killer who wants something from her. Between dealing with a crazy ex-boyfriend, paying off gambling debts to a pimp, and staying away from a congressman with Alzheimer’s in a quest for her identity, Sydney has to find the killer and escape the city before she becomes the next victim of his bad poetry and a gun to the head.

Also available: Kindle edition.

Deadly Friendship
by Sam Phillips
A Rick Cunningham Mystery (2nd in series)
Crossroads Publishing (Ebook)
September 2011
Price as of the date of this post: $2.99

A sixteen-year-old crime is revived when a caller to a radio talk show names a killer and concludes with the veiled threat that providence is about to take revenge on all of the participants in the crime. Rick Cunningham is asked to search out the identity and whereabouts of the caller and flush out the truth in a murky world of secrets, conspiracies and murder.

Noho
by James Davis
Non-Series
Wild Wolf Publishing (Ebook)
September 2011
Price as of the date of this post: $0.99

When a dead dancing girl with all the wrong connections is found with Nick Valentine's name scrawled on a scrap of paper in her pocket, life gets a lot more complicated for the disgraced Great War hero. Unwillingly drawn into a web of espionage and crime in the underbelly of 1930's London, Nick soon discovers that who killed her may be less important than why.

Also available: Kindle edition.

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For more recently published Indie Mysteries, visit the Smashwords Mystery and Detective category page or the Thriller and Suspense category page.

New Trailer for The Raven

A new — the first, we think — trailer for The Raven has been posted online; we've embedded it below.

When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) makes a startling discovery: the crime resembles a fictional murder described in gory detail in the local newspaper — part of a collection of stories penned by struggling writer and social pariah Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack). But even as Poe is questioned by police, another grisly murder occurs, also inspired by a popular Poe story.

Realizing a serial killer is on the loose using Poe’s writings as the backdrop for his bloody rampage, Fields enlists the author’s help in stopping the attacks. But when it appears someone close to Poe may become the murderer’s next victim, the stakes become even higher and the inventor of the detective story calls on his own powers of deduction to try to solve the case before it’s too late.

The Raven opens in US theaters on March 9th, 2012.