New Poster for Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

A new character-driven poster for the upcoming alternate history thriller Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter has been released by the studio (right; click for larger version).

Benjamin Walker stars as our 16th President, a man out to avenge the death of his mother by a supernatural creature.

Adapted by Seth Grahame-Smith from his 2010 novel of the same title, and directed by Timur Bekmambetov, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter will open in theaters June 22nd, 2012. Watch the second theatrical trailer for the film below.

Please Welcome Jim Bronyaur, Author of the Minivan Mom Mystery Series

We are delighted to welcome mystery author Jim Bronyaur as our guest blogger today.

Jim's first mystery in the "Minivan Mom" series is If Errands Could Kill (Hundred to Home Publishing, March 2012 print and ebook editions).

Today Jim tells us how his series character, Eve Bailey, came about.

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I get asked a lot about being a man and why I would write a mystery series with a woman as the lead character. No, I'm not an expert on women, and no I'm not like Mel Gibson in What Women Want. What I have is a great woman who, rather than stand behind me, stands alongside me, and she has helped to create and shape the woman that Eve Bailey is in the Minivan Mom Mystery Series.

I was in my basement one night going over some notes … well, several notes. I take a lot of notes. I have about nine notebooks that all serve a purpose. Something was eating at me that night … I wanted to create a series. I didn't want to do a horror series (I already have one in the works). I did not want to do a thriller series, or zombies, or anything else that I had been working on. I wanted something different. Something fast. Something fun.

What's more fun than murder?

Whoa, that sounds a little off, but that's what came to me. To my left, on the wall, was a sticky note for a crime/thriller series I had an idea for. It looked good, I had help from a friend with it, but it wasn't what I wanted right then.

I wanted a simple murder/mystery series.

It made me think about hearing my wife upstairs with the kids all the time. The way they run around, yell, scream, get in trouble, and laugh. How she is so great with them, becoming more of an amazing mother each day, and I realized … there's my character. Imagine a stay-at-home mom who finds herself swept into a murder case? I pictured this woman who drives a green minivan, hurrying her kids to and from school, going to the grocery store, planning out dinners, making sure everyone's schedules are in place … and then throw in a murder.

That's when Eve Bailey was born.

To mold her, I had the help from my wife. She gave me input, insight, and allowed me to really build this fun character that right now is a major part of my life. We are working on the first four books of the Minivan Mom Mystery Series, and in each one Eve is the centralized character who somehow is pulled into a murder case. The fun part is that each story is different. In the first book, she follows someone and witnesses their murder. The second book is different from that storyline, as is book three and book four. Working with my wife on this series has been fun, and I hope the series continues because I love learning more about Eve and my wife.

In the background of Eve's life, there is always the mention of her grandmother – a woman who was stubborn and strong at the same time. I based Eve's grandmother off of my own grandmother who passed away almost seventeen years ago. She is still a major part of my life and my family's life, which proves that it is important to realize that the things we do in our lives will impact those around us, even after we are gone.

So let's now meet the Bailey family …

We all know who Eve is by now. She's the leader of the family, the tough stay-at-home mom who helps to solve the murder of local resident, Janet, all the while cooking dinner, cleaning, and preparing the week for her oldest daughter's championship soccer game. I get tired just thinking about what Eve does on a daily basis!

Eve is married to Ben. Ben is a lawyer and a soft spoken man, but one who can also pull out his "lawyer card" and become very convincing and involved in conversation, which is a trait that the children inherited. He's a good man, the bread winner of the family, but he's also, in some ways, another person for Eve to care for. Eve can easily predict when Ben will spill something on his clothes or better yet, dip his tie in his coffee. She knows him so well that she even has a spare tie ready to go.

Now, the kids …

Delaney is the oldest. She is almost a teenager, which is scary enough for Eve and Ben (maybe more than solving murders!). She plays soccer and almost has a tomboy kind of demeanor in the first book. She is both strong like Eve and determined like Ben.

The middle child is Cody, the only son of the family. He is in a bit of a rebellious stage in book one (which *hint hint* carries over into book two). In fact, the book begins just after Cody is caught skipping school and Eve does the worst punishment she could think of – she drives him to school and drops him off in front of all the other kids. Cody is a mere twin of Ben and when he acts out, Ben's mother, Sandy, can only sit back and smile, as it's now fun to watch Ben go through what she went through. In the end though, Cody is a good kid, and Eve and Ben know it.

