Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for October 2023
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 crime fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some September 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, culinary mysteries, historical mysteries, Jazz Age mysteries, paranormal mysteries, crime thrillers, psychological thrillers, action thrillers, adventure thrillers, police procedurals, police officers, FBI agents, amateur sleuths, spies, assassins, stalkers, missing persons, rockstars, vigilante justice, hidden treasures, heists, murdered viscounts, stolen Fabergé eggs, the Russian mob, crime-busting witches, crime-busting socialites, murder and mayhem in London, Bordeaux, the Florida Keys, Detroit, Mexico 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:
Sylvia and Miles travel to London to investigate the murder of Miles’ late wife. At last, Miles is about to solve the crime that has haunted him for so long. There’s just one problem. The killer is dangerous and cunning.
With Miles tracking down leads in the city, can Sylvia uncover the truth during a deadly weekend in the English countryside? Or will the killer strike again one final, terrible time?
In "Wood's Reward," Mac and Wood find themselves confronted with the troublesome job of repairing a bridge piling supporting one of the iconic bridges spanning the Florida Keys. In the process they discover something unexpected—a cache of silver coins and bars embedded in coral. The pair, along with their archeologist friend Ned, soon realizes the immense historical significance of their discovery—the coins date back to the Civil War.
But their joy quickly turns to apprehension as they realize they are not the only ones interested in the treasure. The project engineer, a fellow treasure hunter with questionable motives, becomes a formidable obstacle in their path. And if that wasn't enough, they find themselves at odds with the sheriff, who appears to be running a protection scam, further complicating their pursuit of the truth.
Just when Mac and Wood think they have reached an impasse, fate intervenes in the most unexpected way. A chance discovery of an old chest resting on the seafloor leads them to a remarkable journal written by the renowned Key West wrecker, John Geiger. Within its pages lies the captivating history of the silver, tracing it back to a legendary pirate chase and another shipwreck resting on the treacherous reef.
As they delve deeper into Geiger's journal, Mac and Wood find themselves caught in a web of perilous diving expeditions, heart-pounding boat chases, and a race against time to unravel the truth before they become the next victims. With each page, the tension builds, and the lines between friend and foe become increasingly blurred.
An inconvenient alibi…a priceless treasure…an MI6 mole It’s a lethal cocktail Journalist Emmeline Kirby and her jewel thief/ insurance investigator husband Gregory Longdon become targets after a desperate stranger asks them to deliver a fortune in rare red diamonds to hotelier Alexander Colefax. Before they can ask any questions, the man is killed. Driven by dark secrets, Colefax is willing to flirt with treason if it means getting what he wants. His coterie included the son of a Kremlin elite and a Russian mafia boss. When a man’s only loyalty is to money, his enemies become twice as ruthless. After Colefax is bludgeoned to death, Emmeline and Gregory discover that his dangerous games involved not only diamonds, but a stolen Fabergé egg that has vanished and a spy named Snowdrop. The trail of lies and revenge leads to Switzerland, where a treacherous double-cross could cost Emmeline and Gregory their lives.
When Sam and Mia pick up their troublesome grandpa, and road-trip for an award-winning burger, they expect to find too much food, loud music, wind in their hair, and the likelihood of adding a pound or two. They don’t expect to find a dead body.
They’re quickly forced to dive into solving the crime to dig themselves out of trouble. Turns out, they’re rather good at cyber-stalking everyone who crosses their path, googling Miranda rights, and infuriating both police officers and private detectives.
Soon they’re having the time of their lives. The only question remaining is: will they survive the trouble they’ve found themselves in? Or have they had their last laugh?
Am I losing my mind, or does someone want me to think I am?
After a traumatic childhood shadowed by an institutionalized brother, I've finally created a picture-perfect life with my doting husband and four beautiful children. But behind the white picket fence, darkness looms.
Strangers claim to see me in places I wasn’t, doing things I would never do. Can I even trust my own mind with a family history of mental instability? As I race for answers, my life spirals out of control.
I suspect someone is plotting to steal my very identity. Then a shocking family secret points to a cruel deception that could shatter everything I know.
Who is behind this relentless game of deceit? The truth could destroy all I've built.
I must confront the sinister forces threatening my family, whatever the cost might be... even if it means my sanity.
Or my life itself.
The party was supposed to be all in good fun…until a killer showed up uninvited.
