Free audiobook - The Avengers

Big Finish are currently offering a free audiobook every Monday. They are probably best known for their Doctor Who range but they cover a lot of cult classics. This week's free download features The Avengers.

Download your copy here.  

Adaptations of the comic strip adventures of Steed and Mrs Peel which appeared in Diana magazine in 1966 and 1967.

1.4 The Norse Code by John Dorney

Steed has the horns of a dilemma, Emma milks her moment.

An agent has gone missing whilst holidaying in the Norfolk Broads. With an American nuclear bomb being stored in the region, Steed and Peel can't take any risks.

But the last thing they expect to find on their boating trip is a Norse longboat. What are Vikings doing in East Anglia?

This is one of the episodes from Series 1. 

Free Ebook - Murder by the Minster

 Helen Cox's Murder by the Minster is currently free on UK Kindle.

 

Blurb from Amazon:

It's a perfectly normal day for Kitt Hartley at her job at the University of  the Vale of York library, until Detective Inspector Halloran arrives at her  desk to tell her that her best friend, Evie Bowes, is under suspicion of murder. Evie's ex-boyfriend Owen has been found dead - with a fountain pen stabbed through his heart - and all the evidence points to her. 

Kitt knows there is no way Evie could murder anyone - let alone Owen, who she adored. Horrified that the police could have got it so wrong, Kitt decides there's only one thing to do: she's going to investigate Owen's murder herself. She's read hundreds of mystery novels - how hard can it be? 

With the help of her assistant Grace, and the occasional hindrance of the library's eccentric regulars, Kitt summons up all her investigative powers (absorbed over years of reading everything from Agatha Christie to Ian Rankin) and gets to work. 

She soon discovers that down the quaint streets and snickelways of York lie darker doings than she'd ever dreamed, but she needs to watch her step: the murderer is watching her. And they haven't finished killing yet...

Free Kindle Book - Dark September by Inger Wolf

Earlier in the year, Danish author Inger Wolf's Under a Black Sky was free on Kindle for a while, and now Dark September has been made free. Both titles are translated by Mark Kline.

If, like me you prefer to read a series in order if at all possible, then you'll be pleased to know that Dark September is the first in the Daniel Trokic series. [Under a Black Sky, currently 99p on kindle is the sixth in the series.]

Dark September: UK Kindle; US Kindle.

It is late September, and Anna Kiehl, a student of anthropology and a single mother, does not return from her evening run in the forest. The next morning, she is found dead. She is naked, her throat is cut, and there is a bouquet of poisonous hemlock on her chest.

Police inspector Daniel Trokic is in charge of the investigation, and it leads him to the case of a prominent scientist and specialist in neurochemistry and antidepressants who disappeared eight weeks earlier. Daniel Trokic must get to the killer before he strikes again, but this turns out to be a dangerous pursuit.

Suspenseful and fast-paced. Winner of the Danish Crime Academy's Debut Award in 2006 for the most exciting debut of the year.

Free Kindle Book - Under a Black Sky by Inger Wolf

Under a Black Sky by Danish author, Inger Wolf and translated by Mark Kline, is currently free on UK and US Kindle.

I believe this to be the sixth book in the Daniel Trokic series however it is currently the only one available in English. Back in 2012, the previous book, Evil Water, was made available as an ebook but I cannot find it available now.

Anchorage, Alaska: A prominent Danish volcano scientist, Asger Vad and his wife and son, are found shot on the outskirts of the city.

The killer has placed the victims around a table on which there is a doll house with four small dolls and a pile of volcano ashes. However, one person is missing at the table.

The Family’s 11-year-old daughter has disappeared from the house, and a massive search starts. Has she run away, or did the killer take her? Also, what secrets do the family keep?

Inspector Daniel Trokic is sent to Alaska to participate in the investigation. He teams up with the half native detective Angie Johnson, and their hunt for an insane killer and the missing daughter begins.

A trio of free ebooks

These three ebooks (two novellas and one novel) are currently free on both UK Kindle and UK Kobo:

The 45% Hangover by Stuart MacBride: free for UK Kobo and UK Kindle

A brilliantly twisty, 80-page novella from the No. 1 bestselling author of the Logan McRae series. Including an extract from his new Logan novel, THE MISSING AND THE DEAD.