The baby of the family is Penny. Sweet, innocent Penny who wears pigtails and manages to get dirty before leaving the house for school. She questions everything around her – just like Ben – and isn't afraid to stand up for herself when she needs to – just like Eve. In the first book, Penny finds herself trying to talk to her goldfish as she's convinced that the bubbles the fish blows is its way of talking.

It doesn't take long in the morning to make Eve's house hectic, especially when Ben stains his shirt, Cody is in trouble with school, Penny is questioning goldfish bubbles, and Delaney is practicing her soccer kicks in the foyer. Nevertheless, it is a life that Eve loves and it is a life that I understand because each morning at 6:30, my house is awake and ready for the day. My two boys come charging down the stairs, arguing over what the day will bring … milk versus orange juice, Lucky Charms versus Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and of course, who will get what WWE wrestlers to play with.

Creating Eve was not that hard, not with my wife next to me, helping me. The story came to me very quickly and once the book was done, I grew worried. I felt like I was staring at the wall of "Now What?" but we knocked that down. My wife and I sat together and plotted out three more books, and that's when we realized just how far we could take Eve and her family. Each person is an important part in the growth of the series and to be honest, even though I am the writer, when I sit down at the keyboard to write, I can't help but be excited to see what Eve does next, or what the kids do or learn.

— ◊ —

You can read more about Jim and his books by visiting his website at JimBronyaur.info.

— ◊ —

About If Errands Could Kill:

Up at sunrise to enjoy the quiet of a sleeping household, Eve Bailey gets her coffee, prepares breakfast for her three children, and has a spare tie ready knowing that her husband, Ben, will definitely spill something on the one he is wearing. Their oldest daughter, Delaney, is one game away from moving onto the soccer championships, their son, Cody, skipped school yesterday, and innocent 7 year old Penny is trying to communicate with her goldfish.

Eve's days are that of a typical stay at home mom. Her typical day changes drastically after she drives Cody to school as part of his punishment for skipping school. Cody's creepy science teacher, Mr. Jackson, approaches Eve to let her know that her check for Cody's field trip had bounced. Knowing it had to be an error, Eve heads to the bank to figure it out. While in line, she chats with her mother in law who works at the bank. Then she notices Janet, another bank employee and self-made town outcast, acting very strange at the back counter. Eve's concern grows when she is leaving the bank and sees Janet open the gas tank door and then drives away. Against her better judgment, Eve follows Janet.

What happens next is something unheard of in quiet Marysville, Pennsylvania. Janet is murdered in front of Eve's eyes, and the police find drugs in her car. Murder and drugs? It doesn't make sense. Eve is now a witness and determined to disprove the "drug deal gone wrong" theory. Can she convince the police that she knows who the killer is, save her family, and make it to Delaney's big soccer game in time?

Murder Half Baked by Kathleen Delaney is Today's Third Featured Free MystereBook

MystereBooks is pleased to feature Murder Half Baked by Kathleen Delaney as today's third free mystery ebook.

This title was listed as free 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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Murder Half Baked by Kathleen Delaney
An Ellen McKenzie Mystery
Publisher: Camel Press

This is the fourth and most recent mystery in this series featuring the (fictional) Santa Louisa real estate agent, one we called "a delightful mix of humor (wedding plans going astray) and crime (murder and arson)".

About Murder Half Baked (from the publisher): Old Dr. Sadler is dead in the cemetery, his head bashed in by the arm of a marble angel. Ellen McKenzie has to find the killer soon … before another death puts a stop to her wedding. Dan Dunham, the groom, is Santa Louisa's Chief of Police. The guest list is growing and Ellen's dreams of an intimate candlelight ceremony are rapidly disappearing.

When Grace House, a halfway house for women, goes up in flames, Ellen invites them all — including a newborn — to move in with her and Dan. As a real estate agent, Ellen hopes to find a new building, yet every suspect is connected to Grace House. Are Ellen and Dan in danger? Will they ever solve the murders and get their lives back?

Read our review of Murder Half Baked by Kathleen Delaney.