Halloween has been Ariana’s favorite holiday since she was little, and this year is no different. As she plans a huge neighborhood bash, things take a drastic turn when her friend Bella shows up, scared for her life.
Ariana and Damon never turn away someone in trouble, but this time it might put them in harm’s way. They do their best to keep Bella hidden, but the unhinged murderer won’t give up his search. And he’s getting closer.
Bella promised she would stay away from the Halloween party, but the festivities prove too much of a temptation. Surely nobody would recognize her if she wore a mask… Except the killer would know her anywhere, in any disguise.
Will Ariana and Damon be able to protect their friend and save their own lives?
Hannah Hickok has a lot on her mind.
She’s engaged, with a wedding around the corner.
She and her husband-to-be Cooper Wyatt are building a house near the cosplay western town she inherited from her late grandmother.
And she’s gearing up for a fight with the witch who wants to steal her magic and kill her.
All of that falls by the wayside when Hannah realizes that people are starting to develop magical crushes…and the outcome is ugly when the fighting begins.
First up is local Sheriff James Boone’s teenage daughter. She’s overwhelmed by a spell when her latest crush’s attention is on the line.
Then the women at the bakery, all sisters, start fighting over the same man.
Then Cooper decides to come to blows for Hannah’s honor and it almost results in someone’s death.
Hannah is understandably confused. The only thing she knows without question is that there’s witchy magic afoot. Where is it coming from, though?
Hannah’s life is leading toward a specific fight. This fight, however, needs to be won before she can look to the future. Unfortunately for Hannah, the odds of winning are long.
There’s no evading the fight. So, here it comes.
Simon Kemper is on the up and up– he’ s out of rehab, and his band is gaining moderate success around Berlin. But out of the corner of his eye and over his shoulder, he’ s always aware of her. The stalker. She’ s at every show, no matter what city. She sends hundreds of postcards to his label. Worst of all, she acts like she knows him. Like she owns him. When the stalker disappears at one of his shows, Simon is the prime suspect. Initially an effort to clear his name, his search for July quickly becomes a deeper psychological quest: to prove that his fears were warranted? That she couldn’ t have given up her obsession that easily? The threads of July’ s disappearance turn out to be tangled into every corner of Simon’ s life: a trusted band member, a tenuous new love interest, a resentful ex, and the self he’ s supposedly left behind. Narcissistic, insecure, and consummately relatable, Simon is the anti-hero of his own life— trying to want to be better; hoping that’ s enough.
A Flamingo Cozy and Baker Street Mystery partnership. Stella O'Neil and Georgie Tanner are on the case.
When the siren goes off in the museum, everyone expected the prized exhibit to be stolen. No one imagined Oscar would disappear with it.
Take a quick trip through history with Stella, Georgie, Frank, Peanut and Oscar. Guess who is going to be surprised the most!
He’s no Saint...
Assassin Xavier Saint has only one rule: kill no innocents. But on a supposed clean hit, he discovers his target has two kids and a woman with him. Why didn’t his client tell Saint? What’s worse, the woman is Saint’s former girlfriend…
While Saint processes this strange turn of events shots are fired. He watches the target and his ex fall. Rushing in to assess the damage, Saint’s ex reveals he’s a father. Not only that, he discovers he’s been set up.
In a race across Europe, Saint can barely stay a step ahead of those hunting him. He has uncovered a network of assassins eliminating innocents for profit, and he is being framed as the fall guy. With more to lose than just his life, Saint must bring down the entire network. But how?
He never claimed to be a saint, but he's no demon either. In a world full of sworn enemies, how will Saint strike back, destroy the network, and be able to see the daughter he never knew he had?
Meet Saint.
An impossible vow…
Assassin Xavier Saint is doing all he can to discover more about a network of assassins who are killing innocents while trying to stay one step ahead. But that is proving to be very costly. At the same time, to find and protect his daughter, Saint must pay back favors, which were steep and many. Now his “friends” have come for their pound of flesh…
Forced into a deadly assignment to save his new-found family, Saint vows to end the network and be the father he never knew he was. But how can he?
During all of this, he obtains suspicious intelligence that his ex-girlfriend might still be alive. With the network hellbent on eliminating him, no true friends, and the trap closing all around him, will Saint be able to get some answers and keep his promise before it’s too late?
It’s time to take off the gloves…
Luna Thorn sprang into being in the middle of the night in a downtown Detroit park years ago. She had no memory of her past and no idea what the future would hold for her. The only thing she possessed was magic…and the determination to win at all costs.
