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JUST BECAUSE HER HUSBAND’S NAKED, DEAD, AND IN A HOTEL BED…
…it might not be what it seems. But there’s that scarf in his mouth. Of course it is.
Given the situation, Kiki Lowenstein can’t help remembering that her (late) husband got her pregnant while cheating on his girlfriend.
>>>True, he did the right thing at the time, and their much-loved daughter Anya is now eleven years old. But suddenly he’s dead, and Kiki’s financially embarrassed—that jerk disinherited his own family!
>>>Time for the timid to toughen up. Passive Kiki transforms herself into a fighter, walking right out of her luxurious life and into a scrapbooking store, where she deftly turns a hobby into a moneymaker. Her new gig goes slightly awry when her late husband’s not-so-ex-girlfriend insults her in public, but that’s just the beginning. The hurts keep piling up. How much can one woman stand?
The victims are young men. Their killer drugs them and slashes their wrists. Then he cleans their bodies, combs their hair, and wraps them in protective sheeting before leaving them where they’ll be easily found.
Is it a compulsion? A game? Or a brutally delivered message?
These are the questions Homicide Detective Lawrence Hoskins must answer as he takes on the lead role in his first serial murder investigation. But as the bodies keep coming, he feels like he’s the one holding the blade, the one standing between life and death. Under mounting pressure he turns to former colleague Cass Fletcher for help. She knows how a serial killer thinks and why they can’t stop. If she can tell him why, perhaps it will lead him to who.
Except Hoskins has already made one mistake he’s not aware of. Involving Fletcher is another. And as the killer continues to elude him the case takes its toll in ways he never expects. More so when the signs start pointing in a new direction…
ICE: The Ice Trilogy Volume 1 (affiliate link)
Mask of Duplicity (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 1) (affiliate link)
England, 1742. Beth Cunningham loves her simple existence. But left penniless with only a dowry held in trust after her father’s death, she fears her peaceful rural lifestyle is about to be snatched from her hands. And when her ruthless brother comes home from war intent on using her inheritance to advance his own career, she’s terrified her much-valued freedom is about to be married off forever.
Defying his ugly orders that she enter society, Beth soon gives in to her sibling’s demands when he turns violent. But with rebellion boiling over across the country, her Catholic heritage may be deadlier than her brother’s fearsome ambition.
Can she escape her family’s conspiratorial control and survive the coming revolution?
Higher Law Box Set: Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez Novels 1-4 (affiliate link)
Meet Mike Daley. Ex-priest. Ex–public defender. Ex-husband.
And as of yesterday, ex-partner in one of San Francisco’s most prominent law firms.
Today he’s out on his own, setting up practice on the wrong side of town.
When his best friend and former colleague is charged with a brutal double murder, Daley is instantly catapulted into a high-profile investigation involving the prestigious law firm that just booted him.
So begins SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES, the first novel in Sheldon Siegel’s critically acclaimed legal thriller series featuring Mike Daley and his law partner/ex-wife Rosie Fernandez.
Murder on Black Swan Lane (A Wrexford & Sloane Mystery Book 1) (affiliate link)
The Earl of Wrexford possesses a brilliant scientific mind, but boredom and pride lead him to reckless behavior. So when pompous, pious Reverend Josiah Holworthy publicly condemns him for debauchery, Wrexford unsheathes his rapier-sharp wit and strikes back. As their war of words escalates, London’s most popular satirical cartoonist, A.J. Quill, skewers them both. But then the clergyman is found slain in a church—his face burned by chemicals, his throat slashed ear to ear—and Wrexford finds himself the chief suspect.
An artist in her own right, Charlotte Sloane has secretly slipped into the persona of her late husband, using his nom de plume, A.J. Quill. When Wrexford discovers her true identity, she fears it will be her undoing. But he has a proposal—use her sources to unveil the clergyman’s clandestine involvement in questionable scientific practices, and unmask the real murderer. Soon Lord Wrexford and the mysterious Mrs. Sloane plunge into a dangerous shadow world hidden among London’s intellectual enclaves to trap a cunning adversary—before they fall victim to the next experiment in villainy . . .
The Body Reader (Detective Jude Fontaine Mysteries Book 1) (affiliate link)
For three years, Detective Jude Fontaine was kept from the outside world. Held in an underground cell, her only contact was with her sadistic captor, and reading his face was her entire existence. Learning his every line, every movement, and every flicker of thought is what kept her alive.
After her experience with isolation and torture, she is left with a fierce desire for justice—and a heightened ability to interpret the body language of both the living and the dead. Despite colleagues’ doubts about her mental state, she resumes her role at Homicide. Her new partner, Detective Uriah Ashby, doesn’t trust her sanity, and he has a story of his own he’d rather keep hidden. But a killer is on the loose, murdering young women, so the detectives have no choice: they must work together to catch the madman before he strikes again. And no one knows madmen like Jude Fontaine.
The Eight (affiliate link)
A fabulous, bejeweled chess set that belonged to Charlemagne has been buried in a Pyrenees abbey for a thousand years. As the bloody French Revolution rages in Paris, the nuns dig it up and scatter its pieces across the globe because, when united, the set contains a secret power that could topple civilizations. To keep the set from falling into the wrong hands, two novices, Valentine and Mireille, embark on an adventure that begins in the streets of Paris and leads to Russia, Egypt, Corsica, and into the heart of the Algerian Sahara.
Two hundred years later, while on assignment in Algeria, computer expert Catherine Velis finds herself drawn unwillingly into the deadly “Game” still swirling around the legendary chess set—a game that will require her to risk her life and match wits with diabolical forces.
Murder in the Mystery Suite (The Book Retreat Mysteries 1) (affiliate link)
Tucked away in the rolling hills of rural western Virginia is the storybook resort of Storyton Hall, catering to book lovers who want to get away from it all. To increase her number of bookings, resort manager Jane Steward has decided to host a Murder and Mayhem week so that fans of the mystery genre can gather together for some role-playing and fantasy crime solving.
But when the winner of the scavenger hunt, Felix Hampden, is found dead in the Mystery Suite, and the valuable book he won as his prize is missing, Jane realizes one of her guests is an actual murderer. Amid a resort full of fake detectives, Jane is bound and determined to find a real-life killer. There’s no room for error as Jane tries to unlock this mystery before another vacancy opens up…
The Inside Ring (Joe Demarco Book 1) (affiliate link)
There has been an assassination attempt on the president. He is only wounded—but his best friend and a Secret Service Agent have been killed.
As it turns out, the attack wasn’t without warning. Gen. Andrew Banks, Secretary of Homeland Security, received a note that the president was in danger, and even more alarming, that Secret Service agents guarding the president had been compromised. General Banks is reluctant to tell the FBI about the note, partly for self-serving political reasons, and partly because he doesn’t want to damage the Secret Service’s reputation based on something that might very well be a hoax.
So he requests help from his friend, Speaker Mahoney, and Mahoney assigns his man Joe DeMarco, who must untangle the truth behind the tragedy—and assess the danger . . .
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2