What secrets hide behind dying eyes?

With the Christmas and New Year chaos out of the way, it's time for the Lancashire Police Department to put their feet up and return to normality.

But for Detective Brian McDone, there is no respite from the frenzy. An unidentified young woman is found brutally murdered in a seedy section of the city, her body laced with bruises, her sharp fingernails digging into her palms. Her eyes are staring up at something in pure fear.

Nobody knows who she is.

As Brian and his team begin to piece together the clues, the answers lead him to places he would least expect. The further Brian digs, one question soon becomes apparent: who can he trust? The answer, it seems, may be life-threatening.

The first in a new police procedural series from British author Ryan Casey, Dying Eyes is a dark urban detective mystery packed with suspense, and a twisting, turning plot sure to please fans of crime thrillers.

"With twists and turns aplenty, the story is both riveting and horrifying, and it is well-worth reading and re-reading." - T.A. Dean

Eliza Carlisle has the unwanted talent of attracting trouble, in all its forms. That couldn’t be truer than when she moves into the most bizarre apartment building on the planet. Weekly required dinners with the landlord and assigned chores are bad enough, but the rules don’t end there. Top most on the list of requirements is NO physical violence against the others residents.

There have been issues.

In the past.

The young manager, Sonya, claims that hasn’t been a problem recently, but Eliza comes home from her first day of culinary school to find a dead resident, her next door neighbor looking good for the crime, and a cop that seems more interested in harassing her than solving the case.

All Eliza wanted was to escape her past and start over, completely anonymous in a big city. That’s not going to be so easy when the killer thinks she’s made off with a valuable piece of evidence everyone is trying to get their hands on. The ultimatum that she turn it over to save her own life creates a small problem. Eliza has no idea what the killer wants, or where the mysterious object might be.

If she can’t uncover a decades old mystery in time, surviving culinary school will be the least of her problems.

A new, error-free edition!

MURDER IN SLEEPY APPALACHIA. AND PSYCHIC CLUES FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE...

Promise McNeal is startled awake one night by a jarring dream: she sees a beautiful woman, hanging over a shallow creek, strangled to death with a red scarf. An unsettling image to say the least for a woman who recently left her lucrative job as a psychologist in bustling Atlanta for the mountains of North Carolina, hoping for some peace and quiet. Promise begins to dig into the mystery surrounding the woman’s murder…until a brand new murder occurs...and Promise’s hoped-for peace and quiet flies right out the window.

Promise has always been a little psychic, and a little embarrassed about it. But here in the mountains, the effect seems magnified. Now making her living as a struggling country-store owner, she has to rely on her psychologist’s knowledge of what makes people tick to make her way through the thicket of intrigue within the family of the dead woman.

Along the way, she makes a surprising art world find, and starts to fall in love (maybe, just a little…) with a very attractive new man. Her tentative relationship with Daniel, the father of Susan, her semi-Goth, twenty-something employee, is one of the major delights of this slightly psychic cozy mystery. Both Daniel and Susan are renowned bluegrass musicians and, well…characters. Despite what's right in front of her nose (and what Susan tells her), Promise’s psychic abilities fail her when it comes to mountain men—because Daniel is most definitely “sweet on her,” as Susan attests. And, true to form, opposites attract here—alien as he may seem to this city girl, something deeper is responding.

Meanwhile, there’s that murder mystery. Daniel, despite his endearing over-protectiveness, is able to help out there too, and so is Susan. Allthewhile, Promise’s amusingly sexist friend, Garland Wang, provides just the right dash of humor.

The fiftyish Promise is an attractive new female sleuth who’s sure to appeal to fans of cozies, especially those by Julia Spencer-Fleming and Louise Penny, and those with a light sprinkling of psychic suspense; admirers of amateur sleuths and their close sisters female private investigators; readers of supernatural suspense and psychic detective fiction of all sorts; and especially to fans of other great North Carolina mystery authors like Margaret Maron, Barbara Neely, Elizabeth Daniels Squire, and Vicki Lane.