She’s finally about to get the answers she’s been looking for .
There are zombies popping up on Detroit’s mean inner city streets. They’re not normal zombies, however. They move fast and don’t go down under the usual methods. They have a mission, though, and the only thing that stops them is death.
Luna knows someone is controlling them, but who? She’s determined to find answers on her own, but the people who know her best and love her most refuse to let her fight this battle without backup.
Luna has been a loner for as long as she can remember, but her blood is running hot these days after joining with a phoenix, and news that she’s a traveler—a being that can jump through time—has her second-guessing every decision she’s ever made.
Detroit is about to be rocked by death and destruction. The question is, will Luna be the saint protecting it or the sinner bringing it down?
Things are about to change for everybody, and it’s impossible to know who will rise from the ashes.
The fight between good and evil, the past and the present, is on, and Luna will be right in the middle of it for better or worse.
The world is about to burn.
Christmas is right around the corner, and Stormy Morgan is ready to celebrate for the first time in years. She’s been dreaming of one thing…Shadow Hills’ infamous Christmas festival.
There’s just one little problem.
When helping her new friend Easton pick out clothes in the thrift store, Stormy discovers the owner is missing. What’s worse, it looks as if there was a struggle in the back room. What happened to the married mother of one?
Stormy gets her boyfriend Hunter Ryan involved and they start searching. The only thing they can ascertain with any certainty is that there’s a hint of magic pulsing around the town, and maybe it has something to do with the disappearance.
Stormy has her hands full with gnome shifters and her old high school nemesis, so a missing person’s case isn’t something she’s looking forward to. She has no choice but to dig, though. Her conscious won’t allow the alternative.
Stormy might be new at the magic contest, but she understands winning. When another person disappears, she realizes she’s playing the wrong game.
In a world where fire rules, cold is about to claim them all. Can Stormy win? She’s about to find out. Come along for the ride.
I SEE U
Nobody was supposed to know that Deputy Justice Hall secretly went to the Amado Cartel’s stronghold in Mexico to mete out justice the judicial system denied to the creator of a deadly street drug and the leader of the motorcycle gang that distributed it.
But someone followed him. And they want him to know it, as evidenced by the handwritten note with the words "I SEE U"—accompanied by photo evidence and a heart-shaped stone—left at Justice’s ranch.
Is this somehow the work of Justin Black, the man who murdered Justice’s family and then kidnapped him? Is it blackmail? Or does Justice have some kind of twisted admirer?
Rattled, Justice is more than happy for the diversion of a new case. An unusual arson, complete with the body of a pimp, his head cleaved with a hatchet, and a note identifying the victim as woman abuser written on the wall behind the victim in eerily familiar handwriting.
When another fire occurs with clues left specifically for Justice, it’s clear the two are intertwined. And the writing is on the wall—literally. This vigilante killer and note leaver is after something personal. Now Justice is knee-deep in a game of cat and mouse. But is he the cat...or the mouse?
Family secrets are murder!
When Ginger’s former sister-in-law Felicia, now Lady Davenport-Witt, first received a mysterious note in the post, she dismissed it as coming from a nuisance writer. These things were known to happen to those who enjoyed social popularity. But with a third one, she began to feel ill at ease.
Ginger, however, had been worried since the first short missive had arrived. Someone knew of a family secret that would upset Felicia’s apple cart in a very big way.
Felicia’s new hobby of photography turned into freelance work for a London magazine, and her first assignment was to attend the wedding of the new Duke of Worthington and his very young bride-to-be taking place at St. Paul's Cathedral. Murder follows matrimony, and Felicia finds herself in the middle of the muddle.
Can Ginger help Felicia navigate the twists and turns of fate and stop a second death?
When Viscount Peveril is found dead at his chateau in France, his children instantly suspect foul play. But with his demise being registered as ‘death by natural causes’, they must seek the assistance of DCI Sandy McFarlane to uncover the truth.
Against his superior’s wishes, Sandy travels to Bordeaux and Saint-Émilion, and swiftly concludes that something is not quite right with the circumstances of the Viscount’s death. Enlisting the help of an old friend, DCI Rich Singh, Sandy embarks on a complex and intriguing murder investigation.
With medical intrigue at its heart, this is no classic ‘whodunit’, and is the third book in the popular DCI McFarlane crime series.
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