Still Life with Murder by P. B. Ryan is Today's Featured Free Kindle Mystery

MystereBooks is pleased to feature a mystery title that is currently available in Kindle eBook format for free from Amazon.com. 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 download it today!

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Still Life with Murder by P. B. Ryan
A Gilded Age Mystery with Nell Sweeney (1st in series)
Berkley (Kindle eBook)
Download Link

About Still Life with Murder (from the publisher): Boston, 1868: The wealthy are enjoying the height of the Gilded Age, a time of opulence for many ... but not all. Nell Sweeney, a young Irish immigrant, knows what it is to have nothing. But when she earns a coveted position as governess to the wealthy Hewitts, Nell discovers that deadly secrets often lurk beneath society's gilded surface.

The two eldest Hewitt boys were thought to have been killed in the Civil War some three years ago. But one winter's day, the family hears word that their William is, in fact, alive and in jail for having killed a man ...

Enraged at his son's deception and convinced of his guilt, August Hewitt is determined to see William hang and thus forbids his wife from aiding Will in any way. But Viola Hewitt believes her son is innocent and begs Nell to help her exonerate him. With few leads and even less time, Nell must rely on her wits and her knowledge of the city's dark underbelly to uncover the truth ... before the hangman's noose tightens around William Hewitt's throat ...

Read the first chapter(s) of Still Life with Murder below. Use the Aa button to adjust the display settings (font size, line spacing, word density).

Don Winslow to Write Prequel to Savages

Crime novelist Don Winslow will write a prequel to his bestselling novel Savages, which was optioned for film by director Oliver Stone a year or so ago.

In the book, part-time environmentalist and philanthropist Ben and his ex-mercenary buddy Chon run a Laguna Beach — based marijuana operation, reaping significant profits from their loyal clientele. In the past when their turf was challenged, Chon took care of eliminating the threat. But now they may have come up against something that they can’t handle—the Mexican Baja Cartel wants in, and sends them the message that a "no" is unacceptable. When they refuse to back down, the cartel escalates its threat, kidnapping Ophelia, the boys’ playmate and confidante. O’s abduction sets off a dizzying array of ingenious negotiations and gripping plot twists that will captivate readers eager to learn the costs of freedom and the price of one amazing high.

The film adaptation, production of which begins next month, stars John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, and Blake Lively as Ophelia with Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch as Ben and Chon, respectively.

(Source: Deadline|New York.)

Lost Arthur Conan Doyle Novel to be Published

A lost novel from Arthur Conan Doyle -- indeed, his first novel -- will be published more than 125 years after it was written. Titled The Narrative of John Smith, is tells the story of a 50-year-old man confined to his room by gout, espousing on all sorts of subjects in conversations with his visitors.

"[Arthur Conan Doyle] wrote it in 1883 and 1884, when he was starting to try to establish himself in the medical profession and as a writer," said Rachel Foss of the British Library, which is publishing this book this coming November. "He sent it to a publisher, but it got lost in the post, so he decided to try and redo it from memory. The manuscript we have is the novel as reconstructed from memory, and it stops around chapter six." Though loose in terms of character and plot, Foss adds that it does provide "some hints towards the Sherlock Holmes stories to come ... and represents his first attempt to make the transition from short story writer to novelist."

Conan Doyle had already succeeded in having a number of short stories published in leading magazines of the day, such as Blackwood’s, All the Year Round, London Society, and the Boy’s Own Paper -- but as was the accepted practice of literary journals of the time, his stories had been published anonymously. Thus, Conan Doyle knew that in order to truly establish his name as a writer, he would have to write a novel.

A Study in Scarlet, his first novel to feature Sherlock Holmes, was published several years later in 1887.

(Source: The Guardian.)

Telemystery: White Collar and Covert Affairs Return Tuesday, June 7th

One of our favorite series returns tomorrow, Tuesday June 7th, for a third season: White Collar on USA Network (9 PM ET/PT).

The series stars Matt Bomer as Neal Caffrey, a con man (and ex-con), who is employed by the FBI to help solve ... you guessed it ... white collar crimes. His handler is Peter Burke, played by Tim DeKay.

In the third season premiere, titled "On Guard", a notorious thief, despite successfully escaping after having robbed the Federal Reserve, returns to retrieve the stash he left behind.

