Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for August 2019

Welcome to the latest edition of “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some July books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.

Our new releases cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have cozy mysteries, small town mysteries, animal mysteries, historical mysteries, jazz age mysteries, paranormal mysteries, crime thrillers, legal thrillers, action thrillers, spy thrillers, police procedurals, private investigators, amateur sleuths, lawyers, FBI agents, missing persons, serial killers, spies, terrorists, cold cases, crime-busting witches, crime-busting realtors, modern day pirates, murders in small towns and big cities, aboard cruise ships and in country inns, in Louisiana, Southern California, London, Hawaii, Maine, Miami and much more.

As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.

And now on to the books without further ado:

Buy and Spell by Stacey Alabaster:

Sometimes you just need to solve a mystery because you’re the main suspect.

Ruby Swift is settling into her life as a private investigator while protecting her secret magical life. When her new, unwanted neighbor turns up dead, she must find the real killer to clear her own name. Can Ruby come up with a spell to buy her way out of trouble?

Buy and Spell is part of the Private Eye Witch Cozy Mystery series. If you like fun paranormal mysteries, you will love Ruby Swift and her magical adventures.

Get Buy and Spell and start solving your next supernatural mystery today!

Alex Mercer Thrillers Boxset by Stacy Claflin:

Read the first three Alex Mercer thrillers in this convenient bundle...

GIRL IN TROUBLE

He gave up his daughter years ago, but now he’ll risk his life to save hers.

Alex Mercer is no stranger to kidnappings. The emotional scars still run deep from his sister’s disappearance years earlier. His daughter Ariana remains safe long after her adoption, and he cherishes the few times a year he gets to see her. The joy is palpable when he takes her on their first one-on-one outing. At least until he pauses to answer a text and Ariana disappears…

Wracked with guilt and determined to find answers, Alex teams up with an unlikely ally at the police department. As the clues reveal a pattern of missing girls, the kidnapping case becomes a race against time to save Ariana. What cost is Alex willing to pay to keep his daughter alive?

TURN BACK TIME

A dangerous cult disbanded years ago. Now they’re back, and they want revenge.

Alex Mercer spends his spare time operating a blog for missing children—a pastime inspired by his daughter’s recent disappearance. Another relative goes missing. As he follows up on leads coming into his site, the police department is inundated with a rash of missing persons cases. The incidents seem unrelated until evidence ties the cases to a dilapidated apartment building known for its unsavory clientele. Suspicion falls on a disbanded cult. The same cult Alex’s own relatives had managed to escape from and bring down a decade earlier.

The cult leaders, recently released or escaped from prison, reassemble their members and mandate a new mission to capture and kill all those responsible for the breakdown of their community. After another loved one disappears, Alex is ready to rescue the missing people from certain death. But will he get there in time?

LITTLE LIES

He’s dedicated his life to saving missing persons, but will it be enough to save himself?

Alex Mercer traded in his troubled past to protect the powerless. His blog for tracking down missing persons got his foot in the door at the police academy. But on his first day of training, a heroic act drops him into the hands of the captors he once hunted.

Zoey planned to tell Alex how she felt the night he disappeared. As she and Alex’s family discover the bloody signs of his fate, past regrets and dark secrets begin to come to light. It’s enough to tear Alex’s loved ones apart.

Without hope of rescue, Alex must rely on his cunning to escape captivity. In his line of work, he knows all too well that each passing hour could kill his chances of survival…

Haunting in the Hallway by Kathi Daley:

A heartwarming cozy mystery series about losing everything, taking a chance, and starting again.

After suffering a personal tragedy Abby Sullivan buys a huge old seaside mansion she has never even seen, packs up her life in San Francisco, and moves to Holiday Bay Maine, where she is adopted, quite against her will, by a huge Maine Coon Cat named Rufus, a drifter with her own tragic past named Georgia, and a giant dog with an inferiority complex named Ramos. What Abby thought she needed was alone time to heal. What she ended up with was, an inn she never knew she wanted, a cat she couldn't seem to convince to leave, and a new family she'd never be able to live without.

In book 5 in the series, the new bank president, who happens to be the son of the man who founded the community bank, is found dead and buried in his own grave. The man was not popular in the small community after making a lot of changes with his fathers passing and the list of possible suspects who might want him dead is extensive.

Meanwhile, it is October and the inn is hosting Halloween themed events. The haunted weekends are just for fun but when guests report hearing noises in the hallway, Abby wonders if the inn might actually be haunted for real.

La Jolla Law by John Ellsworth:

A California beach town, a murder at a Presidential reception, a detective who finds herself in hot water for sexual harassment...

Add to the mix a gifted boy band traveling cross-country and a tech billionaire who functions on cocaine with a plastic wife who refuses to return home from Paris where her lover does hair for Vogue. Now you have the opening chapters of La Jolla Law, the new series featuring attorney Thaddeus Murfee.

The Maseratis pull over when the President of the United States comes to town to kickoff his reelection campaign. Unfortunately, he has chosen the home of the tech billionaire to spend the night. Suddenly, that night erupts with police streaming through the doors. There, on the golden shoreline, a true American tragedy hits CNN at daybreak. Thaddeus is called into the rock-and-roll world of the beach dwellers when a gifted loner is accused of the crime.

Thaddeus arrives in Southern California thinking he's already seen everything in his fifteen years of law practice.

La Jolla Law will show him just how wrong he is.

Sleeping Beauties by Skylar Finn:

The sleepy town of Barksdale, Louisiana isn’t known for much: except for its unusually high rate of disappearances.

When the daughter of a prominent businessman and a wealthy debutante vanishes, Reese Lindley returns to her hometown to cover the case for her podcast. Confronted by the past and her estranged family, Reese learns that the quiet town has more secrets to hide than she ever could have imagined.

