Free (Kindle KDP) Indecent Proposal by Jack Engelhard [The Book of the Film]

[ATDrake]

Something really rather unexpected in the KDP Select exclusive-or-else-but-you-get-5-days-free-out-of-90-in-return-for-renting-out-your-soul slushpile today.

I actually wanted to go with the Jewish Bond-parody Playboy spy thriller spoof as a feature title because it looked cracktastically interesting, but this popped up and I figure it's got much more name recognition and thus, forum reader appeal, at least from a statistical casual-browser standpoint.

Indecent Proposal by Jack Engelhard is indeed the book upon which the film starring Robert Redford, Demi Moore, and Woody Harrelson is based, originally published by Dutton Adult in 1989.

Apparently this was a big turning point in launching Moore's movie career, and Engelhard additionally offers several other of his works free today.

Anyway, free with DRM for who knows how long @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT

Description
WHAT ONE THING WOULDN'T JOSHUA KANE DO FOR A MILLION BUCKS? LET ANOTHER MAN SLEEP WITH HIS WIFE... MAYBE.

Nothing cooled the fire in Joshua Kane's belly, not even marriage to his drop dead gorgeous wife, Joan, his own American dream--a Philadelphia socialite who gave up her lifestyle to have him. Now Josh believed that money could stop the burning in his gut, the kind of cash Joan deserved, the kind he'd never make at his nine-to-five job. That's why he was in the casino, hoping for the big score.

A high-rolling billionaire was there too, looking for a gamble that interested him...like offering a million bucks to spend one night with Josh's beautiful wife. It was the devil's deal--and tempting as hell. But just thinking about it was tearing Josh's marriage apart, and his instincts told him that there was more to this proposal than money and sex. The mysterious, handsome man was playing a sinister game, and this time Joan's body and Josh's soul--or maybe his life--were the prize.

Engelhard's other freebie offerings seem to be self-published ones, although some of them have newspaper praise and claim independent author award nominations in the blurb. I'll just link to the lot of them, which include mystery/conspiracy thrillers, suspense, and historicals set in WWII and the JFK years: main, UK, DE, FR, IT, ES

A fairly decent day for the slushpile, with other genuine backlist offerings already popped up in other threads in the forum, and a fair number of promising-looking mystery/crime thrillers, plus a couple of sfnal things as well.

This would have been the title feature if the Now A Major Motion Picture! thing hadn't shown up.

Loxfinger (Israel Bond Oy-Oy-7) by Sol Weinstein was originally out from Pocket Books in 1965.

During the 60s, with all those shiny new Sean Connery movies coming out, Playboy commissioned a series of parodic spy thriller spoofs to put in their magazine as something for people to claim they read it for, along with the articles, of course.

Free without DRM for who knows how long @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT

Description
In the mid-1960s, when Playboy was serializing the adventures of the world’s most famous superspy, they interspersed them with Sol Weinstein's rollicking tales of the Jewish state’s most hilarious weapon, Israel Bond. After the book editions of what the Chicago Tribune called “probably the funniest secret agent parodies ever written” had sold over a million copies, they were allowed to fall out of print. Decades later, they're back, in new editions with a new editorial polish by the original author.

Israel Bond may seem like a simple-if-sexy salesman for Mother Margolies’ Old World Chicken Soup, but when the Holy Land needs his skills – his quickness with a pun, his second-to-none semitic seduction techniques, and (if absolutely necessary) his abilities at actual espionage – then the man known by the code name Oy-Oy-7 (licensed not only to kill, but to say prayers over the corpse) does what needs to be done.

In a land surrounded by its enemies, Oy-Oy-7 is called on to guard the nation’s great benefactor, the generous but odd Lazarus Loxfinger. Is there more to Loxfinger than meets the eye? Bond aims to find out, even if doing so requires sleeping with dozens of exotic beauties!