When a stranger in Sweetland Cove asks for help... all hexes are off. 

Why did a nun in a seventeenth-century convent flagellate herself until her blood spattered the wall? Why did nuns save a child doomed to death in the Holocaust and who wanted her killed? Who wants a lost head-shaped reliquary that holds something other than a head? And are answers to these questions the key to a terrible modern-day death in a quiet archive?

When American historian Pandora (Dory) Ryan finds a very rare, uncataloged seventeenth century nun’s diary inside a record book at the provincial archives in Avignon, she is thrilled. This is historian’s treasure. But she doesn’t know yet that it will send her on a search that brings about changes in how she feels about her profession, the irrational, and love with a sexy Frenchman. And it will take her from the archive on a dangerous adventure into the countryside of Provence, which, beautiful as it is, has a long and bloody history.

The archive’s dramatis personae: the grumpy archivist, with his paper-clip chains; the gofer, who smokes Gauloises and gets away with far too much; a nun with a sense of humor who harangues high school kids about sex; the nun's glamorous sidekick; a famous American historian, whose requests for documents are inexplicably denied; the eminent professor, destined to fall in love; his nervous graduate student. And that sexy Frenchman, who isn’t who he says he is.

Julian Mercer – his business card reads K & R specialist, but there isn’t much that the former Special Air Service commander won’t do. Ever since his forced retirement, Mercer and his team have been working extensively to negotiate the safe return of kidnapping victims, but that isn’t enough to satisfy Julian’s darker desires. His own life-altering tragedy has left him on the brink of insanity and violence, and only his team and his job can keep him from falling over the edge. But this latest mission could be a game-changer.

Stumbling upon the scene of a botched assassination, Mercer offers to protect Katia Rhoade, a newspaper heiress, from the unidentified killer. But Katia wants more than a bodyguard, she wants a mercenary who will hunt down and kill the animal responsible for nearly murdering her fiancé. Crime, corruption, and dishonesty are commonplace among the rich and powerful, and Mercer has difficulty trusting the police and the Rhoades. But the former SAS is a man of his word.

Violence and mayhem sweep through the city as Mercer and his team race against the clock to stop a contract killer and identify the puppet master. But the hired gun is just a symptom of the underlying disease, and until the man pulling the strings is stopped, a life hangs in the balance. In order to keep his promise, Mercer may have to abandon his morality or lose his life to stop the man responsible.

“A welcome addition to this tough genre.” The New York Times Book Review

“In recent years women private eyes have become big business, as anyone who’s been following the fortunes of Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky can attest. Thanks to their success, the way has been opened for many other women to write mysteries uniquely their own. A fine example is Janet Dawson.” The Denver Post

“Janet Dawson’s new kid on the block, Jeri Howard, another Californian, is a kindred spirit of Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op character.” USA Weekend

Filipino-American professor Lito Manibusan is dead, murdered in a San Francisco parking garage. His body was found by a fellow Cal State history professor – whose daughter is Oakland private eye Jeri Howard.

Several months after the funeral, mystery woman Dolores Cruz shows up on campus, claiming to be the dead man’s widow. Dolly wants the professor’s papers, but they’ve already been turned over to Dr. Manibusan’s next-of-kin.

Jeri discovers the pattern of death and deception leads from the Bay Area’s Filipino-American community all the way back to the Philippines and World War II.

After all, the past never dies. It’s just covered up.

***Special Launch Price - Very Limited Time***

Sheriff Ray Pacheco returns from his introduction in The Bootlegger’s Legacy to start a new chapter as a private investigator, along with his partners: Tyee Chino, often-drunk Apache fishing guide, and Big Jack, bait shop owner and philosopher.

The trio are pulled into a mystery immediately when an abandoned show dog appears at Ray’s cabin and the dog’s owner is reported missing. Ray and his team pursue leads that bring them into confrontations with the local sheriff, the mayor, and the FBI, while in the meantime two bodies are found—neither of which is the missing woman.

