Today's Bestselling Free Kindle MystereBooks (120718)

Here is today's list of the Bestselling Free Kindle Crime Fiction: the top nine mysteries, novels of suspense, and thrillers.

We're using a script to embed an RSS feed from Amazon.com, which is updated hourly, but if you cannot see the box below — or have scripts blocked — you can click on the image to the right or use this link to see the relevant page on Amazon.com.

Telemystery: Production Begins on French Crime Drama Jo

Lagardère Entertainment subsidiary Atlantique Production is set to begin production next week on Jo, the first French production of a television crime drama filmed entirely in English. (The project was previously known as Le Grand.)

The 8-episode series stars Jean Reno as police detective Joachim "Jo" Legrand.

Each episode will feature a different iconic Paris landmark as Jo investigates a series of mysterious murder cases.

The series was created by René Balcer — who has won multiple Edgar Awards for screenplays written for Law & Order and NYPD Blue, as well as an Emmy for producing Law & Order — in collaboration with Franck Ollivier and Malina Detcheva.

Val McDermid to Write Contemporary Version of Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Late last year HarperFiction announced that it was reworking Jane Austen's classic novels into contemporary stories. First to be identified was Joanna Trollope writing Sense and Sensibility, and later Curtis Sittenfeld writing Pride & Prejudice.

Today The Bookseller is reporting that crime novelist Val McDermid will write Northanger Abbey, what may have been Austen's first completed novel but one that wasn't published until after her death in 1818.

"There is so much scope for reinvention in this often misunderstood novel," said editorial director Louisa Joyner. "The idea of Val McDermid breathing life into it by bringing her literary expertise as the pre-eminent crime writer to re-ignite the novel's fear factor is incredibly exciting."

Northanger Abbey is scheduled to be published in Spring 2014.

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare for alerting us to this news.)

Poisoned Pen Press Announces Winner of Discovery Mystery Award

Poisoned Pen Press has announced the winner of its inaugural Discover Mystery™ Award to be Ronald Sharp for his novel No Regrets, No Remorse. (The submitted manuscript was titled Human Pest Control.)

Guest judge Dana Stabenow said, "A Harley-riding hit woman who kills for virtue as well as profit and a Miami lawyer turned sculptor combine forces to butt heads with crooked lawyers, organized crime, and local authorities to track down a murderer. Ronald Sharp had me from the first chapter, a step-by-step account of how to blow up a house … with the bad guy safely inside, of course."

As the winner of the Discover Mystery award, Sharp was recognized with a $1000 cash prize and a publishing contract with Poisoned Pen Press. Poisoned Pen Press will release No Regrets, No Remorse in November 2012.

M. K. Graff, Author of the Nora Tierney English Mysteries

We are delighted to welcome back mystery novelist Marni Graff to Omnimystery News.

Marni is the author of the "Nora Tierney" mysteries, the most recent entry of which is The Green Remains (Bridle Path Press, April 2012 trade paperback).

During Marni's last visit, she wrote about Oxford, the setting for the previous book in this series. Today she tells us the challenges of setting a novel in a different country.

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Many writing books tell writers that setting often functions as a character in itself. For me, it's the world that my character's inhabit and will affect their actions, so it's a very important decision I make when choosing where my stories will unfold. I'm a big fan of writers who manage to bring me into their setting, and I feel most writers truly wish to have the place a book's characters move in feel real to their readers. Kaui Hart Hemmings, the novelist who wrote The Descendants, set in Hawaii and made into a recent movie with George Clooney, states: "The setting should do more than sit there—it should infiltrate the plot." And my personal hero, P. D. James, always starts her novels by deciding on the setting for its influence on the story she'll develop.

Photo provided courtesy of
Marni Graff

Choosing to set my mystery series in England was a deliberate choice, yet one I knew would present challenges. My American protagonist, Nora Tierney, is a writer who has been living and working there for years, so while it's fine to have her appropriate common Brit words like "loo," her voice has to remain distinctly American versus the other characters in her circle. It's one reason I read UK authors continuously, to keep the cadence and slang of that country in my ear for my other characters. But the challenges go far beyond language.

