Kerry Greenwood of Melbourne, Australia, tops today’s Buffet with Cocaine Blues, Book 1 in her “Phryne Fisher” series of mysteries set in the 1920s. This 18-book series was a fabulous success when it debuted in 1989, and the series is just now becoming available in its entirety on Kindle.
In Book 1, Phryne’s off-the-cuff solving of a high-society jewel theft leads her to her first professional gig when a witness asks her to investigate a possible poisoning-in-progress.
Book #2 on today’s list is also by Kerry: Earthly Delights, Book 1 in her “Corinna Chapman” culinary mystery series.
At various times, Kerry has worked as a folk singer, factory hand, director, producer, translator, costume-maker, cook, and is also an attorney. When she’s not writing, she works as a solicitor for the Victorian Legal Aid. For fun, she enjoys reading science fiction, fantasy, and detective novels.
As usual, each book listed here has gone FREE within the past 24 hours, except for the Bargain books in the yellow section below. Warning: Kindle book promotions can end without notice, so before downloading click the link “See Kindle price at Amazon” to verify that the book is still free. (Prices and availability may differ outside USA.)
Cocaine Blues: Phryne Fisher #1
Mystery > Women Sleuths > Historical
Author: Kerry Greenwood
The London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but the Honorable Phryne Fisher—she of the gray-green eyes and diamant garters—is tiring of polite conversations with retired colonels and dances with weak-chinned men. When the opportunity presents itself, Phryne decides it might be amusing to try her hand at becoming a lady detective in Australia.
Immediately upon settling into Melbourne’s Hotel Windsor, Phryne finds herself embroiled in mystery. From poisoned wives and cocaine smuggling, to police corruption and rampant communism—not to mention erotic encounters with the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse—Cocaine Blues charts a crescendo of steamy intrigue, culminating in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.
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Earthly Delights: Corinna Chapman #1
Mystery > Cozy > Culinary
Author: Kerry Greenwood
Corinna Chapman is living her dream. She’s left the buttoned-down world of accounting behind—along with a less-than-lovable husband—to open a bakery in downtown Melbourne. The neighborhood could be nicer—performing CPR on an unconscious junkie is no way for a baker to start her morning—but the neighbors are something else again. Corinna’s bakery, Earthly Delights, is on the ground floor of a particularly eclectic apartment building, whose occupants promise to make life interesting.
A mysterious moralist has taken offense at the building’s professional dominatrix; poisoned pen letters find their way to all residents; suddenly more heroin addicts seem to overdosing than usual; and then there are the vampires. Someone’s got to get to the bottom of it all, and it might as well be Corinna.
Earthly Delights is the first in a delicious new series by the award-winning author of the Phryne Fisher mysteries. A cozy, quirky, unconventional antipodean mystery.
Scavengers (Posadas County #1)
Mystery > Women Sleuths
Author: Steven F Havill
A body is found in the unforgiving New Mexico desert, its face so smashed that identification is impossible. It’s the beginning of a brutal murder spree that will take Posadas County’s new undersheriff, Estelle Reyes-Guzman, into a case with roots on both sides of the border.
Retired Sheriff Bill Gastner, now a state livestock inspector, is still close at hand to provide unerring logic and horse sense as Reyes-Guzman attempts to identify the “Juan” Doe. Another body turns up in a shallow grave, revealing little about the killer, but more about the victims. And when a suspicious fire takes a third life, the terrible twist finally offers the break Estelle has been looking for, one that will lead her back into a harsh, merciless desert where death welcomes all.
Twirty-Something: A Young Woman’s Guide to Giant Underwear
Humor > Essays
Author: Ingrid Reinke
A hilarious new Kindle short from bestselling author and humorist Ingrid Reinke.
On the cold January day when Ingrid Reinke turned 30, she looked back upon the last decade of her life in deep thought before finally shaking her head and mumbling to herself the following insight: “Wow, what a shit show.”
So, she sat down, braless and alone, and penned a collection of laugh-out-loud essays about the ridiculous, shocking and occasionally horrifying things that happen to us as we ungracefully age from 20 to 30, try, semi-successfully, to leave our clueless years behind and become mature, responsible grown-up women.
From weird hairs to boob sweat, OCD to weddings, Twirty-Something swings between a no-holds-barred conversation and a cautionary tale about aging and all the crap that comes along with it.
Sometime instruction manual, sometime commiseration partner, get ready for Reinke’s honest and occasionally potty-mouthed accounts of this tumultuous decade.
So hike up your yoga pants, plop another ice cube in your Pinot Grigio and get ready to laugh at the author, young women in general, and most of all at yourself.
Let Us Prey (Book 1, Gotcha Detective Agency Mysteries)
Mystery > Police Procedurals
Author: Jamie Lee Scott
Mimi Capurro is trying to put her life back together after the sudden death of her husband. Using the skills she learned as a Secret Service agent, she runs the Gotcha Detective Agency, along with her skilled computer forensics partner Charles Parks. Gotcha specializes in executive protection (bodyguards), and tailing cheating spouses.
Nick Christianson is running from the demons of his past, and that has put him back in his old stomping grounds in Salinas, CA. Nick has transferred from the San Francisco Homicide Division and is now adjusting to this new police department.
