Mystery ebooks

Strange how tragedy, infidelities and one very mysterious door can keep two people together? Lyle and Lucinda Henderson's household is anything but pleasant. Penny Henderson, who has worked a maid for Lucinda, feels as if she has been in their employ for what seems like an eternity. Maybe she has.

John Bauer, aka JB, comes out of retirement and takes a security guard job to pay for a caretaker for his wife. He gladly takes a job at the local electrical plant. At the plant, JB finds there has been an unexplained death, ghost sightings, he observes bizarre behaviors, and discovers a voodoo-priest- for-hire spying on him. What's a retiree to do?

JB gets in touch with his old police partner who has an amazing collection of surveillance equipment, and the pair renew their enthusiasm for the good ol' days.

JB boldly takes on the supernatural and local threats, all spawned by the greed of a group of men, to defend his wife and ultimately an entire town, no matter the cost or what dangerous creatures are after him.

Chicago 1968 saw more than its share of violence. Patrolman Mick Ivanov's beat is one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the Windy City. While training hard to defend against rioters at the Democratic National Convention, Mick is looking forward to doing his part to protect the innocent. What he doesn't count on is a killer in the midst...

A vigilante killer, dubbed The Impaler, is terrorizing citizens on Mick's patrol. But his true agenda is a vendetta against Mick. He sets out to destroy the patrolman's career.

As they discover the multiple victims, Mick and his partner, Tom Peterson, search through Mick's murky past to find the key to capturing the madman. The search turns desperate when the unstoppable Impaler sets his sights on what Mick loves the most: his family!

First mystery in the Detective Pat O'Malley Historical Mystery Series.  It won 1st Place in the Historical Mystery Category, 2014, at the Chanticleer CLUE Book Awards and was a Finalist in the eBook Fiction Category at the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

Join Detective Patrick James O'Malley as he returns from the Civil War to live in Poe Cottage in the Bronx.  He is visited by the ghost of Poe one night, and he also finds a strange note on the bed of Poe's deceased young wife, Elizabeth.  The note contains information that makes Poe believe that his former boss was murdered rather than accepting he died of natural causes in Baltimore.

This is a powerful mystery in three acts, and it established O'Malley as one of the most intelligent and interesting private detectives in crime fiction.

O'Malley must solve the murder of his former mentor, Edgar Allan Poe, and in this short mystery, he is pursued by one of the most heinous serial killers in 19th Century New York City.  This is the first in the trilogy (available on most major bookstore online sites).

TO HIDE from DEATH is a fiction novel loosely based on the author's own life, lending it an air of real-life, draw you in drama.

Kelly Price is a domestic violence victim that had left her husband.  She receives a phone call from him one day out of the blue and the sound of his voice draws her in.  Not wanting to go down that same road again, Kelly agrees to meet with her soon to be ex-husband, Eric, to allow her children to visit with him and eat lunch.  After the lunch date Kelly agrees to go back to Eric's house to discuss their impending divorce.  After she arrives, she finds that things aren't as she expected them to be.

Kelly meets State Trooper, Tom Fielder when the roads are flooded and she needs to get to the hospital.  Tom is horrified at the condition Kelly is in. After her visit to the ER. Trooper Fielder follows her home and gives her his business card to call him at any given time if she needs him.  Tom can't understand why he is so drawn to this woman. 

Kelly files for a protective order against her husband believing this would save her.  WRONG! Someone wants her dead and will stop at nothing to make sure it happens.  She needs to find out who wants her dead and why before it's too late.  Will she find out who it is before it's too late?  

Kelly Price believed her nightmare was over.  The man trying to kill her was finally dead.  WRONG AGAIN!  Her nightmare has only begun.

As she awakens from her nap after Tom has left, Kelly hears a tapping on her window and the window is streaked in blood.  She frantically dials 9-1-1 in the hopes of someone helping her.  The operator tells her to stay put until someone arrives.

When the deputy does arrive he discovers a gruesome scene and tries his best to shield Kelly from it.  Kelly had tried to reach Tom, but to no avail.