Having a lifelong affinity for England and its environs, I originally choose Cumbria, the county containing England's glorious Lake District, as the setting for the opening of the Nora Tierney series. My visits to the land of Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter hold a fascination for me. It is one of the most beautiful natural areas I've ever seen, and the book series seemed to belong there. On my last visit, I took photographs and came home armed with maps and brochures to use.

Then life intervened with an opportunity to study at Oxford, and I found myself in the hallowed halls of Exeter College, studying Wilkie Collins and Daphne Du Maurier, two of my favorite writers. Sworn in as a reader at the Bodleian Library, I was able to read the original broadsheet reviews of The Woman in White.

Oxford is a jewel of a town encircled by the lush green countryside of the Thames Valley. Its mellow limestone "dreaming spires," as described by 19th C. poet Matthew Arnold, change color with the light and weather. Magnificently preserved architecture reflects every age from Saxon to present, all exhibited somewhere amongst the federation of forty-odd independent colleges which make up the University of Oxford.

This mix of "town and gown" is noticed at once when visiting: The university has its dons lecturing in sub fusc, scouts bringing students morning tea, an historic tutorial system, and those forbidden grassy quads (with their tradition of only being walked on by dons), while the town has its own muddle of traffic-choked streets, packed with bicycles and pedestrians, pubs and shops. Both exist alongside green meadows with grazing cattle, and rivers teaming with punters and canal boats.

Small wonder then that I fell in love with the place. I could picture Nora here, too, and suddenly the idea for a new mystery, one that had Oxford at its heart, took over. I set aside my original idea for a Lake District manuscript and started writing The Blue Virgin, a combination of cozy and police procedural. Trying to clear her best friend, Val Rogan, of the suspicion she has murdered her partner, Bryn Wallace, Nora quickly becomes embroiled in the murder investigation, to the dismay of DI Declan Barnes, the senior investigating officer. And did I mention Nora is four months pregnant with her dead fiance's baby?

I took great care to be accurate in describing Oxford's history and the colleges, as well as the various locations and sites my characters visit. After all, this is the town that gave the world Lewis Carroll, penicillin, two William Morrises, and graduates spread across the centuries whose influences are still felt. A very short list includes: Shelley, Tolkien, Browning, C. S. Lewis, Oscar Wilde, T. S. Eliot, and Christopher Wren. More modern grads you will recognize include Dorothy Sayers, Stephen Hawkings, Richard Burton, Indira Gandhi, Hugh Grant and Val McDermid.

Oxford exudes mystery, as any Inspector Morse fan can tell you. I knew that readers would be quick to point out any factual errors I made. I carefully described favorite student pubs, shops, and the wonderful Covered Market, and tried to give the reader the sense of that ancient town, and how living in it affects Nora's actions.

When I came home to write The Blue Virgin, I kept an enlargement of the town map taped to my desk — no sense describing a cobbled lane if I had the name wrong. I'd brought home research material with me, which I referred to often, as well as my photo album from the trip. My characters move within the real town, have tea at The Parsonage, and brunch at The Randolph Hotel. Only a few settings, such as Nora's flat, are fictional.

One sticking point was details of the police station. The series is a mix of police procedural and cozy; the main points of view are from the detective who is the senior investigation officer on the case, Declan Barnes, and my gal, Nora. I'd walked past St. Aldate's station and noted its position on my map. But now I needed to get inside it—and I was home in North Carolina at this point.

Google to the rescue. I found the email for the Thames Valley Police Constabulary, and emailed someone with a request that went something like this: Would someone in Oxford's St. Aldate's station be willing to answer a few questions via email for my mystery novel, in return for an acknowledgment in the completed novel?

