Free (Kindle KDP) Everything But the Squeal by Timothy Hallinan [Mystery/Thriller]

[ATDrake]

You remember that vintage Playboy Magazine-printed Jewish James Bond spoof series which I wanted to make the KDP title feature a few days ago?

Turns out it's not KDP at all, and author Sol Weinstein is generously offering it free to all around the world in the format of their choice.

Non-Kindlers/Amazon-shoppers/worldwide customers for whom it was not price-matched, go forth and enjoy this e-printing of Pocket Books' 1965 collected edition of Loxfinger, an "Israel Bond Oy-Oy-7" adventure, DRM-free @Smashwords (may be price-matched in other preferred outlets of yours), and if you happen to enjoy it, note that the rest of series is $2.99 a pop.

Anyway, kind of a boring day for the slushpile, sf/fantasy backlist-wise, although we have a nifty tie-in short story to a Baen series which you can sample for free on their website, and we've got some more minor shorts.

And the default feature title of the day is something for which we've previously gotten other volumes of free (one of which had also been a title feature by default for lack of anything better), so I thought I might as well post it for anyone who's been following the series thus far.

And we have some other interesting mystery/steampunk shorts and there's even some Christian fiction for people who read it.

Everything But the Squeal by Timothy Hallinan who was eventually nominated for an Edgar Award is the 2nd in his Simeon Grist Intrepid Professor-Turned-PI mysteries, for which we've previously received the 1st and 6th free.

This was originally out from New American Library in hardcover in 1990.

Free with DRM for who knows how long @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT

Description
Robert B. Parker and Robert Crais fans will enjoy 2011 "Best Novel" nominee Hallinan's overeducated private eye, Simeon Grist. In the second book in Hallinan's cult series, originally published in the 1990s, Grist takes a case, that leads him to the phantom neighborhoods of L.A.'s lost children.

Missing thirteen-year-old Aimee Sorrell, who ran all the way from Kansas to be a star. But Aimee's trail soon leads Simeon to the city morgue, the first stop on a perilous journey to find out what happens to America's lost children when they go looking for love in all the wrong places.

I-forget-who-published-her-but-she's-been-published Lise McClendon returns with some short stories which tie into the novel she offered free to all via Smashwords a while ago: Dear Alix: Jackson Hole Short Stories (Alix Thorssen Mysteries)

Baen-published Dave Freer & Eric Flint return to offer another short, which is a fantasy mystery set in the Heirs of Alexandria alternate fantasy Renaissance Venice setting co-written with Mercedes Lackey (1st book in series is a promo giveaway via the Baen Free Library): The Witch's Murder

Linda L. Richards offers a mystery/thriller short: Dearborn 9-1-1 The 2004 Mira-published 1st in her Madeline Carter series is still free (and now seems to have been definitively yanked from Smashwords this time around, instead of playing pricing catch-up again): Mad Money

Tina Gerow via Books We Love/BWLPP offers her 2006 Triskelion small-pressed paranormal romance: Stone Maiden. As usual, Books We Love/BWLPP have a mix of new and repeats, some by established authors, in their freebies today.

ISFDBed Phoebe Matthews returns with a set of steampunk short stories: Steampunk Man and More (Wicked Good)

Minor ISFDBed Mark Edward Hall returns with an omnibus edition contain a novel, some novellas, and what he says is an award-winning short story of assorted horror/suspense and Egyptian archaeological adventure: Mark Edward Hall Library, Vol. 1 (Boxed Set)

Minor ISFDBed horror editor Armand Rosamilia offers the 2nd in a batch of zombie shorts for which we previously received the 1st volume free: Dying Shortly Volume 2

Minor erotic romance imprint BookStrand-published Lisa Greer returns with another gothic romance short: Lady of the Lighthouse (Delia Daugherty Serials)

Janet Miller who seems to also write as Cricket Starr has had a few titles out from New Concepts Publishing, who mainly do erotic romance from newbies but have had a couple of things out from previously-established authors. Here's her sci-fi romance if you're interested: Imperfect Judgment