Important Note: This book was listed for free on the date and time of this post. Prices can and do change without prior notice. 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.

Disappeared by Gary Alexander is Today's Second Featured Free MystereBook

MystereBooks is pleased to feature Disappeared by Gary Alexander as today's second free mystery ebook.

This title was listed as free 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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Disappeared by Gary Alexander
A Buster Hightower Mystery
Publisher: Istoria Books

This is the first mystery (of two to date) to feature the stand-up comic and amateur sleuth.

About Disappeared (from the publisher): Ted Snowe is a hit man, but with a twist: he double-dips. He accepts money for performing the hit, but he then arranges for the victim to disappear with a new identity, while collecting additional funds for this service from the victim. Unfortunately for Ted, James Jimmy Knuckles Brutto, one of the would-be victims Ted helped, very publicly resurfaces, and Ted’s employer, not pleased, sends Leonardo "the Asp" Aspromonte to deal with Ted and prevent further embarrassment. Ted, along with Beth, Jimmy’s former wife, and his friends, third-rate comic Buster Hightower and Carla Chance, all of whom get caught up in Ted’s problem, go on the run to Rome, trying to elude the Asp. When in Rome, they find Shorty, the man who started Ted in the business, and figure out a way to neutralize the Asp.

Important Note: This book was listed for free on the date and time of this post. Prices can and do change without prior notice. 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.

The Kill by Jonas Saul is Today's Featured Free MystereBook

MystereBooks is pleased to feature The Kill by Jonas Saul as today's free mystery ebook.

This title was listed as free 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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The Kill by Jonas Saul
Publisher: Imagine Press

Jonas Saul is the author of two mystery series, one featuring Sarah Roberts and the other Drake Bellamy. In this stand-alone, the son of the most ruthless Mafia boss in eastern Canada is killed, and the father wants revenge.

About The Kill (from the publisher): Darwin Kostas is a law-abiding Canadian, a writer with a new bride and a long list of phobias. His fear of the dark keeps him inside after the sun goes down. He also suffers from aichmophobia, an irrational fear of sharp and pointed objects. If confronted with a knife or a needle, his fear manifests as an out-of-control rage.

He's also the man who accidentally killed the heir to the Fuccini syndicate.
,br>When the newlyweds honeymoon in Rome, a hit team follows. They keep waving things at Darwin — pointy things, like knives. He just can't control himself when that happens, and accidentally kills a few more "made men". The Mafia believes Darwin is a trained killer, hired to take them out, and declare all-out war on the neurotic novelist.

Darwin returns to Toronto, but the hits keep coming, the FBI closes in, and a local biker gang offers Darwin their help.

Darwin just wants to be left alone with a light on.

Important Note: This book was listed for free on the date and time of this post. Prices can and do change without prior notice. 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.

The Black Stiletto by Raymond Benson is Today's Amazon Kindle Daily Deal

MystereBooks is pleased to feature The Black Stiletto by Raymond Benson as today's Amazon Kindle Daily Deal. The deal price of $0.99 is valid only for today, Thursday, April 19, 2012.

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The Black Stiletto by Raymond Benson
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing

About The Black Stiletto (from the publisher): Could Martin Talbot's elderly, Alzheimer-stricken mother, Judy, really have been the Black Stiletto?

When Martin discovers several volumes of her diaries hidden by his mother, he is stunned beyond all imagination. His mother, the underground heroine of yesteryear? The famed, still unidentified woman who battled Communist spies, took on the Mafia, and preyed on common crooks? The woman who exacted punishment on evildoers without mercy?

But it is all described, in great detail, in the diaries. What caused her to begin her quest for justice. Her decision to act outside the law. Her feats as the famed and feared vigilante. How her reputation exploded. In short, how it all played out. Could it be true?

Talbot is filled with doubt and disbelief. But the reappearance of one of the Stiletto's old enemies with a thirst for merciless revenge makes the story more than real and could imperil the life of not only the Stiletto, but her son and granddaughter as well.

Important Note: Amazon.com updates its Kindle book deal every day at approximately midnight PT. The title referenced above is available at a discounted price for Thursday, April 19, 2012 only.

Download Link(s):

Amazon Kindle Daily Deal.