Mimi never expects to run into her old college flame Nick, when she takes on an executive protection case for New York Times bestselling author Lauren Silke. But when Lauren’s assistant is murdered, the homicide case, along with Mimi, land in Nick’s lap. Will Mimi and Nick be able to solve this murder without killing each other first?
The Defiant Governess (Lessons in Love, Book 1)
Historical Romance > Regency
Author: Andrea Pickens
When the high-spirited Lady Jane Stanhope finds herself facing a marriage ordered by her father, she flees home, disguises herself as “Plain Jane” and lands a governess position to the ward of the reclusive Marquess of Saybrook.
Winning the love of the shy little ward is easy. Sparking arguments between herself and the mysterious Saybrook is delightful fun. But both are putting her heart in danger.
Now she’s caught between desire and her deception, for the most a titled lord can offer to a mere governess is ruin.
The Ghosts of Varner Creek
Mystery > Paranormal
Author: Michael L. Weems
At 87, Solomon “Sol” Mayfield is taken on an otherworldly journey to discover what really happened to his family. Sol has been able to see ghosts ever since his mother and sister mysteriously disappeared when he was a child. When he dies in a nursing home in the second chapter of the novel, it’s only the beginning of his story. He’s reunited with his sister, Sarah, who reveals family secrets he was never able to learn while he was alive.
London Twist: A Delilah Novella
Thrillers > Espionage
Author: Barry Eisler
Regular Price $7.99, Today $0.99
For Delilah, the Mossad’s top seductress, the parameters of the assignment were routine. The contractor: MI6. The objective: infiltrate a terror network, this one operating out of London. The stakes: a series of poison gas attacks on civilian population centers.
There’s just one wrinkle. The target is a woman–as smart, beautiful, and committed as Delilah herself. And for a cynical operative thrust suddenly out of her element, the twists and turns of the spy game are nowhere near as dangerous as the secrets and desires of the human heart.
Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence
Spirituality > Inspirational
Author: Ben Carson M.D.
Regular Price $6.99, Today $0.99
In Think Big, which emanates from the last chapter of his best-selling Gifted Hands, Dr. Ben Carson prescribes his personal formula for success. And who could better advise than one who transformed his own life from that of being a ghetto kid with problems in school to becoming the most celebrated pediatric neurosurgeon in the world?
With an acrostic, Dr. Carson spells out his philosophy of living: T -Talents/time: Recognize as gifts from God H -Hope for good things and be honest I -insight from people and good books N -Be nice to all people K -Knowledge: Recognize as they key to living B -Books: Read them actively I -In-depth learning skills: Develop them G -God: Never get too big for Him — Think Big does not offer pat answers, or promise a life of ease, but it does show how a person should view problems, evaluate them, react to them, and eventually overcome them.
The Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple Mysteries)
Mystery > British Detectives
Author: Agatha Christie
Regular Price $9.99, Today $2.99
The murder of Colonel Protheroe — shot through the head — is a shock to everyone in St Mary Mead, though hardly an unpleasant one. Now even the vicar, who had declared that killing the detested Protheroe would be ‘doing the world at large a favour,’ is a suspect — the Colonel has been dispatched in the clergyman’s study, no less. But the picturesque English village of St Mary Mead is overpopulated with suspects. There is of course the faithless Mrs Protheroe; and there is of course her young lover — an artist, to boot.
Perhaps more surprising than the revelation of the murderer is the detective who will crack the case: ‘a white-haired old lady with a gentle, appealing manner.’ Miss Jane Marple has arrived on the scene, and crime literature’s private men’s club of great detectives will never be the same.
Shame
Mystery > Hard-Boiled
Author: Alan Russell
Regular Price $9.99, Today $0.99
Although it’s been many years since the death of his father—an infamous serial killer known as Shame—Caleb Parker still struggles to free himself from his father’s dark shadow. Caleb wishes only for a normal life without being branded a “killer’s son,” but his dreams are shattered when a new string of murders surfaces that are all too reminiscent of Shame’s terrible killings.
When the police label him the prime suspect, Caleb forges an unlikely partnership with true-crime author Elizabeth Line, a writer whose career began when she survived an encounter with Shame and who then went on to document his life—and death. As the body count begins to pile up, Elizabeth and Caleb come to the conclusion that one of them has been targeted by the killer, and a game of cat and mouse begins as they try to uncover the murderer’s identity before becoming his next victims.
Brutal and unapologetic, Shame draws you into the mind of a serial killer with no chance of escape until the last page is turned.
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
Christian Living > Discipleship
Author: Donald Miller
Regular Price $9.99, Today $2.99
In Donald Miller’s early years, he was vaguely familiar with a distant God. But when he came to know Jesus Christ, he pursued the Christian life with great zeal. Within a few years he had a successful ministry that ultimately left him feeling empty, burned out, and, once again, far away from God. In this intimate, soul-searching account, Miller describes his remarkable journey back to a culturally relevant, infinitely loving God.
For anyone wondering if the Christian faith is still relevant in a postmodern culture.
For anyone thirsting for a genuine encounter with a God who is real.
For anyone yearning for a renewed sense of passion in life.
Blue Like Jazz is a fresh and original perspective on life, love, and redemption.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2