It’s the night of the big Referendum, and all Acting Detective Inspector Logan McRae has to do is find a missing ‘No’ campaigner. Should be easy enough…

But, as usual, DCI Steel has plans of her own. As the votes are counted there’s trouble brewing in the pubs and on the streets of Aberdeen.

Logan’s picked up a promising lead, but all is not quite what it seems, and things are about to go very, very wrong…

The Secret Dead by S J Parris: free for UK Kobo and UK Kindle

A short story featuring Giordano Bruno: heretic, philosopher and spy. Perfect for fans of C.J. Sansom. Even the dead have a story to tell… Naples, 1566. During a sweltering summer, eighteen-year-old Giordano Bruno takes his final vows at San Domenico Maggiore and is admitted to the Dominican Order – despite doubts over his tendency to ask difficult questions. Assisting in the infirmary, Bruno witnesses an illicit autopsy performed on the body of a young woman. Her corpse reveals a dark secret, and Bruno suspects that hers may not have been an accidental death. His investigation leads him to a powerful figure who wants to keep the truth buried – and Bruno is forced to make a choice between his future in the Order, and justice for an innocent victim and her grieving family…

The One You Love by Paul Pilkington: free for UK Kobo and UK Kindle

Days before their wedding, during their last separate nights of hard-partying singledom, Emma Holden's fiance has gone missing. Not only has Dan disappeared without a trace, his brother is found beaten and left for dead, and may not wake up from a coma. Without any evidence, suspicion for the attempted murder falls on Dan - but Emma refuses to believe his guilt. When crime scene photos get splashed across the pages of London tabloids, Emma knows that someone is following her. Watching her. It is an old, familiar feeling, though no less terrifying. A long-hidden family secret seems to unite Emma's troubled past with her dangerous present. As time runs out her trust in her family, her friends -- and Dan -- faces an ultimate test.

Free Teresa Solana Short Story

Crazy Tales of Blood and Guts, an ebook collection of short stories by Teresa Solana, translated by Peter Bush, has recently been released by Bitter Lemon Press:

Official Blurb: Fascinating short stories that include a rather bloody satire on installation art (“Still Life No.41”, shortlisted for the 2012 short story Edgar award), a wonderful story of gruesome revenge involving a wayward son-in-law, a surprising and hilarious tale of a pre-historic serial killer who invents God and psychoanalysis, and, inevitably, a vampire story told with venom and humor.

One of the stories, The First (Pre) Historic Serial Killer, can be read for free online here.

Free Ebook: The Third Pig Detective Agency

Bob Burke's The Third Pig Detective Agency is a short, humorous crime novel which should appeal to all ages and is currently free on UK Kindle and Kobo.

My review is here.

Free Ebook: The Hanging Shed by Gordon Ferris

Gordon Ferris's The Hanging Shed is still free for UK Kindle.

Read the Euro Crime review here.

Gordon Ferris's bilbilography on Euro Crime (with more reviews) is here.

Free Short Story Collection (ebook)

The following collection of short stories is available for free at amazon.co.uk (kindle) and Kobo (epub) and contains stories by Parker Bilal, Conor Fitzgerald, Thomas Mogford, James Runcie and Anne Zouroudi


From Obsession and Payback to Secrets and Lies, Deception and Bad Judgement, these thrilling tales will shock and surprise you with their cunning. Short Sentence was launched in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing, in association with the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook. Following a short story written by one of Bloomsbury’s brilliant crime authors, competitors were challenged to take up the same theme and write of a dastardly deed using 1000 words or less. This is Bloomsbury’s collection of the winning entries in parallel with the five brilliant authors, Parker Bilal, Conor Fitzgerald, Anne Zouroudi, Thomas Mogford and James Runcie.

Read Death's Dark Abyss Online for Free

Europa Editions are serialising Massimo Carlotto's Death's Dark Abyss on their Tumblr site. The prologue and chapter one are up, check back weekly for the next chapters.

Read the Euro Crime review of Death's Dark Abyss.

"Over the next few months, Europa Editions will be giving you a preview of one of the best noir writers in the world, Massimo Carlotto. Starting today, you can read Carlotto’s Death’s Dark Abyss absolutely free right here!

Death’s Dark Abyss tells the story of two men and the savage crime that binds them. During a robbery, Raffello Beggiato take a young woman and her child hostage and later murders them. Beggiato is arrested, tried and sentence to life in prison. The victims’ father and husband, Silvano, plungers into an ever-deepening abyss until the day, years later, when the murderer seeks his pardon and Silvano turns predator as he ruthlessly plots his revenge.