From New York Times bestselling author Deanna Chase, the first book in the Pyper Rayne series (a spin-off of the Jade Calhoun Series).

All Pyper Rayne—medium and coffee shop owner—wanted was the perfect vintage dress. What she got was a dead shop owner and a sexy ghost who’s suddenly everywhere—at her shop, in her car, and even lounging in her bedroom. But he’s not just any ghost. He’s a witch and able to appear in solid form…sometimes. If only he'd stop disappearing on her.

And Pyper needs his help. When she becomes target numero uno and the prime suspect in the shop owner’s death, it appears her ghost holds the key to solving the murder. In between stolen kisses, Pyper will need to get to the bottom of all of his secrets if she wants to stay alive and out of jail…and maybe finally get that date he keeps promising her.

"Carter's writing is on target." - Publishers Weekly

A curmudgeon. An iconoclast. A loner. That's how people describe Garrison Gage, and that's when they're being charitable. 

After his wife's brutal murder in New York, and Gage himself is beaten nearly to death, the crippled private investigator retreats three thousand miles to the quaint coastal town of Barnacle Bluffs, Oregon. He spends the next five years in a convalescent stupor, content to bide his time filling out crossword puzzles and trying to forget that his wife's death is his fault. But all that changes when he discovers the body of a young woman washed up on the beach, and his conscience draws him back into his old occupation - forcing him to confront the demons of his own guilt before he can hope to solve the girl's murder.

Scam Man is the Thirteenth mystery in the highly entertaining Dev Haskell Private Investigator Series. Morton, the golden retriever is back just in time to turn Dev's dating experience with gorgeous AJ into an absolute disaster. Meanwhile his longtime "friend with benefits" Heidi is being showered with jewels and romantic getaways. Dev is investigating Austin Hackett, a scheming attorney who has run scams on everything from porn to disability lawsuits. He can set everything right if only Swindle Lawless and Woofy Barker can keep their act together. Assaults, shootings, scams, broken hearts and murder combine for more humorous entertainment from the master of the bizarre, Mike Faricy. If you like Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey and Elmore Leonard-make room for one more!

When an old-time bootlegger dies and leaves his son Mike a cryptic letter hinting at millions in hidden cash, Mike and his friend Joe embark on a journey that takes them through three states and 50 years of history. What they find goes beyond money and transforms them both.

This is an action-packed adventure story that partially takes place in the early 1950s. It all starts with a key, embossed with the letters CB, and a cryptic reference to Deep Deuce, a neighborhood once filled with hot jazz and gangs of bootleggers. Out of those threads is woven a tapestry of history, romance, drama, and mystery; connecting two generations and two families in the adventure of a lifetime.

Sue Grafton ups the ante for private investigator Kinsey Millhone like never before in this “taut, terrifying, transfixing”* #1 New York Times bestselling mystery in the Alphabet series.

Kinsey Millhone's elderly neighbor, Gus Vronsky, may have been the original inspiration for the term “Grumpy Gus.” A miser and a hoarder, Gus is so crotchety that after he takes a bad fall, his only living relative is anxious to find someone to take care of him and get back home as soon as she can.

To help, Kinsey runs a check on the applicant, Solana Rojas. Social security, driver's license, nursing certification: It all checks out. And it sounds like she did a good job for her former employers. So Kinsey gives her the thumbs-up, figuring Gus will be the ideal assignment for this diligent, experienced caregiver.

And the real Solana Rojas was indeed an excellent caregiver. But the woman who has stolen her identity is not, and for her, Gus will be the ideal victim...

“The best and strongest book in the series...Solana is one of the most evil, calculating characters Grafton has created.”—*USA Today

From the author of Blind River and the Absence of Screams comes a new mystery you won't be able to put down!

Norman Green is a disgraced former professional athlete turned private investigator. He has created a career out of working for those the police have turned their back on. The only people he won't work with are child abusers, rapists, and journalists.

However, when Robin Sweetwater, a journalist working for the same paper that destroyed Norman's athletic career, comes begging for help, Norman finds himself dragged into the same web of lies and deception that destroyed his life once before.