Read for Free the First Chapter of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Graphic Novel

The first issue of Vertigo's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo graphic novel doesn't hit bookshelves until this November, but the publisher has made available the opening chapter free to view.

Based on the first book in the Millennium Trilogy of thrillers by Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo delves into the dark mystery of the Vanger family, as disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist is hired to uncover the truth behind a teenage girl's disappearance over forty years ago.

(We should say that, based on what we had to go through, the cumbersome process of actually seeing the first chapter is not at all intuitive. We eventually ended up at ComiXology — there seem to be other options but none worked for us — where we did "purchase" the chapter for free after registering an account. But in spite of their corporate tagline "Digital Comics: Buy Once, Read Anywhere" we can't figure out how to actually read the chapter anywhere other than on the ComiXology website. Still, it does seem worth the effort; the comic is really quite well done.)

The Mephisto Threat by E. V. Seymour is This Week's Harlequin Friday Freebie

We're always happy to see a mystery or suspense novel featured on Freebie Fridays at Harlequin. For those of you unfamiliar with it, if you purchase any two books at Harlequin.com this week, you receive the weekly featured title free! (eBooks are excluded from this promotion.)

The second mystery in the the "Paul Tallis" series, The Mephisto Threat by E. V. Seymour, is this week's free title.

Click on the banner above to start shopping!

About Embarking on Murder (from the publisher): In Istanbul, crime journalist Garry Morello is executed in cold blood. Moments before his death, he meets with old friend Paul Tallis, hinting that he has uncovered a link between international terrorism and organized crime back home. On the run from the Turkish authorities, Tallis makes his way back to London and passes the intel to his MI5 handler.

When he's sent undercover to Birmingham to investigate the threat, Tallis's mission is to infiltrate the inner circle of crime boss Johnny Kennedy. Once inside, Tallis must determine if the charismatic gangster is involved in planning the biggest terrorist attack on Britain—or if his MI5 paymasters are the ones he should be watching.

Second Spanish-Language Poster for The Raven

Earlier this week we featured a Spanish-language poster for The Raven. Now a second version has surfaced, one which we don't like nearly as much (right; click for larger version). The poster's tagline: "Permitir sangre inocente nunca mas", which we think translates into roughly "Never allow more innocent blood" or maybe "Nevermore allow innocent blood".

The film stars John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe, who teams up with a Baltimore detective (Luke Evans) to solve a series of murder's based on Poe's tales.

The Raven opens in theaters April 27th, 2012.

Hound Dog Blues by Virginia Brown is Today's Featured Free MystereBook

MystereBooks is pleased to feature Hound Dog Blues by Virginia Brown as today's free mystery ebook.

This title was listed as free 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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Hound Dog Blues by Virginia Brown
A Blue Suede Memphis Mystery
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books

This first in a new series is by the author of the popular Dixie Diva mysteries.

About Hound Dog Blues (from the publisher): She’s named after a motorcycle. Her Dad’s an Elvis impersonator. Her Mom talks to spirit guides. Someone’s kidnapped the family dog—named King, in Elvis’s honor. There’s a ransom note. And then things really get weird.

Memphis tour guide, Harley Jean Davidson, is about to enjoy a rare day off when her parents call with news that King, their border collie, has been dognapped. Harley Jean’s mom insists the culprit is Bruno Jett, their next door neighbor. Harley Jean would rather run over her own foot with a motorcycle than talk to him. He’s drop-dead gorgeous—with a dangerous attitude she’d like to avoid.

But King has to be rescued, so she sets off to find him. Harley Jean gets more than she bargains for when she finds a body, as well. Bruno Jett is definitely involved, but how?

The Memphis P.D. wants to pin the murder on Harley Jean’s dad. Now it’s up to her to clear his name … and avoid becoming the killer’s next victim.

Important Note: This book was listed for free on the date and time of this post. Prices can and do change without prior notice. 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.

Please Welcome Mystery Novelist Bruce Holbert

We are delighted to welcome debut mystery novelist Bruce Holbert as our guest blogger today.

Bruce describes his new book, Lonesome Animals (Counterpoint April 2012 Hardcover), as a western novel reinvented, a detective story inverted for the west.