The person wanting her dead is still very much alive and Kelly is really running out of time trying to find out who it is before it's too late.  

With so many scenarios dancing through her head she has a hard time trying to decipher fact from fiction and friend from foe.  Will she ever be able to find someone she can trust?  Will she be able to discover who the sadistic stalker really is?  Find out the answers to these and many more questions in Theresa Mortimer's TO HIDE from DEATH II: When death comes stalking.

Three space craft, 240 colonists, 25 trillion miles and a discovery that will change everything.

This is the first novel in the Astronomicon science fiction series, charting the first human steps into interstellar space. A colonisation mission to Proxima Centauri is in danger of failing when the colonists discover that the extreme distance and harsh conditions are not all that stand between them and survival. What should have been a momentous landing becomes a near catastrophic crash.

A chance discover on their new home planet becomes the strongest evidence yet that mankind is not alone in the cosmos. The Astronomicon could become a source of information vital for mankind's ongoing survival, but only if the authorities can be made to believe its importance.

We also find out about some of the political machinations that are unfolding back on Earth, which threaten to end space exploration permanently. With established colonies on the inner planets and a thriving mining community on the Jovian moons, will everyone want to come home?

The Origin of Murder is a suspenseful tour of the Galapagos Islands with a killer on board!  Roger and Suzanne take a vacation cruise through the islands, 600 miles west of Ecuador.  The biology of the islands is presented with introductory quotes from Charles Darwin.  Suzanne finds a dead body with a couple of bullet holes floating in the Pacific Ocean and we're off to solve another complex and deadly mystery.  Among the suspects is a mysterious Ecuadorian travel agent with an eye-opening secret, a cheerful bird watching couple from Germany, a happy honeymooning navy couple, two sensual sisters from San Francisco, and a couple from Uruguay seeing the wonders of the world.  Lurking in the background are a shadowy Ecuadorian Air Force general and a Paraguayan policeman.  

From a 5-star reader review, "When a luxury cruise ship full of hard to predict eco-tourists is confronted with a murdered passenger, survival of the fittest takes on a whloe new meaning."  FREE from Kindle Unlimited.

The Body in the Bed is a suspenseful whodunit mystery set in exotic Montevideo, Uruguay.  Murder and espionage are seamlessly mixed with the political and cultural aspects of modern day life in Uruguay.  The protagonists include Los Angeles-based private detective Roger Bowman, his wife, Biochemist Suzanne Foster, and Paraguayan policeman and international spy, Eduardo Gomez.  And, of course, the body in the bed, who we meet very early in the novel.  Who killed him and why?

The reader will not only enjoy a good mystery, but will smell and taste (at least virtually) the local foods and wines of Uruguay, visit the local attractions of Montevideo, and learn a little history of a small corner of South America half a world away from the United States.  The plot is carefully researched and based on real events occurring in today's news. 

The Body in the Bed is part of the author's South American mystery series, all e-books available on-line from Amazon's Kindle Store.  Each book in the series can be read on its own, in any order.  The series does feature recurring characters, so you can revisit the series to find out more about what happens to the characters, at least the ones who survive to the end of this thriller!

The Matador Murders is set in Montevideo, Uruguay and Santiago, Chile, both cities the author has lived and worked in and knows well, where Roger and Suzanne have to solve another murder.  With apologies to reality, the novel's Montevideo is much like the lawless Chicago of the prohibition years.  That's part of the fun of writing fiction--an author can turn one of the most law-abiding and civilized cities in the world into the wild west of the 19th Century U.S. frontier with the stroke of a pen.  Actually, it's more the click of a keyboard nowadays.

The plot of this suspenseful whodunit thriller is based very loosely on Dashiell Hammett's classic novel, The Red Harvest, the basis for the movie Last Man Standing.  The book features lots of action and a suspenseful storyline.  Who is the mysterious Mr. X behind all the killings?

The cover photo is of the Pocitos neighborhood of Montevideo, on the Rio de la Plata.  If you use a very strong magnifying glass, you can actually see the apartment we rented while we were living there.

The novel may be downloaded FREE from Kindle Unlimited.