Six Killer Mysteries Obooko Readers Have Downloaded 70,000 Times
Posted by George Hartley
I spent an evening last week pulling download numbers for every crime and mystery title on Obooko, mostly to see how the books we promote were tracking. I came out the other end mildly embarrassed.
Six books in the crime section have racked up 70,201 downloads between them, and we have never said a word about any of them. Not in a newsletter, not in a blog post, not a single staff pick. Readers found them on their own and quietly voted them to the top of the pile.
So this month I'm getting out of the way. Every book below has been road-tested by thousands of readers before you, and every one is free to download in epub, PDF or Kindle formats. No card, no catch.
One Deadly Sister by Rod Hoisington
The numbers first: 11,688 downloads and a five-star average from 52 ratings, which makes it the most reviewed book on this list.
Sandy is a sharp young law student in Philadelphia. When her estranged brother makes a life-or-death call from his new home in Florida, she tells him to go to hell. Then the law degree beats the grudge and she heads south to save a man she barely speaks to, who never went looking for trouble at all. The woman-trouble came looking for him.
The Blue Sapphire by Peter C Byrnes
14,906 downloads, the biggest tally of the six, with a five-star rating from the 11 readers who have scored it so far.
Clem 'Lofty' Hills was a handy jockey until a string of falls took his nerve, and his career with it. His old trainer and pseudo father-figure Clive Montgomery offers the shattered man a second act as a private investigator working out of Montgomery Stables. It's a novella, the first of Byrnes' series, so you can knock it over in an evening and there's a shelf of sequels waiting if Lofty wins you over.
The God Virus by Gary J Byrnes
11,848 downloads and a four-star average across 43 ratings.
A doctor becomes the unlikely carrier of scientific evidence that God is unnecessary, which is the sort of cargo that gets a man hunted across continents. The story sprawls from the Russian permafrost to Guantanamo Bay, opening with a prologue in Rome in 1600. Big ideas, short chapters, no hanging about.
A Tough Life by Peter C Byrnes
9,530 downloads, and forty-four readers have rated it without dragging the average off five stars. That is the quiet consistency Byrnes is known for on Obooko, and this one earns it.
It opens on the lottery of soul mates, of all things, then hands the case to Detective Joseph Lind, a man who has personally lost that lottery more than once. The procedural work is as steady as ever; the private life running underneath it is what makes this one land.
Day of Vindication by James Rupe
10,534 downloads, five stars from 26 ratings.
This one reads like tomorrow's headlines. A large American city is destroyed in a surprise attack, millions die, and the world is put on alert with the threat of six more explosions to come. Rupe keeps the pace at news-ticker speed the whole way through.
Damage Control by Timothy Gilbert
11,695 downloads and a four-star average from 28 ratings.
A Mexican drug lord picks celebrity money manager Peter Hansen as the perfect front, and a quiet terror settles over suburban New Jersey as Peter's investment business morphs into a laundering operation. Friends, family and clients get caught in the wake, including his good friend Dr Nick Johnson, newly appointed to a high-profile heart drug study.
Where to next
That's the six. I'd love to claim we discovered them, but the honest version is that 70,201 downloads happened while we were looking elsewhere. the readers did the curating this month, and they clearly know what they're doing.
If you tear through all of them, there are hundreds more in our free crime, thriller and mystery collection, and the staff picks shelf has what we're backing right now. Happy sleuthing.