Bea Carlton has had a number of novels out from small Christian imprint Thorndike Press. She offers the 3rd in some sort of family saga/mystery suspense thriller series: In The Foxes' Lair (Randolph Family)

Chris Hambleton offers some kind of religious/political thriller apparently under the aegis of small Christian imprint Xulon Press in 2010: The Cell

Ben Osborne appears to have had a few books published by small imprint Troubadour, which seems to have published more than one author's work (a bit hard to tell, since the default filter setup on Amazon's advanced search is annoying and I'm not expending the energy to tweak it for potentially better results). In any case, he quotes what looks like local Welsh newspaper praise for: The Hyperion Legacy (Danny Rawlings Mysteries Book 1)

Another one of these graphic novels for your collection if you've been collecting: IT'S A MADHOUSE OUT THERE (APP BOOK) (JAZAN WILD'S FUHOUSE OF HORRORS)

Sechin Tower says that they worked for a particular game design studio and a quickie google search backs them up. So possibly they might have decent world-building chops for the background to their sci-fi thriller: Mad Science Institute

You know what we need? More books for the kiddies which emphasize the values of logic, reason, self-education, and science over superstition and willful ignorance. A quick skim of the sample for this says that the prose isn't obviously bad, so I therefore include: Logic to the Rescue, which is subtitled "Adventures in Reason", and its sequel Castles and Chemistry (Logic to the Rescue)

Various backlist/established-author repeats (I'm not going to bother to distinguish them this time around, caveat searcher) from Billie Sue Mosiman, Ray Banks, Barbara Levenson, Ken McClure, Carol Buchanan. And those of you who enjoyed newbie self-pub sci-fi humour writer Barry Barroldson's work and want to win a signed sketch, he's apparently got instructions in his blurbs on how to do so, and he repeats a freebie of his so the new people can try his stuff, if they want.

Happy reading, if indeed you manage to spot something you think you might like, or the adventurous kiddies learn to rescue themselves with logic.

[wyndslash]

thanks grabbed some.

[silasgreenback]

The Hallinan seemed like it could be a nice distraction. Since it was the second in the series, there seemed like little to lose with snatching up the first for $2.99.

[Polarpenguin]

Thanks again. grabbed a few

[dreams]

Last edited by ATDrake; Yesterday at 08:29 PM. Reason: Sorry, wrong numbering. Please dial again.

loved it.

I also fixed a broken link and, as always, thank you for all your posts.

[ATDrake]

Feature still free, updates go here, and we actually have some surprisingly nice and proportionally-large genuinely backlist stuff, some of which looks pretty interesting.

A good day for mystery/thriller and historical readers, I think, and a surprising twist on the usual "the Internet KDP Select exclusive-or-else slushpile is for porn" offerings.

Dennis Hamley offers his 1998-Scholastic children's/YA medieval historical adventure mystery/thriller set during Europe's Black Death, which, given the Relevant To My Interests subgenre and setting, may actually be one of the rare KDP freebies I actually end up reading: A Pact with Death (The Long Journey of Joslin de Lay)

Christine Kling returns to offer a 2004-Ballantine installment of her seagoing female sleuth captain mystery/thrillers: Cross Current (Seychelle Sullivan)

Janet Dawson returns to offer a 1994-Fawcett installment in her award-nominated PI series (I think this is 3rd, going from the publication date): Take A Number (The Jeri Howard Series)

Fellow MR member author Paul Levine returns with a 2009-Bantam legal thriller: Illegal

Ballantine-published Jeffrey Marks returns with a 2004-Grace Abraham small-pressed amateur sleuth murder mystery (may or may not be a cozy): The Scent of Murder

Maggie Marr offers a 2007 Crown/Three Rivers Press-published satiric-looking chick-lit thriller which newspaper reviews compare to Jackie Collins: Hollywood Girls Club

Rainy Kirkland offers an historical romance (may be a romantic suspense) set in 17th century America originally published by Zebra in 1992 under the title Ecstasy's Flame as part of their Heartfire imprint : Silver Flames (Bewitching Kisses Series)

