Happy New Year! Just a recap about this newsletter. I try to write two books a year, Travelers crime thrillers or KD Thorne thrillers, which I’ll keep you up to date on. As I mentioned last month, I’m currently working on a new Travelers book. I also recommend thrillers I’m reading, most of which have been discounted in my favorite book purchase newsletters, currently BookBub, Early Bird Books, and Murder & Mayhem. If I find a discounted eBook that I think is worth reading, I’ll include the Amazon link. (It’s just a default. The book should be discounted at the same time at other eBook sellers.) 

Over the holidays, I read two books you may be interested in.

First off, Donna Leon’s Death and Judgment (Commissario Brunetti Book 4, 1995). This series is set in Venice, Italy, and features police detective Guido Brunetti. This is a serious police procedural, which involves the reader in the work politics and usual crime detection problems of a police detective.

Brunetti is a compassionate, shrewd, and dogged detective. In this case, he has to connect the dots between the murder of an important lawyer and the deaths of several sex workers in a truck accident. Lots of local color, intricate detail, and complex plotting make this a treat. I’ll be reading more of this series.

The first book in this series, Death at La Fenice, is discounted today: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007SIV41G

Second, I read another of Donald Westlake’s Mitchell Tobin books, Wax Apple (1970). This is a classic locked box story. Tobin is working undercover at a halfway house for mental patients to find the resident who is injuring the other residents by leaving dangerous boobytraps in the building. 

This is another clean, straightforward Westlake tale, tightly plotted and brought to a satisfying conclusion. I don’t might admitting that I didn’t figure out who did it until the very end.

Wax Apple is also discounted today: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Mitchell-Tobin-Mysteries-Book-ebook/dp/B00D668I04

Happy reading!