Twice a week, we’ll post chapters from the book, leading up to the launch of the new Europa World Noir series on May 7th!"

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Free Kindle Ebook - The Bluejay Shaman

Lise McClendon's The Bluejay Shaman is currently free on UK Kindle. It's the first in the Alix Thorssen series. (The Euro Crime connection is that Alix is part Norwegian and the third book in the series is called Nordic Nights!)

Traveling the back roads of Montana, not-quite-fearless art gallery owner Alix Thorssen is far from home and up to her Ray-bans in shaman’s secrets, mysterious deaths, madness, and – ah yes – passion among the pine needles. Whoever killed Shiloh Merkin hated her and wanted her dead. But did Wade Fraser, Alix’s brother-in-law and University of Montana anthropology professor, do the deed? What happened to the petroglyph of the bluejay shaman? Alix follows a trail of sex, moonlit rituals, and legendary artifacts as another murder leads her to a chilling confrontation with the killer.

Free Kindle Short Story (UK) - Blood on the Water (Alex Connor)

Alex Connor's Blood on the Water, a short story prequel to Isle of the Dead (July 13) is currently available to pre-order for free from Amazon.co.uk. It is released 18 April.

This prequel to the conspiracy thriller Isle of the Dead introduces us to the dark side of Venice - a city with secrets to rival its splendour.

Another short story, Unearthing the Bones, is still available for free.

Two Free Kindle Ebooks by Geraldine Evans

Two of Geraldine Evans' Rafferty and Llewellyn series are currently available for free on UK Kindle. I've read and reviewed both of them on their original release in 2004/5: Dying for You, sixth in the series, and Love Lies Bleeding, the eighth.

Buy Dying for You here.

Buy Love Lies Bleeding here.

A Kindle Freebie & a Bargain

Currently free in both UK and US Kindle, is Tony Black's Gus Dury novella, Last Orders:

Official blurb:
When he receives a mysterious letter on expensively embossed paper, reluctant investigator Gus Dury decides to take the case, if for no other reason than he needs the cash. But there's something about his well-heeled client, Callum Urquhart, that doesn't sit right with Dury.

Urquhart has travelled across the country to find his missing teenage daughter -- who definitely doesn't want to be found. As Dury gets closer to locating Caroline, what he uncovers is a web of lies and deceit and some painful realisations that lead back to his own tangled past.

Last Orders is a 14,000 word novella, first published in the Edinburgh Evening News, from the author of the Random House UK Gus Dury series: Paying for It, Gutted, Loss, and Long Time Dead - which is soon to be brought to the big screen by Richard Jobson.




I was tipped off by MrsPeabody that Norwegian by Night by Derek B Miller is currently selling on UK Kindle for £1.59.

Official blurb:

He will not admit it to Rhea and Lars - never, of course not - but Sheldon can't help but wonder what it is he's doing here...


Eighty-two years old, and recently widowed, Sheldon Horowitz has grudgingly moved to Oslo, with his grand-daughter and her Norwegian husband. An ex-Marine, he talks often to the ghosts of his past - the friends he lost in the Pacific and the son who followed him into the US Army, and to his death in Vietnam.

When Sheldon witnesses the murder of a woman in his apartment complex, he rescues her six-year-old son and decides to run. Pursued by both the Balkan gang responsible for the murder, and the Norwegian police, he has to rely on training from over half a century before to try and keep the boy safe. Against a strange and foreign landscape, this unlikely couple, who can't speak the same language, start to form a bond that may just save them both.

An extraordinary debut, featuring a memorable hero, Norwegian by Night is the last adventure of a man still trying to come to terms with the tragedies of his life. Compelling and sophisticated, it is both a chase through the woods thriller and an emotionally haunting novel about ageing and regret.

Free Irene Adler Short Story

Currently free (now £2 as of 19.2.13) on UK Kindle is The Private Wife of Sherlock Holmes a short story/novella starring Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes, written by Carole Nelson Douglas. Download it here.

IRENE ADLER . . . She’s one of the most mysterious women in literature, an American and the only woman to have outwitted the world's greatest consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes.

ON FILM . . . You've seen Irene Adler as the fetchingly treacherous minx paired with Robert Downey Jr.’s in his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes as an action hero and human calculating machine.