Raging Seas by Lily Harper Hart:

For years, Rowan Gray has been searching for answers. She’s finally going to get them.

The group of people haunting her, the society that ripped her family apart, are due to arrive on The Bounding Storm … and nobody believes their goals are altruistic. That’s only proven true when death visits The Bounding Storm in their wake, leaving a mountain of questions and not enough answers.

Who are these people?
What do they want?

Quinn Davenport, head of security and Rowan’s boyfriend, is determined to figure out their plan, fight the effort, and eradicate the shadow that’s hanging over the future he plans on sharing with Rowan. They’re going to stand and fight together, no matter the outcome. To carry out the mission, they’re going to need a little help.

Rowan’s father and uncle board the ship in an undercover capacity, so it’s all hands on deck for the final ride. Before it’s over, Rowan will know the truth … and come face to face with an enemy she didn’t see coming.

This is the end, but it could lead to a new beginning.

Mid-Century Modern Murder by CeeCee James:

Stella’s mid-century modern listing was on track to be her easiest commission ever… until the buyers asked about the rumors of a girl who drowned nearby.

As part of her due diligence, Stella starts searching for answers and finds a cold case that makes no sense. A teenage girl who was a State swim team champion… drowned. Something about the case keeps tugging at the edges of her memory but Stella can’t quite put her finger on it.

Meanwhile, Stella’s quest to find out exactly what happened with her mother is finally gaining some traction. She’s close to getting the whole story; she can feel it. But the more determined she is to find out the truth, the more her family members warn her that she won’t like the answers.

As the decades-old drowning case becomes clearer, Stella is shocked to find her own history entwined with that of the dead girl. With each new revelation about her mother, she starts to wonder if her family is right but she just can’t stop herself until she knows every secret.

Agent Recruit by Ethan Jones:

What price would you pay to learn the truth?

Russian FSB Agent Max Thorne is recovering from a daring assignment in the United States, which led to shocking discoveries about his mysterious past. As he begins the search to put together the missing pieces, Max learns that the elusive truth is buried deep under decades of secrecy, betrayal, and deception involving the CIA and KGB.

Barely able to stay one step ahead of powerful forces set on protecting those secrets at all costs, Max is determined to do the right thing. But what price will Max have to pay to learn the bittersweet truth, and can he protect the ones he loves?

Join Max as he faces the darkness that is the secret service the only way he knows how ... head on.

Freaky Reapers by Amanda M. Lee:

Poet Parker put the past behind her. At least she thought she did.

Life on the streets wasn’t what she had in mind for her forever and she jumped at the chance to join Mystic Caravan Circus when an invitation was extended. She didn’t look back.

That was ten years ago, and now Poet is going back to the exact area she used to haunt … and she’s nervous.

The friends she left behind are scattered. Some are dead. Some have moved on to other things. Some turned out to be something else entirely. Others simply disappeared into the wind.

Unfortunately for Parker, forgetting isn’t easy … especially when a group of banshees start infringing on Mystic Caravan’s territory and the creatures seemingly have ties to the people Poet left behind.

Between the reapers also working the case – a crazy family called the Grimlocks who can’t stay out of trouble – and the guilt weighing Poet down given the way she fled, she has her hands full.

Someone is controlling the banshees, stealing girls from the streets and creating a merry band of monsters. It’s up to Poet to find out who and protect two street girls who remind her of herself.

Poet doesn’t want to look back but she has no choice … what she finds might be more evil than she ever imagined.

Razor Rocks by Toby Neal:

Paradise is plundered by pirates.

Someone is attacking and robbing luxury yachts as they sail the Hawaiian Islands leaving their passengers missing and presumed dead. Sergeant Lei Texeira, with her typical leap first look later style, dives into a case with the Coast Guard to find answers that lie as deep as Davy Jones’ locker.

He’s taking back what was stolen.

The Pirate King has a hidden agenda that’s bigger than the pillage of luxury yachts, and he’ll stop at nothing to reign on the sea.

If She Fled by Blake Pierce:

When another 50 year old woman is found dead in her home in a wealthy suburb—the second such victim in just two months—the FBI is stumped. They must turn to their most brilliant mind—retired FBI agent Kate Wise, 55—to come back to the line of duty and solve it.

What do these two empty nesters have in common? Were they targeted?

How long until this serial killer strikes again?

And is Kate, though past her prime, still able to solve cases that no one else can?

Never Ever by Willow Rose:

Ex-agent Eva Rae Thomas is on the run. The past month she has done things she never knew she was capable of while hunting for her kidnapped daughter.

Eva Rae has risked everything,
-her career,
-her newfound love,
-her freedom.

She’s looking for the man they call the Iron Fist. The trail has led her to Miami.

Meanwhile, Miami is under attack. Hundreds of passengers in the Metrorail are exposed to a deathly nerve gas on a peaceful Monday morning. When Eva Rae Thomas sees her daughter on the surveillance footage from the attack, she knows it is no coincidence. But by the time she uncovers the chilling truth of how it is all connected, it might be too late.

Murder on Eaton Square by Lee Strauss:

Murder’s Bad Karma. . .

Life couldn’t be better on Eaton Square Gardens where the most prestigious families lived, until one of their own dies and it’s murder.

Ginger and Basil are on the case, but it’s not a simple glass of bubbly fizz. The more the clues present themselves, the trickier the puzzle gets, and Ginger feels she’s on a wild goose chase.

But as someone close to the victim so aptly quips, “One shouldn’t commit murder. It’s bad karma.”

Reaping what one sows is hardly a great cup of tea.