Infuse the last days of summer with a little mystery and adventure. Grab one of these pulse-pounding reads and transport yourself around the world–from the comfort of your beach towel!
Here is a selection of books by Travel By Book members Jennifer S. Alderson, Caron Albright, Andrew Cairns, Richard Clark, Rebecca Entel, Margaret Halliday, Linda Huber, Rob Johnson, Effrosyni Moschoudi, A. Nation, Helen Pryke, and Suzi Stembridge.
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Down and Out in Kathmandu: A Backpacker Mystery by Jennifer S. Alderson
Zelda wants to teach children English and ‘find herself’ in Kathmandu. Ian wants to get stoned and trek the Himalayas. Tommy wants to get rich by smuggling diamonds. How their stories collide will leave you on the edge of your seat!
Travel from the dusty, tout-filled streets and holy sites of Nepal to the sultry metropolises and picture-perfect beaches of Thailand, as Zelda and Ian try to outsmart the smugglers and escape Asia alive.
Down and Out in Kathmandu: A Backpacker Mystery is the perfect book for lovers of travel, crime fiction and (mis)adventure novels. Also available as audiobook.
A Matter of Love and Death by Caron Albright
An absorbing 1930s mystery that you won’t be able to put down.
Adelaide, 1931. Telephone switchboard operator Frances’ life is difficult as sole provider for her mother and adopted uncle. But it’s thrown into turmoil when she overhears a suspicious conversation on the phone, planning a murder.
If a life is at risk, she should tell the police; but that would mean breaking her confidentiality clause and would cost her the job. And practical Frances, not prone to flights of fancy, soon begins to doubt the evidence of her own ears – it was a very bad line, after all…
She decides to put it behind her, a task helped by the arrival of their new lodger, Phil. Phil takes her to a nightclub, where she meets charming but slightly dangerous club owner Jack. Jack’s no angel – prohibition is in force, and what’s a nightclub without champagne? But he’s a good man, and when Frances’ earlier fears resurface she knows that he’s the person to confide in.
Frances and Jack’s hunt for the truth put them in grave danger, and soon enough Frances will learn that some things are a matter of love and death…
One More Arabian Night by Andrew Cairns
After exacting his revenge on his ex-wife, Sandy flees the dark forces pursuing him and goes underground, working as a volunteer at a Parisian soup kitchen. Here he refinds spiritual direction in his life, onverts to Islam, and falls in love with the beautiful Hurriya – a Moroccan medical student. He follows her back to her native Morocco in the hope of winning her hand in marriage. Sandy must come to grips with the local customs and superstitions: miraculous water, djinns, polygamy… and witchcraft!
The Lost Lyra by Richard Clark
Richard Clark’s delicious book transports the reader to the magnificent splendour of Crete’s White Mountains. When musician Sarah Piper’s beloved grandfather dies, he bequeaths her a gift that will change her life forever. Travelling to the sun-drenched island Crete to discover the truth about her grandfather’s past, she finds her own future.
Fingerprints of Previous Owners by Rebecca Entel
At a Caribbean resort built atop a former slave plantation, Myrna works as a maid by day; by night she trespasses on the resort’s overgrown inland property, secretly excavating the plantation ruins the locals refuse to acknowledge. Myrna’s mother has stopped speaking and her friends are focused on surviving the present, but Myrna is drawn to Cruffey Island’s violent past. With the arrival of Mrs. Manion, a wealthy African-American, also comes new information about the history of the slave-owner’s estate and tensions finally erupt between the resort and the local island community. Suffused with the sun-drenched beauty of the Caribbean, Fingerprints of Previous Owners is a powerful novel of hope and recovery in the wake of devastating trauma. In her soulful and timely debut, Entel explores what it means to colonize and be colonized, to trespass and be trespassed upon, to be wounded and to heal. Buy it now on Amazon.
The Belly Dancer by Margaret Halliday
Margaret Halliday’s fourth book, The Belly Dancer is a tragicomic romantic thriller set mainly in Istanbul in the early 1990s. Gemma, a young English woman, finds herself involved in more than just teaching English soon after her arrival in Turkey. Her love of belly dancing leads her into a relationship with the beautiful Fatima as well as plunging her into a sinister, Mafia-run drugs operation. Can, the Mafia boss’s handsome son, falls for Fatima and reunites her with her long lost twin sister, Fulya, who can also dance. The story unfolds against the vivid backdrop of Istanbul with its teeming street life, magnificent mosques and busy markets, the ever-present turbulent waters of the Bosphorus and its ferries a constant breath of fresh air.