The second season of Covert Affairs follows (at 10 PM ET/PT), in which Annie Walker (Piper Perabo) is assigned as the handler for Nadia Levandi, a professional tennis player from Estonia and long-term CIA asset. But when Nadia tells the CIA to leave her alone, Annie begins to worry that Nadia is really trying to say that she's in danger.

Watch the First 6 Minutes of True Blood Season 4 Premiere

HBO has been teasing the fourth season of True Blood for some time now, but this is the best yet.

The cable network has put the first 6 minutes of the season premiere online; we've embedded it below.

True Blood, based on the characters created by crime novelist Charlaine Harris, stars Anna Paquin as a telepathic barmaid Sookie Stackhouse in the small Louisiana town of Bon Temps, who has her eyes on the handsome 173-year-old vampire living just up the road.

The fourth season of True Blood premieres Sunday, June 26th at 9 PM (ET/PT).

LA Noire: The Collected Stories Publishes Today ... And It's Free to Download!

L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories is out today, and in a somewhat surprise move, it's free to download! (When we first reported on this book, the pre-order price was 99 cents.)

Rockstar Games has partnered with Mulholland Books to publish this collection of short fiction that ties in to the interactive crime thriller L.A. Noire, released last month exclusively for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Set in 1940s Hollywood, murder, deception and mystery take center stage as readers reintroduce themselves to characters seen in the game. Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Joe Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, Jonathan Santlofer, Duane Swierczynski and Andrew Vachss have contributed stories to this exciting anthology that will appeal to fans of suspense and gamers everywhere.

You can use these links to download L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories ... currently for free, though we don't know how long this special price will last: Amazon Kindle Edition, Barnes & Noble Nook Book Edition, and Apple iBook Edition (available only through the Apple iBooks app).

Freaks, a Rizzoli & Isles Short Story by Tess Gerritsen, Available for Free Download

Crime novelist Tess Gerritsen has a busy July planned!

On July 5th, her ninth Rizzoli and Isles mystery, The Silent Girl, is published. And just a week later, the second season of Rizzoli & Isles, based on her series characters, premieres on TNT. (The first season will be released on DVD on June 28th, and can be pre-ordered from Telemystery: Rizzoli & Isles.)

For fans of her mysteries or the crime drama -- and to promote both -- Gerritsen has written a short story featuring Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles titled "Freaks", which you can download for free!

Rizzoli and Isles have seen their fair share of mortal crimes, but the death of Kimberly Rayner may qualify as inhuman in more ways than one. When corpse of the emaciated seventeen-year-old girl is discovered next to an empty coffin in an abandoned church, mysterious bruises around the throat suggest foul play. Caught fleeing the scene is the victim’s closest friend, Lucas Henry, an equally skeletal, pale teenager who claims he’s guilty only of having a taste for blood — a craving he shared with Kimberly. But the victim’s distraught father doesn’t believe in vampires, only vengeance. And now, another life may be at risk unless Rizzoli and Isles can uncover the astonishing truth.

To download your free copy of "Freaks", which also includes a special preview of The Silent Girl, use this link for the Amazon Kindle edition or this link for the B&N Nook Book edition.

Telemystery: Burn Notice, Leverage, McMillan & Wife, New Tricks, Pretty Little Liars, and White Collar, New This Week on DVD

Telemystery, your source for one of the most comprehensive selections of detective, amateur sleuth, private investigator, and suspense television mystery series, mini-series and made-for-television movies, now available on or coming soon to DVD or Blu-ray disc, is profiling six series being released this week.

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Spies don't get fired ... they get burned.

Burn Notice stars Jeffrey Donovan as Michael Westen, an international spy who suddenly finds himself blacklisted. Back in his hometown of Miami, Michael uses his skills to help people in need ... mostly people who can't get help from the police ... while trying to find out who burned him.

In this fourth season he's joined by Jesse Porter (Coby Bell), a no-nonsense counter-intelligence expert who has been burned himself. Along with go-to guy Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell) and the dangerously sexy Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar), the team takes on a barrage of outlaw biker gangs drug dealers and a worldwide terrorist threat. As tension mounts uneasy alliances are forged, friendships are tested and a lethal game unfolds when Jesse vows to find and kill the one who burned him.