Two days later I had my answer: The Chief Superintendent himself would be happy to answer my questions. With my contact established, I was able to accurately describe the interior of the station, and learned that the CID (Criminal Investigation Department) suffered through the summer heat on a non-air-conditioned upper floor. When one of my characters is detained in a holding cell overnight, she is kept awake by the clang of the noisy gates that lead to the station's parking lot. Now I felt secure, but my Afterword in the book indicates which areas are fictional, so that readers won't be sending me emails that the Artist's Cooperative I've described doesn't exist.

When I left Oxford, I stayed in the Lake District for an additional week to gather information for the future sequel and took updated pictures to refresh my memories from my previous trips there. I'd chosen the village of Bowness-on-Windermere on the shore of England's largest lake for the next book and stayed in a B&B there. I talked to shop owners, visited pubs, and wrote down some of the Cumbrian slang I heard.

By the time The Blue Virgin was in print and I started writing The Green Remains, I'd moved Nora to this Cumbrian setting. One of the first things I accomplished this time was to find my local contact. Newly retired Steve Sharpe of the Kendal Station, Cumbria Constabulary, did the honors, and here I struck gold.

Steve grew up in the area, and is something of a local naturalist and fisherman. Besides being able to answer my questions about policing and proper titles for everyone from my detective to the pathologist, he gave me wonderful information about things like: what is in bloom in autumn? What birds would be around? What is the weather like at that time of year? Steve has become a long-distance email friend, is now retired, and is still answering my questions, as I start writing the third book in the series, The Scarlet Wench.

The last bit of assistance I've had in both of these books is a terrific copyeditor, Giordana Segneri, who also does my layout design and creates my eye-catching covers. She'll be working on my manuscript and I'll get an email along the lines of: "Google maps says that walk Davey takes is really over a mile and he couldn't get to the bakery in three minutes" — and I am smart enough to adjust my text accordingly.

There is a wealth of information available on the Internet about anywhere in the world, and a writer with a good imagination can probably do any setting justice. I do feel experiencing the real place at least once gives a writer the smells, sense of color and light, and discreet feel for a place that research would deny. Setting isn't just good description—it is the world your specific people inhabit, and it has to support them and define them. But backed up with good research, a detailed map, and a cooperative local contact, any writer can make a setting come to life.

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A former writer for seven years with "Mystery Review" magazine, Marni Graff has interviewed Ian Rankin, Deborah Crombie, Val McDermid, and her mentor, P. D. James, amongst many others. A member of Sisters in Crime, she runs the Writers Read program in North Carolina, and is a founding member of Coastal Carolina Mystery Writers.

She is also the co-author of Writing in a Changing World, a primer for modern writers to find their writing group. Her poetry was most recently published in A Tribute to Amelia Earhart and her creative nonfiction most recently seen in Southern Women's Review.

Graff's English series features American children's book writer Nora Tierney. The Blue Virgin is set in Oxford; The Green Remains is set in the Lake District.

Visit Marni Graff online at her weblog, AuntieMWrites.

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About The Green Remains:

American writer Nora Tierney is living at Ramsey Lodge in England's Lake District, anticipating two life-changing events: the publication of her first children's book and the birth of her first child.

Choosing a name for her son and checking proof pages with her illustrator, Simon Ramsey, fill her days — until a morning stroll along Lake Windemere leads her to discover the corpse of the heir to Clarendon Hall. When Simon is implicated in the death, Nora dives headfirst into the murder investigation to discover the real killer.

As the body count rises, Nora and her unborn child will face risks and perils she could never anticipate.

Hide and Seek by Jenny Hilborne is Today's Fourth Featured Free MystereBook

MystereBooks is pleased to feature Hide and Seek by Jenny Hilborne as today's fourth 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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Hide and Seek by Jenny Hilborne
A Mac Jackson Mystery
Publisher: Severn Press

This is the second mystery in this series featuring the San Francisco homicide detective.