Today he talks to us about writing a first late novel …

— ◊ —

Recently I was asked in an interview, "What took so long?"

I am a 52 year-old publishing his first novel. I don't have the data at hand, but my guess is I am fifteen or so years beyond the mean.

Photo provided courtesy of
Bruce Holbert

The question struck me as impolite. I wasn't sleeping in doorways or staggering through a drug induced stupor those years (although that would have made for an interesting answer). I helped raise three children with whom I'd rather spend time than most any adults; I navigated a quarter century of marriage with fairly happy results: I excelled (by others' accounts) in a teaching career. I bought a house and sold one and bought another: I participated in Cash for Clunkers; I obeyed the Patriot Act (or at least what I knew of it): I stopped on red and went on green, paid taxes, drove on the correct side of the road, used credit in moderation, avoided smoking in no smoking areas, honored my parents, avoided felonies whenever possible, and I kept writing. That's a pretty full life, it seemed to me.

My inquisitor's question was not without grounds, however. In 1990, I graduated from the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop, one of the nation's leading schools for young writers. While there, I worked on a nationally regarded literary magazine, The Iowa Review, and won a Teaching Writing Fellowship. Peers I felt were equals published novels and story collections and memoirs to acclaim well before the age of forty, let alone fifty.

I admit the latter compelled me to pose the question to myself until I felt cursed, or, more accurately, exposed. The truth is, I felt, even in graduate school, like a charlatan. My peers had earned undergraduate sheepskins from Harvard, Cornell, GW, Stanford, Yale, Columbia and Boston University. I matriculated at Eastern Washington University (yes, the state) where I earned a 2.9 grade point, identical to my high school g.p.a. My biggest accomplishment in college was forging the signatures of three deans to garner placement in Kay Boyle's graduate writing workshop where, by the time I was found out, she insisted I stay.

I was raised in a bookless world before then. My father worked construction, and I lived in 23 different towns before age six. We pulled a trailer and I became schooled at leveling and blocking the wheels and reattaching propane tanks and igniting pilot lights. It was an existence not unlike many others I knew and it was not unpleasant. My parents loved me and made certain I had what I needed. My dad threw the ball with me; my mother held me when I cried. I was neither neglected nor abused.

I was, though, a mutant. I read and thought thoughts that appeared impractical to those around me, even family. Though I managed to commit enough minor crimes to eventually appear part of my particular herd and recognized the rituals of my world and responded as fittingly as I could, I did so with a wooden self-consciousness that kept me on the precipice of being exposed. I remained a refugee in my own consciousness.

Yet I could write a sentence.

So Iowa admitted me, then allotted me a generous fellowship.

There, I flourished, then graduated and went home, while most of my peers found jobs teaching in various programs while others went on to Stegner or Provincetown residencies. The university's Summer Writing Program offered me work, but I was on a sabbatical from the only job I ever did well, teaching high school English. I intended to return to my duties and re-enter what I thought of as the natural world. Iowa reminded me of greenhouse, where the best horticulturalists applied the finest fertilizer and the optimum light and water, and you grew as if on steroids, into rose buds the size of your head and thorns lethal as sabers. It was incredible, literally: I didn't believe it. So I returned home to the plausible.

Despite such doubts, I wrote. But every manila envelope I deposited in the mail became less an act of faith than a meager blow against the certainty of rejection. Such thoughts cannot help but pervade one's work. My language turned tentative, hunting for several rhythms simultaneously, contorting syntax, piling phrases into one another for this or that effect.

Yet I continued, wedging writing into evenings and between baseball games and concerts and family trips. I did not resent them. I have read many writers complain that family was an impediment to their work. Mine was the opposite, my marriage and my children informed my work, but more significantly, slowly, over the years, they led me to recognize, for better and worse, the self was, not simply a stranger in a strange land trying to acquire the language I lacked, and over that time I began to hear my own voice when I spoke to them and its echo when they answered, and eventually, when I wrote I grew able to work from the place from which those sounds came.

This did not end in publication, however — it seems the long way is the only one I know. But it did lead me to a coherence concerning my own work, one informed, but less clouded by the inflection of others and the voids within myself. And, then, it took time to listen closely and hear clearly the syntax and habits of lexicon and happen onto the characters who would speak so and the events that would occur in such lives. And, then, as it is a singular voice peculiar to me, it took more time to find someone compelled by its possibilities instead of it's nearness to others that have made their way into the publishing world.