The Burn Notice: Season Four DVD set of 4 discs contain the 18 episodes that originally aired on USA Network from June through August and November through December, 2010.

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Nate Ford (Timothy Hutton) and his team of ex-cons and ex-thieves apply their own unique brand of Leverage to help secure justice for those victimized by the rich and powerful.

The Leverage: Season Three DVD set of 4 discs contain the 16 episodes that originally aired on TNT from June through September 2010 with two additional episodes that aired in December 2010.

The fourth season of Leverage premieres on June 26th.

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San Francisco Police Commission Stewart McMillan (Rock Hudson) and Sally McMillan (Susan Saint James) return for another season of mystery in McMillan and Wife. Nancy Walker provided comic relief in the form of their housekeeper, Mildred, with backup to the Commissioner supplied by the able Sgt. Charles Enright (John Schuck).

As one of the rotating Mystery Movies seen on NBC, McMillan and Wife aired six 90-minute episodes this season. (The other rotating series were Columbo and McCloud.)

The McMillan and Wife: Season Three DVD set of 3 discs contain these six mystery movies, that aired from September 1973 through February 1974.

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Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman (Amanda Redman) leads a team of retired police officers to solve cold case crimes in New Tricks. Her team includes the obsessive Brian Lane (Alun Armstrong), the depressed Jack Halford (James Bolam), and ladies man Gerry Standing (Dennis Waterman), men who remember fondly "how it used to be" and are often frustrated by "how it is now".

The New Tricks: Season Four DVD set of 3 discs contain the eight episodes that originally aired on BBC during April and May, 2007.

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Rosewood is a perfect little town. So quiet and pristine, you'd never guess it holds so many secrets. And some of the ugliest ones belong to the prettiest girls in town in Pretty Little Liars.

When their best friend Alison mysteriously vanishes, four girls believe their secrets are safe forever. But when they begin to receive threatening messages from someone named "A," the truth may be only one text away. Filled with mystery, scandal, intrigue and nail-biting suspense, Pretty Little Liars is based on the bestselling book series for young adults by Sara Shepard.

The Pretty Little Liars: Season One DVD set of 5 discs contain the 22 episodes that originally aired on ABC Family during the summer of 2010 and spring of 2011. The second season of the series premieres June 14th at 8 PM (ET/PT).

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Matt Bomer plays sophisticated con man (and ex-con) Neal Caffrey, assisting the FBI solve crimes in White Collar. His agency handler is Peter Burke, played by Tim DeKay.

At the start of this season, Neal is reeling from the death of his girlfriend. He struggles to unlock the secret behind a mysterious music box and find Kate's killer even as his partnership with Peter begins to crumble.

The White Collar: Season Two DVD set of 4 discs contain the 16 episodes that aired on USA Network from July through September 2010 and January through March 2011. The third season of White Collar premieres this week on Tuesday, June 7th at 9 PM (ET/PT).

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Visit the Telemystery website to discover more television mystery series currently available on and coming soon to DVD and Blu-ray disc.

Mystery Godoku Puzzle for June 06, 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 C D E L O S W Y

The 3rd sci-fi crime thriller in the Torchwood series, written by Andy Lane, has this title (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!

Andrew Gross's The Blue Zone eBook Available to Pre-Order for 99 Cents

Andrew Gross's second stand-alone thriller, Eyes Wide Open, publishes next month and to help promote it, HarperCollins is offering the author's first standalone, The Blue Zone, for just 99 cents (digital download only). And as a bonus, you'll receive an exclusive excerpt from Eyes Wide Open!

The Blue Zone is currently available to pre-order from Amazon.com (Kindle download link) and Barnes&Noble (Nook Book download link), with a publication date of Tuesday, June 7th. Prices can and do change on a moment's notice, so this offer may not be around very long.

Andrew Gross was James Patterson's co-author on a number of books before setting out on his own with The Blue Zone in 2007. He is also the author of three mysteries featuring Greenwich (Connecticut) police detective Ty Hauck.

In The Blue Zone, Kate Raab's life seems almost perfect: her boyfriend, her job, her family ... until her father runs into trouble with the law. His only recourse is to testify against his former accomplices in exchange for his family's placement in the Witness Protection Program. But one of them gets cold feet. In a flash, everything Kate can count on is gone.