In order to find the truth surrounding the alleged suicide of Robin's younger brother, a star athlete himself, Norman will need to wade through the dark depths of his past and unravel a conspiracy stretching farther than he could ever have imagined.

Praise for Ben Follows's novels:

"Explosive, extraordinary and engrossing; this is how I would describe this exceptional book. The Absence of Screams is a sensational crime/thriller novel that chilled me to my core from beginning to end."

"What a great book. I found this book in my hands every time I had a spare minute. "

"I couldn't go to sleep until I finished this book."

"Ben Follows does it again; another excellent read by an accomplished writer."

July 8, 1921. Ireland.
A British Officer is shot dead on a remote hillside south of Dublin.
November 22, 2015. United Kingdom.
Former police detective, Jayne Sinclair, now working as a genealogical investigator, receives a phone call from an adopted American billionaire asking her to discover the identity of his real father.
How are the two events linked?
Jayne Sinclair has only three clues to help her: a photocopied birth certificate, a stolen book and an old photograph. And it soon becomes apparent somebody else is on the trail of the mystery. A killer who will stop at nothing to prevent Jayne discovering the secret hidden in the past
The Irish Inheritance takes us through the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Irish War of Independence, combining a search for the truth of the past with all the tension of a modern-day thriller.
It is the first in a series of novels featuring Jayne Sinclair, genealogical detective.


Here's what people are saying about The Irish Inheritance:

‘You won't want to put it down. Great summer read.’

‘The final twist was a masterstroke.'

‘What a great story!’

‘I absolutely loved this book!’

‘Being a genealogist myself I loved Jayne Sinclair.’

‘Can’t wait for the next one’

‘Wonderful saga.’

‘Very well done. The author had me from the first chapter.’

‘For anyone who loves history or Ireland!’

‘This is a brilliant well told story. Very well written and had me gripped all the way through.’

‘Very good. I couldn’t put it down.’

A campsite killer. An off-the-record investigation. For two small-town detectives, murder is only the beginning…

Chief Sam Mason and Sergeant Jody Harris don't have the luxury of being off the clock. When a drowning disrupts the funeral of a fellow detective, they have no choice but to leave early. After the body is pulled ashore, Sam and Jody suspect the camper's death was no accident…

As they attempt to solve their co-worker's own suspicious death, the detectives parse through the motives of the drowning victim's friends. With a nosy cop on their trail and a mayor desperate to restore quiet to their small town, Sam and Jo attempt to get beyond the cover-up. Just when they think they can rest after solving one murder, a shocking discovery proves that sometimes even your most trusted allies could be telling lies.

Telling Lies is the first book in the riveting Sam Mason mystery series. If you like police procedurals and complex characters, then you'll love this twisty whodunnit.

Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller!

For readers of Gillian Flynn and Tana French comes one of the decade’s most anticipated debuts, to be published in thirty-six languages around the world and already in development as a major film from Fox: a twisty, powerful Hitchcockian thriller about an agoraphobic woman who believes she witnessed a crime in a neighboring house.

It isn’t paranoia if it’s really happening . . .

Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.

Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, mother, their teenaged son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.

Twisty and powerful, ingenious and moving, The Woman in the Window is a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that recalls the best of Hitchcock.

“Evanovich…with a dash of CSI.” – Publishers Weekly (review of Lucky Stiff)

A TWO-BOOK LUCKY STARTER SET!

Book One: Wanna Get Lucky?
AND
Book Two: Lucky Stiff

Haven’t met Lucky yet? Here’s your chance!

Everyone Has a Hidden Talent

For Lucky O’Toole it’s murder…solving it.

Surviving in Sin City takes cunning, a pair of five-inch heel, and a wiseass attitude. Lucky has mastered them all and has a pair of legs she uses to kick butt and turn heads.

As the Chief Problem Solver for the Babylon, Las Vegas’s most over-the-top destination, mischief is in her job description.

She’s good at her job.

She’s less good at life. But who has time for a life when there’s a killer on the lose?