About Hide and Seek (from the publisher): Halloween. A group of friends gather at a mansion and decide to play a game. When one of them disappears and a large pool of blood is found on the grounds, Mac Jackson is called out to investigate. Two days later, the body is discovered. As Jackson questions the guests, he uncovers old hostilities, secretive pasts, and the victim’s ties to another unusual death. At the center of it all is the lingerie bar, where the victim once worked. Are the girls in some sort of danger? Who is the thug with the scar? His best chance at solving the case hinges on an uncooperative source and Jackson must work fast, before it’s too late and his source disappears.

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 Kindle Edition Download Link.

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

The Concert Killer by R. J. McDonnell is Today's Third Featured Free MystereBook

MystereBooks is pleased to feature The Concert Killer by R. J. McDonnell 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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The Concert Killer by R. J. McDonnell
A Jason Duffy Mystery
Publisher: Killeena Publishing

This is the third mystery in this series featuring the San Diego PI. In our review of the book, we said, "Duffy takes the reader on a behind-the-scenes look at the music industry, this time at all that is required to promote a band and to put on an event. Much of it is interesting and informative, and serves to provide a number of alternate suspects (and subplots) for Duffy to pursue."

About The Concert Killer (from the publisher): A religious fanatic serial killer, who hates rock music, tries to shut down the concert industry. A group of independent concert promoters hire private investigator Jason Duffy and his staff of former outpatient mental health clients to catch him. The killer believes that God rewards His favorites with the most money, and keeps score of his victims on the back of a dollar bill. Jason uses his background as a counselor and club musician to battle his cleverest and most twisted adversary ever.

Read our review of The Concert Killer by R. J. McDonnell.

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 Kindle Edition Download Link.

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

Confessions by Ryne Douglas Pearson is Today's Second Featured Free MystereBook

MystereBooks is pleased to feature Confessions by Ryne Douglas Pearson 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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Confessions by Ryne Douglas Pearson
Publisher: Schmuck & Underwood

About Confessions (from the publisher): Five years after his sister, Katie, was murdered, Chicago Police Chaplain Father Michael Jerome has moved on with his life. But he has never forgotten that terrible time. Has never stopped wondering who killed her.

And why.

When a dying criminal's confession points Michael toward answers to these questions, he embarks on a journey of discovery that takes him from the halls of Congress to death row at an Indiana prison, and ultimately leads him to Christine Wheeler. A friend from his sister's past, she expresses doubts about the circumstances of Katie's murder. Doubts that force Michael down a path where revelations shatter a lifetime of illusions held about those closest to him, and uncover a web of deceit crafted to keep a dark truth from ever being known.

But every secret he uncovers, every lie he unravels, leads him to realize that someone is desperate for the past to stay buried.

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 Kindle Edition Download Link.

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

Take the Monkeys and Run by Karen Cantwell is Today's Featured Free MystereBook

MystereBooks is pleased to feature Take the Monkeys and Run by Karen Cantwell 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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Take the Monkeys and Run by Karen Cantwell
A Barbara Marr Mystery
Publisher: CreateSpace

About Take the Monkeys and Run (from the publisher): Film lover Barbara Marr is a typical suburban mom living the typical suburban life in her sleepy little town of Rustic Woods, Virginia. Typical, that is until she sets out to find the missing link between a bizarre monkey sighting in her yard and the bone chilling middle-of-the-night fright fest at the strangely vacant house next door.

When Barb talks her two friends into some seemingly innocent Charlie's Angels-like sleuthing, they stumble upon way more than they bargained for and uncover a piece of neighborhood history that certain people would kill to keep on the cutting room floor.

Enter sexy PI Colt Baron, Barb's ex-boyfriend who would love to be cast as new leading man, filling the role just vacated by her recently estranged husband, Howard. When Colt flies in from out of town to help Barb, events careen out of control and suddenly this mini-van driving mother of three becomes a major player in a treacherous and potentially deadly FBI undercover operation.

It's up to her now. With little time to spare, she and she alone, must summon the inner strength necessary to become a true action heroine and save the lives of those she loves. The question is can she get them out alive before the credits roll?