Now, a year later, her worst fears have happened: Her father has disappeared—into what the WITSEC agency calls "the blue zone"—and someone close to him is found brutally murdered. With her family under surveillance, the FBI untrustworthy, and her father's menacing "friends" circling with increasing intensity, Kate sets off to find her father—and uncover the secrets someone will kill to keep buried.

Review: Over the Edge by Brandilyn Collins

Over the Edge by Brandilyn Collins. Non-series. B&H Books Trade Paperback, May 2011.

This captivating novel of vengeance is a real page-turner. Though a fictional story, there are enough facts about Lyme Disease and its effect on humans, presented as a foundation to the suspenseful plot, that make it all the more frightening in the end.

Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: Over the Edge by Brandilyn Collins.

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Read the first chapter(s) of Over the Edge below. Use the Aa settings button to adjust text size, line spacing, and word density.

In the Belly of Jonah by Sandra Brannan is Today's Featured Free NookBook Mystery

MystereBooks is pleased to feature a mystery title that is currently available as a NookBook for free from Barnes&Noble. 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 download it today!

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In the Belly of Jonah by Sandra Brannan
A Liv Bergen Mystery (1st in series)
(NookBook)
Download Link

About In the Belly of Jonah (from the publisher): Liv Bergen becomes involved in the investigation of the murder of Jill Brannigan, a summer intern at the limestone mine Liv manages near Fort Collins, Colorado. In doing so, she inadvertently puts her friends, her family, and herself at risk of being swallowed in the belly of a madman bloated with perverse appetites for women, surrealistic art, and renown.

Perhaps a bit too daring (and at times irreverent) for her own good, "Boots," as Liv's eight siblings call her, soon realizes she has a knack for outsmarting and tracking down the Venus de Milo murderer -- and she enjoys it!

Read our Review of In the Belly of Jonah by Sandra Brannan at Mysterious Reviews.

(Also currently available as a free Kindle edition from Amazon.com!)

Reviews of Mystery and Suspense Books for Kids, New This Week on Book Trends (110604)

Book Trends, a review site for young adult and children books, published several new book reviews this past week. We're presenting here a summary of those in the mystery/suspense/thriller category.

Crawling with Zombies by Gerry Conway. The 1st in a new series of graphic novels featuring The Hardy Boys, recommended for readers aged 10 to 12. Lexile measure: N/A. Reviwed by a 6th grade student, who writes, "Don't be alarmed by the cover; it's just make-up tricks and false masks to make teenagers look like zombies! I was hooked right away." (Read the entire review here.)

For more reviews of children and young adult books of all genres, visit Book Trends; their reviews will amaze you! You can also follow Book Trends on Twitter.

June Bug by Jess Lourey is Today's Featured Free Kindle Mystery

MystereBooks is pleased to feature a mystery title that is currently available in Kindle eBook format for free from Amazon.com. 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 download it today!

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June Bug by Jess Lourey
A Mira James Mystery
Midnight Ink (Kindle eBook)
Download Link

About June Bug (from the publisher): Mira James never imagined life after college would be a doublewide trailer outside Battle Lake, Minnesota. Then again, maybe the North Country has more to offer than mosquitoes and broasted chicken.

Local legend claims that a diamond necklace was lost nearly a century ago in Whiskey Lake, not far from the present day Shangri-La resort. Mira, a part-time reporter, goes fishing for the story behind the legend, but her dives turn up more than missing jewelry. Buoyed by frozen Nut Goodies and a diminutive circus performer, the exhilarating search leads to a new mystery to unravel, and puts her face to face with the surfacing of a menacing foe from her past.

Review: Oscar Wilde and the Vampire Murders by Gyles Brandreth

Oscar Wilde and the Vampire Murders by Gyles Brandreth. An Oscar Wilde Mystery. Touchstone Hardcover, May 2011.

This most entertaining mystery has the celebrated poet and playwright investigating a suspicious death, accompanied in part by Arthur Conan Doyle and (pre-Dracula) Bram Stoker, who introduces the others to a subject he's researching and is most relevant to the crime at hand: vampires.

Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: Oscar Wilde and the Vampire Murders by Gyles Brandreth.

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Read the first chapter(s) of Oscar Wilde and the Vampire Murders below. Use the Aa settings button to adjust text size, line spacing, and word density.