READING ORDER

Wanna Get Lucky? (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series Book 1)
Lucky Stiff (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series Book 2)
Lucky in Love (A Lucky O'Toole Original Novella 1)
So Damn Lucky (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series Book 3)
Lucky Bang (A Lucky O'Toole Original Novella 2)
Lucky Now and Then: Parts One and Two (A Lucky O'Toole Original Novella 3-4)
Lucky Bastard (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series Book 4)
Lucky Catch (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series Book 5)
Lucky Flash (A Lucky O'Toole Original Novella 5)
Lucky Break (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series Book 6)
Lucky the Hard Way (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series Book 7)
Lucky Ride (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series Book 8)
 

NEW ORLEANS JAZZFEST PRODUCER STABBED! TEENAGE SISTER MISSING!

Everybody loved easygoing Ham Brocato, producer of the famed New Orleans JazzFest. So how did he end up stabbed to death on his kitchen floor?

New Orleans Homicide Detective Skip Langdon just happens to be on hand when Ham’s body is discovered in the middle of his own party the evening before the Fest. To complicate the already murky case, the victim's sixteen-year-old blues musician sister has disappeared, and Skip suspects that if the young woman isn't the murderer, she's in mortal danger from the person who is. So Task One is finding Melody, ambitious, unhappy at home, and determined to break from her family.

As she probes the victim's tangled relationships, Skip finds a Southern family to rival any in Tennessee Williams, including Ham's live-in lover, feisty and swiftly rising star Ti-Belle Thiebaud; his father George, enmeshed with family members in a bitter disagreement over the family's lucrative Po' Boy chain; and Patty, his distraught stepmother.

In this tale of southern kinships gone awry, she's assisted by her long-distance love, Steve Steinman, and her gay landlord, Jimmy Dee. Meanwhile, Melody's dangerous yet exhilarating journey tugs at the heart and raises the pulse rate.

Fans of Laura Lippman, Ace Atkins, James Lee Burke, and the HBO series TREME will adore this satisfying and complex cop whodunit. And fans of YA fiction will fall in love with Melody!

Excerpt:
“At $250 a pop,” fumed a red-faced man, “you’d think we’d at least get a drink.”

The shrill, uncertain buzz they’d noticed was developing a hysterical note. This was a party that wasn’t fun. Bemused, Skip and Steve worked their way back around to the front.

“Ham I could see,” said Skip. “He could have had to work late—it’s his busiest time. But where’s Ti-Belle?”

“Oh, ‘bout two houses away, I’d say. Approaching at a dead run, having just parked a Thunderbird with a squeal of wheels.”

Skip had heard the squeal, but had paid it no mind. Now she saw a very thin woman coming towards them, hair flying, long legs shining brown, sticking out from a white silk shorts suit. Over one shoulder she carried a lightweight flight bag. Golden-throated Ti-Belle Thiebaud, the fastest-rising star on the New Orleans music scene.

Steve said, “I’d know those legs anywhere.”

She never performed in any garment that wasn’t short, split, slit, or halfway missing. Some said the whole country would know those legs soon. They said she was going to be bigger than large, larger than huge.

Thiebaud was approaching at a dead trot, fast giving way to a gallop. She was wearing huge hoop earrings. She had giant black eyes and shining olive skin, flyaway blond hair that looked utterly smashing with her dark complexion. Her skin clung to her bones, hanging gently, as naturally as hide on a horse.

“How’d Ham get her?” she blurted.

A black man waved at the singer, tried to slow her progress, pretend it was a party: “Hey, Ti-Belle.”

Thiebaud paid him no mind but cast a look at the crowd in general. Skip saw twin wrinkles at the sides of her nose—one day they’d be there permanently if she worried a lot in the meantime.

“Hi, y’all.” She was trying to smile, but it wasn’t working. “Excuse me a minute.” She let herself in and closed the door behind her.

Almost immediately, a scream that could have come from anyone—the hottest Cajun R&B singer in America or any terrified woman—ripped through the nervous buzz.