Agatha Award-winner Sujata Massey offers the 10th in her Rei Shimura Undercover Antiques Dealer mystery/thriller series, which she helpfully mentions in the publisher field as "originally published by Severn House" which lo and behold, it was in 2008. I approve of this and it seems a good compromise between naming the provenance of one's backlist book and misleadingly claiming that it is still out from the same imprint as putting the former publisher alone is wont to do. And her book looks interesting, so I'll likely give this a try: Shimura Trouble (Rei Shimura)

Arthur Ellis award-winning Jon Evans' global mystery/conspiracy thriller, originally out from HarperCollins in 2006, is ironically not available to Canadians, considering that the Ellis award is the major Canadian crime prize. But persons in other countries may be able to get it (works for US accounts, at least): Invisible Armies

Apparently Australian sf/fantasy writer R.J. Astruc (ISFDB entry) offers a collection of short stories, some of which appeared in small press outlets: Regret Incorporated and Other Very, Very Short Stories

Jake Needham, who has minor IMDB credits, and had a book published by Asia Books, offers a 2006 Prime Crime Press crime thriller set in Singapore, for which the blurb quotes praise from local expatriate newspapers: THE AMBASSADOR'S WIFE (An Inspector Samuel Tay Novel)

Geralyn Dawson returns with her 1996 Fanfare-published romance, which is not KDP, but playing pricing catchup with Smashwords so may still be lingering at free at other outlets as well: The Bad Luck Wedding Dress (The Bad Luck Wedding series) The sequel and her other backlist are still on Smashwords for $3.99 a pop.

ISFDBed Alex Irvine returns with another short story in case you missed his collection earlier: Eagleburger's Lawn (The Dream Curator and Other Stories)

Erotic romance eXcessica imprint publisher & Blake Crouch co-writer Selena Kitt returns with a contemporary f/m erotic romance short which she says was runner-up for a particular prize: Connections

Bell Bridge Books-published Donna Ball returns with some romances (contemporary & western) & romantic suspenses which were yanked from Smashwords: Linkage for the lot

ISFDBed Iain Rowan offers a short story which received an honourable mention in Ellen Datlow's Year's Best Horror and also some recommendation for the British Fantasy Society award: Driving In Circles

Minor ISFDBed Marilyn Peake returns with a dark fantasy short set in Mexico, and she has some repeats as well if you're interested: Coyote Crossing

ISFDBed Benjamin X. Wretland returns with another one of his suspense/horror shorts: The Independence of Carolyn Woltkowski (Sketches from the Spanish Mustang)

Previously included Christian fiction award-winner Australian Martin Roth returns with another in his Christian military thriller series: Military Orders (Military Orders Series, Book 3

Fellow MR member author Paul Levine offers a short story which ties into his mystery/thriller series: SOLOMON & LORD SINK OR SWIM (Solomon vs. Lord)

Sam Mills claims extensive article publication in specified news & magazine outlets and a particular travel writing award and I see no reason to doubt him as Google seems to back him up on the travel writing award, at least, so here's his self-published adventure/suspense thriller novel: The Money Tree

Bev Petterson says that she has won that Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award which is apparently the one they give out like candy to newbies with promising manuscripts and she lives in Nova Scotia (which is a province of Canada, for those of you who do not know which ones we have), so here's her western contemporary romance if you want to give it a try: Thoroughbreds and Trailer Trash (not the manuscript which won the awards)

Established author repeats from Simon Kewin, Eva Hudson, Chester Burton Brown, Crossroad Press, Evil Jester Press, fellow MR member author Patty Jansen (not KDP, but playing pricing catchup with Smashwords, so may still be free in other stores as well). Small press stuff from Mainly Murder Press, Penumbra Publishing, Dare to Dream Press, Books We Love/BWLPP as usual.

Happy reading, if indeed you manage to spot something you think you might like, or you have a hot significant other who's willing to go along with your new idea for how to MAKE MONEY FA$$$$T off the 1% in these troubled economic times.

ETA: Rick Craig says that he has had short stories appear in various specified outlets and that he has won a particular fiction award from the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Google backs him up on that last, at least, so here is his murder mystery/adventure conspiracy thriller: The Last Mountains (A Tom Hadley Mystery)

[Synamon]

Some decent looking mysteries and who can resist a Bond spoof.

[wyndslash]

got the bond spoof