The Cold Cold Sea by Linda Huber
Maggie stared across the beach. The tide was coming in. But where was her daughter?
When three-year-old Olivia disappears from the beach, a happy family holiday comes to an abrupt end. Maggie is plunged into the darkest nightmare imaginable – what happened to her little girl?
Further along the coast, another mother is having problems too. Jennifer’s daughter Hailey is starting school, and it should be such a happy time, but the child has become moody and silent. Family life has never seemed so awkward, and Jennifer struggles to maintain control.
The tide ebbs and flows, and summer dies, but there is no comfort for Maggie, alone now at the cottage, or for Jennifer, still swamped by doubts.
Heads You Lose by Rob Johnson
The assignment in Greece might have been the answer to Trevor and Sandra’s problems except for one thing. Someone was trying to frame them for murder… with a watermelon.
‘Money for old rope,’ Sandra had said when they accepted the job of looking after the ageing Marcus Ingleby at his villa in Greece, but when a neighbour brings a gift for the old man, the prospect of spending most of the rest of their lives in a Greek prison becomes a terrifying reality.
Meanwhile, Ingleby has problems of his own. During his seventy-odd years, his cupboard has accumulated plenty of skeletons, one of which is about to be rattled by a couple of ex-cons and a retired police inspector from his murky past.
The Raven Witch of Corfu by Effrosyni Moschoudi
A terrible evil lurks in the mountain…
Lizzie is not your average tourist. She may have just arrived on the idyllic Greek island of Corfu, but her mind is not on having a good time. Far from it, Lizzie has a daunting task to undertake: to claim back her twin brother who was kidnapped twenty years earlier on her previous visit. In a cave. By an evil witch.
When Lizzie sees her brother again, she receives the shock of her life. The witch has tricked her and won’t let them be…Lizzie does her best to help her brother and do the witch’s bidding, too afraid of losing him again.
New friends help them adjust and have some fun, and then love comes into her life to bring new hope. For the first time, it seems possible to fight off the witch. All she has to do now is trust enough…
Will she succeed? Will Corfu ever be again the perfect paradise she once knew?
The Cruise – Lost at Sea by A. Nation
Susan goes on a cruise around Hawaii with her best friends. All she wants to do is relax and read a good book, but soon her wonderful vacation turns into a horrible nightmare. Mysterious events related to the ship’s past begin to emerge. She runs away from thieves and escapes her tormentor with the aid of an on-board ghost. Will the mob boss escape with her in the airport? Will her friends be safe from his threats? If you’ve never been to Hawaii or have taken a cruise, this is the mystery for you. Buy it now on Smashwords.
The Lost Girls by Helen Pryke
Four years ago, two teenage girls were abducted.
Four years ago, a ten-year-old boy was murdered.
Both cases are still unsolved.
Desperate to find their sisters, Michael and Chloe beg investigative journalist Maggie Dupont to help them. What starts as a simple investigation soon turns into a frantic race against time as they realise that the kidnapper took the girls to replace his sisters. The sisters who died sixteen years earlier.
Forced to face traumatic events from the past, Maggie finds herself in the middle of a nightmare that’s about to get worse…
The Scorpion’s Last Tale by Suzi Stembridge
Tiny Penny Sky, insecure and shy, is experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions. For one, her journalist husband is an excessive drinker. Frustrated and upset, she seeks female company to find some comfort but this turns out to be a dangerous game that could cause her even more heartache.When a murder investigation is accidentally triggered, through no fault of theirs, it suddenly becomes possible that Penny’s husband could be going to prison. An evil doctor employed by the Junta is not known to the couple, only to Penny’s companion, Nancy. Yet to what ends is the doctor willing to go to implicate Penny Sky’s husband in the murder? Will Penny Sky find the inner strength to fight these gathering and alarming occurences?Set in stunning unspoilt locations in 1973 in Corfu at the time of the Greek Junta and the hill villages of West Yorkshire, this is the story of a family holiday in a seemingly perfect summer paradise that becomes anything but idyllic. Thrilling and dark, this novel is an accurate account of the era.