You can see her as an apparently naked dominatrix in the BBC's modern take on a young, totally wired Sherlock Holmes.

Or you can read about her further adventures after she bested Holmes in "A Scandal in Bohemia," as written by New York Times Notable Book of the Year author Carole Nelson Douglas, author of the acclaimed Good Night,
Mr. Holmes and seven other novels following the adventures of Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes after “Scandal.”

This novella, “The Private Wife of Sherlock Holmes,” reports the pair’s most recent and intriguing encounter in post-Jack the Ripper London, from Baker Street to a high society brothel. Shocking, my dear Holmes!

Free Ebook - The Complete Sherlock Holmes

Released today, The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle is available to download for free from Amazon.co.uk and Kobo.

The complete collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales, both long and short, compiled together for the first time by Simon & Schuster for free!

This fantastic collection is accompanied by an exciting new introduction from Robert Ryan, a writer who's own book has been fully endorsed by the Conan Doyle Estate. A big Holmes fan himself, he will undoubtedly provide a fascinating new look at the detective and his bizarre ability to read both people and objects, in order to discover who dunnit.

Free Short Story - Bruno and le Pere Noel (Martin Walker)

Quercus continue to spoil us with this, their third free short story after ones by Alex Connor and Elly Griffiths.

Martin Walker's Bruno and le Pere Noel can be downloaded at amazon.co.uk and is also available free at Kobo.

It's the last market day before Christmas and Bruno, Chief of Police is preparing for a traditional gastronomic feast. But, never off duty for long, Bruno is called to action when he receives information that a prisoner on parole has gone missing, last seen heading for St Denis, where his ex-wife and son live.

The goose, the oysters, his English girlfriend's Christmas pudding and Bruno's famous mulled wine will just have to wait... .

And if Martin Walker’s ‘Bruno’ novels have inspired you to visit this beautiful part of France yourself, keep reading for the author’s own guide to ‘A Perfect Week in Perigord’.

Free Short Story - Ruth's first Christmas Tree (Elly Griffiths)

A seasonal short story, Ruth's first Christmas Tree, by [Euro Crime favourite] Elly Griffiths is available for free.

Ruth's first Christmas Tree is available on US Amazon and also as a pdf via when you sign up at the Quercus website.

It is three days before Christmas and a bitter wind is blowing across Norfolk.

Until her daughter was born, forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway didn’t do Christmas, but now that Kate is a year old, she wants it to be special.

She must get a tree, shop for food, clean the house, buy presents, including one for her new boyfriend—who she isn’t even sure is her boyfriend—and remember to get the turkey out of the freezer.

But time is rushing by and the best-laid plans don’t always work out …

Free Kindle Short Story (UK) - Unearthing the Bones (Alex Connor)

Unearthing the Bones, a short story by Alex Connor is currently free on UK Amazon (Kindle):

Blurb on Amazon:

A human skull is discovered in Madrid.

A serial killer takes a life in London..

The race is on, to own the most notorious relic of all time..

A scorching short story and an enticing prequel to Alex Connor’s MEMORY OF BONES. 

Free Kindle Short Story (UK) - Edie Kiglatuk's Christmas

This short story by M J McGrath has recently become available for free on UK Kindle:

Blurb from Amazon: An exclusive free edition of this stunning short mystery set in the frozen high Arctic and featuring the most compelling new heroine in crime fiction: ex polar bear hunter Edie Kiglatuk. Also includes the opening chapters of M. J. McGrath's new book The Boy in the Snow.

The shortest day of the year didn’t count for much up on Ellesmere Island. By the time 21 December arrived, the sun hadn’t come up for two months and it would be another two before it managed to scramble over the High Arctic horizon. Objects, animals and even people could disappear during the Great Dark without anyone much noticing. Which was why no one reported Tommy Qataq missing . . . Christmas is fast approaching on Ellesmere Island, in the vast frozen landscape of the High Arctic, and half Inuit ex polar bear hunter Edie Kiglatuk is drawn into a mystery when a young man dies in suspicious circumstances. A stunning short mystery with a magical and heart-wrenching twist, Edie Kiglatuk's Christmas is from the CWA Dagger Award nominated author of White Heat and The Boy In the Snow and will be enjoyed by fans of Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow by Peter Hoeg and Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series.