Kyra E. Hicks, who is a professional quilter and blogger who says that her works have appeared in exhibitions in specified museums, offers an educational historical younger children's storybook which was originally out from small press Brown Books Publishing Group in 2006, with illustrations by Lee Fodi: Martha Ann's Quilt for Queen Victoria

ISFDBed small press Morrigan Books offers a collection of suspense/horror shorts by Carole Lanham (ISFDB entry), with blurb praise from Stoker Award-winning fellow MR member author David Niall Wilson: The Whisper Jar

Angry Robot-published ISFDBed John W. Campbell Award-nominee Lauren Beukes contributes to the following: Something Wicked #08 (November2008) (Something Wicked SF & Horror Magazine)

Harlequin-published Patricia Watters returns with a contemporary romance which may be a repeat: Broken Promises

HarperCollins-published Susan Sizemore offers an ancient Egyptian-set short which which looks like an adventure/interpersonal drama with maybe-romantic content: That God Won't Hunt

Minor ISFDBed Kimberly Raiser returns to offer a horror short: a Pound of Flesh

Small Christian-pressed Canadian Tom Roulstone returns with another of his inspirational western romance shorts: Wyoming Gold (Cheyenne Springs)

R.J. Jagger, who claims to have been published and quotes blurb praise from J.A. Konrath and Booklist and other outlet reviews for their stuff, returns with: Confidential Prey (Nick Teffinger Thriller 15 - Novella)

Harlequin Historical-published Tanya Anne Crosby offers a contemporary fiction novella (apparently general/women's fiction instead of primarily romantic): Lady's Man

Jo Robertson, who says she has won that Romantic Writers of America Golden Heart Award which they give out like candy to newbies with promising manuscripts, quotes a favourable review in the blurb from Publisher's Weekly for what was apparently an entry into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. So if you want to try a probably-vetted indie, here's her early 1900s California-set historical romantic mystery/suspense thriller: Frail Blood

Meghan Chavalier, whose Google search-provided WikiPorno entry I'm probably not supposed to link due to MR's family-friendly policy (although the actual site is remarkably tame, considering), has apparently had an extensive career and this is her 2007 self-published autobiography which I admit to being curious about now that it's shown up in the slushpile: Confessions Of A Transsexual Porn Star: Deluxe Edition

Backlist/established author repeats from Ben Rehder, Gordon Ryan, Philippa Ballantine (one is actually free to all via Smashwords, and a 2005 Dragon Moon small-pressed novel which I'll be adding to the dedicated Smashwords et al. backlist freebie thread shortly), and James Macomber (actually also a bunch of KDP authors once again repeating their works originally released under by Oceanview Publishing and still claiming their imprint name; e.g. Barbara Levenson from yesterday for whom this is at least the 3rd go-round for one of her books).

New and repeat small press stuff from Deadly Niche Press, Books We Love/BWLPP, Dark Continents Publishing, Adventure Books of Seattle (a promising looking time-travel sfnal anthology from them, which a thoughtful customer review gives an honest 3 stars for).

Happy reading, if indeed you manage to spot something you think you might like, or you've ever been interested in how the transsexual porn industry works.

[Synamon]

I give up. I was trying to cut way down on my free downloads, but there is too much good stuff to try out in all your posts, ATDrake. The Christine Kling was enticing enough to get me to buy the first in the series. Sigh, now I'll have to suck it up with do some organizing or create some sort of ranking system for my to-be-read list because it's getting unmanageable.

[ATDrake]

I never bother counting freebies on the TBR list*. Just pick up whatever looks interesting (and put marginal things in a secondary account**) and let the level of interest compared to opening quality sort out whatever you actually do read.

* Actually, I don't keep a TBR at all, but just vaguely prioritize reads by "due at library soon", "want to try to see if buy other related book on sale", "new acquisition from favourite author", "and looks interesting and I'm in the mood for it".

But if I did keep a TBR, I still wouldn't count the freebies and would select them via options #2 and #4.

** The relatively few I bother adding to my main account are basically the ones for which the answer to the hypothetical "would I clap my hands in glee like a demented baby fur seal if this showed up as an official multi-store publisher promo freebie" is yeaaaah!!!!!