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 Kindle Edition Download Link.

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

New Poster for Lawless

A new, very striking, poster for the crime thriller Lawless has been released by the studio (right; click for larger image).

The film is based on the true story of the infamous Bondurant Brothers: bootlegging siblings who made a run for the American Dream in Prohibition-era Virginia.

In this epic outlaw tale, inspired by true-life tales of author Matt Bondurant's family in his novel The Wettest County In The World, the loyalty of three brothers — played by Shia Labeouf, Jason Clarke, and Tom Hardy — is put to the test against the backdrop of the nation's most notorious crime wave.

Directed by John Hillcoat from an adapted screenplay by Nick Cave, Lawless opens in US theaters August 29th, 2012.

Diana Gabaldon's Outlander Novels to be Adapted for Television

Twenty-one years ago Diana Gabaldon's debut novel was published. Titled Outlander, it was the first of seven books in this popular series of historical romance/adventure novels.

Today we're learning (via Deadline) that the series is being adapted for television by Ron Moore for Sony Pictures.

We probably would have given this story a pass except we recognized the author's name in some sort of mystery context … she's also the author of the "Lord John Grey" mysteries. The character plays a minor role in the "Outlander" books, but in 2008 Gabaldon gave him his own series, starting with Lord John and the Private Matter, in which he must investigate the brutal murder of a comrade-in-arms.

But back to Outlander, which opens in 1945. Claire Randall is traveling with her husband when she touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is hurled back in time to a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord 1743. Catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, she soon realizes that an alliance with James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, might be the only way to survive.

The series is currently being shopped to the various cable networks.

Game of Thrones Comic-Con Poster, Recap Video

We missed seeing this striking black and white poster for Game of Thrones when it was released last week at Comic-Con (right; click for slightly larger image).

HBO also released a 5-plus minute Season 2 recap — one that does contain spoilers! — that we've embedded below.

Based on the epic fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones will return on March 31st, 2013, with the premiere of its third season. The storyline will follow the first half of the third book in the series, A Storm of Swords.

Banner Poster for Gangster Squad

A new banner-sized poster for Gangster Squad has been released by the studio (right; click for larger image). The use of color and styling in this poster is amazing, giving it a real sense of time and place. Which is …

Los Angeles, 1949. Ruthless, Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) runs the show in this town, reaping the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, the guns, the prostitutes and — if he has his way — every wire bet placed west of Chicago. And he does it all with the protection of not only his own paid goons, but also the police and the politicians who are under his control. It's enough to intimidate even the bravest, street-hardened cop … except, perhaps, for the small, secret crew of LAPD outsiders led by Sgt. John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) and Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), who come together to try to tear Cohen's world apart.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer from a screenplay adapted from the yet-to-be-published book of the same title by Paul Lieberman (Gangster Squad, St. Martin's Press August 2012 hardcover), the film opens in US theaters on September 7th. Watch a trailer below.

First Teaser Poster, Trailer for Da Vinci's Demons

The first teaser poster (right; click for slightly larger image) and trailer (below) for the original Starz series Da Vinci's Demons has been released. The poster's tagline: "History (His Story) is a Lie."

Created by David S. Goyer, it seems the series will have a number of cross-genre themes: fantasy, mystery, speculative history, and more.

Da Vinci's Demons stars Tom Riley as the young Leonardo da Vinci, whose "untold" story will unfold during the series' season. "In a world where thought and faith are controlled, [he] fights to set knowledge free. The tortured genius defies authority and hurls himself into the future, forever changing the fate of mankind."

There is no specific premiere date, only "Spring 2013".

This Week's New Games of Mystery and Suspense — and more — from Big Fish Games (120717)

Here is this week's list of new games — many of which include elements of mystery and suspense — available to purchase and download from Big Fish Games.

We're using a script to embed an RSS feed from Big Fish Games, which is updated daily, but if you cannot see the box below — or have scripts blocked — you can use this link to see the relevant page on BigFishGames.com.