So, it took so long because early in my life I learned to doubt the sound of my own voice and the lesson stuck, whether I resided in a construction town trailer court or the best graduate school in the country. Oddly enough, the reason it happened at all was because the facets of an ordinary life that artists typically regard as impediments finally taught me otherwise. It was a mighty wide circle, I admit, but the territory within it is my own and am not inclined to trade it for less property even if it was attained more quickly.

— ◊ —

Bruce Holbert grew up in the country described in Lonesome Animals, a combination of rocky scabland farms and desert brush at the foot of the Okanogan Mountains. What once was the Columbia River, harnessed now by a series of reservoirs and dams, dominates the topography. Holbert's great-grandfather, Arthur Strahl, was an Indian scout and among the first settlers of the Grand Coulee. The man was a bit of a legend until he murdered Holbert's grandfather (Strahl's son-in-law) and made Holbert's grandmother a widow and Holbert's father fatherless. A fictionalized Strahl is the subject of Lonesome Animals.

To learn more about the author and his body of work, which includes a large number of short stories, poetry, and a collection of remembrances of influential teachers he co-authored with his wife, visit his website at BruceHolbertBooks.com.

— ◊ —

About Lonesome Animals:

Russell Strawl, a tormented former lawman, is called out of retirement to hunt a serial killer with a sense of the macabre who has been leaving elaborately carved bodies of Native Americans across three counties. As the pursuit ensues, Strawl's own dark and violent history weaves itself into the hunt, shedding light on the remains of his broken family: one wife taken by the river, one by his own hand; an adopted Native American son who fancies himself a Catholic prophet; and a daughter, whose temerity and stoicism contrast against the romantic notions of how the west was won.

Lonesome Animals contemplates the nature of story and heroism in the face of a collapsing ethos –not only of Native American culture, but also of the first wave of white men who, through the battle against the geography and its indigenous people, guaranteed their own destruction. But it is also about one man's urgent, elegiac search for justice amidst the craven acts committed on the edges of civilization.

Review: Cats Can't Shoot by Clea Simon

We've just published our Review of Cats Can't Shoot by Clea Simon. A Pru Marlowe Mystery. Poisoned Pen Press Hardcover, April 2012.

Available to purchase from …

Vince Vaughn to Play Jim Rockford in Film Version of The Rockford Files

We thought the idea of remaking — or rebooting or reimagining — The Rockford Files had been put to rest.

Apparently not.

David Levien and Brian Koppelman (Runaway Jury, Ocean's Thirteen) are writing a theatrical screenplay for Universal Studios in which Vince Vaughn would star as Malibu private eye Jim Rockford, a role that was played by James Garner in the 1970s series on NBC.

This is wrong on so many levels, not the least of which is casting. Let's hope that someone, somewhere comes to their senses before this project gets too far along to stop.

(Related article: Deadline.)

Review: Ill Will by J. M. Redmann

We've just published our Review of Ill Will by J. M. Redmann. A Micky Knight Mystery. Bold Strokes Books Trade Paperback, April 2012.

Available to purchase from …

A New Volume of Mini-Mysteries from Stephen D. Rogers

We have a fondness for mini-mysteries, stories that present evidence — or sometimes lack of evidence — for a crime and then ask the reader to solve them.

Today we noticed that Stephen D. Rogers' third volume of Three-Minute Mysteries was available for free from the Kindle Store and couldn't resist downloading it.

The book includes 25 mysteries, each designed to take only several minutes to read. At the end of each story, you're invited to solve the case or go to the next page to discover the answer.

Though some of the stories have a familiar feel to them, many have an novel twist or something else original about them.

We've previously read a book of short stories by Rogers — Shot to Death — calling it an "entertaining collection, written by an author who clearly knows his craft and, more importantly, his audience." The same applies to this collection of mini-mysteries.

Three volumes are available: Three-Minute Mysteries 1, Three-Minute Mysteries 2, and Three-Minute Mysteries 3. Each is priced at $2.99 and are available as ebooks only. But as of the date and time of this post, the third and most recent volume is available for free.