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

** The relatively few I bother adding to my main account are basically the ones for which the answer to the hypothetical "would I clap my hands in glee like a demented baby fur seal if this showed up as an official multi-store publisher promo freebie" is yeaaaah!!!!!

Perfect rating system. I'll tag the really promising freebies with "demented baby fur seal".

[ATDrake]

Feature still free, taxes calculated and checked and just need to be written out in ink before mailing, minor updates go here.

We do have some nice-looking historical/mystery/litfic things, and it seems to be the day for ex-screen-associated people to have books out.

Joel Gross returns with a 1981-Seaview hardcovered Irish immigrant historical literary drama, which was picked up by Signet for paperback in 1982: Maura's Dream His blurb says some of his previously-freebied books have been Book of the Month Club and Literary Guild selections.

John Evans offers a 2007 Hodder & Stoughton-published tourist hostage conspiracy thriller set in the Uganda/Congo area: The Night of Knives

New American Library-published Jessica Barksdale Inclan returns with a gay coming-of-age literary fiction novel which is presumably much like her bestselling women's literary fiction novels: Where I Am Now

Robert Hale-published Andre Jute offers some kind of probably-political thriller and/or satire with a cryptic blurb I'm not going to bother to try deciphering: AN ELECTION OF PATRIOTS He also offers two short stories and edits another author's thriller: Linkage for the lot

Minor ISFDBed Australian sci-fi writer R.J. Astruc returns with what seems to be a noir-ish murder mystery/thriller: Street of Two Doors

Avalon-published Vickie Britton and Loretta Jackson return with an interesting-looking Egytian archaeological murder mystery/thriller: The Curse of Senmut (The Ardis Cole Series) Britton, incidentally, has just joined as a fellow MR member author and put the promo for her book in the correct forum, which is an accomplishment even fairly seasoned fellow MR member authors fail to get right, and should thus be applauded.

Mills & Boon-published Saskia Walker returns with an f/m contemporary romantic suspense, which she warns for graphic language and sex: Minding Amy

Pocket-published Charles W. Sasser offers a "ripped from the headlines" political action/adventure thriller: A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller

Britomart pointed out in the April Romance thread that Dee Garretson has been previously-published by HarperCollins and offers an interesting-looking Victorian murder mystery with some romantic elements: The Gargoyle in the Seine

It seems to be the day for screenwriters with novels.

Ian Kennedy Martin (IMDB entry), creator of the Sweeney TV series, offers a detective-gone-wrong thriller: Road of Bones (Petroc Corrigan novels)

David H. Steinberg (IMDB entry) a screenwriter for the popular American Pie teen sex comedy movie series, offers a end-of-high-school learning experience/coming-of-age novel which may not exactly be oriented at actual YA readers: Last Stop This Town

Barry R. Nemcoff is actually an ex-journalist and ex-reporter who later produced PBS' Nightly News Report, according to his author blurb and quick google search. He offers non-fiction reminisces of his experiences in Pakistan in the 60s while working for a news agency's foreign correspondent branch: Dacca Daze

Here's another if-you-want-to-try-a-probably-vetted-indie semifinalist of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Charles Kelly's 1917-set female lawyer amateur sleuth mystery/adventure thriller novel on the trail of kidnapped women: Grace Humiston and the Vanishing Apparently this is based on a true story, at lesat if the author's other work is to be believed.

More history-mashup anniversary zombies, in case you're building up a collection of such. I must say, not everyone is dedicated enough (and/or has a sufficiently understanding/indulgent intended) to have a zombie-themed wedding, as the author claims his cousin did (but I suppose brides mainly make their own arrangements, really): Titanic of The Dead: How I Survived the Titanic Zombie Apocalypse

As usual, Books We Love/BWLPP have some new offerings amidst all their repeats, some of them from established authors. Backlist/established author repeats from Crossroad Press, Lee Moan, Lisa Greer, Leslie Dubois and probably others I've completely forgotten about seeing.

Happy reading, if you manage to spot anything you think you might like, or pick up handy tips on how to survive a zombie shipwreck.

[wyndslash]

grabbed a few, thanks