Free (nook/Kindle/Kobo/iTunes) Schmucks [Montréal Zany Satiric Insurance Scam Comedy]

[ATDrake]

Shmucks by award-winning Montréal-native anglophone Quebecer playwright and novelist Seymour Blicker (IMDB, Wikipedia) is his vintage 1970s-era standalone contemporary literary comedy short novel (128 pages estimated count, but with 23 chapters in it from the Amazon preview) set in Montréal, this being a darkly satirical zany comedy-of-errors filled with an eccentric cast of characters and centred around what looks to be an attempted insurance scam, or at least a close encounter in a dimly-lit alleyway with planners thereof, free courtesy of publisher HarperCollins' William Morrow Impulse imprint, who are e-printing it from its 1972 McClelland & Stewart (once one of our top national publishers, now a division of the Random Penguin House) hardcover edition.

This is B&N's featured Free Fridays book of the week and you can read the accompanying blogpost here, although unfortunately there is no author personal reading recommendation as there has been for previous Free Fridays features.

Currently free, probably just through the weekend @ B&N, Amazon, Kobo, iTunes (none available to Canadians, ironically), and probably also Google Play if you're in the US.

If you happen to enjoy this one and wish to read more, another standalone satire novel of Blicker's, starring Montreal loan sharks, is currently discounted to just 99 cents in the US ($2.99 Canadian, sigh, our petro-dollar has not gone that low yet) across multiple venues: The Last Collection

And this has been the (late!) selected 3rd (non-repeat) free ebook thread of the day.

Because more Canadiana, and funny Canadiana at that, with a promo tie-in sale for even more funny Canadiana is a cause to

Even if not actually available to actual Canadians in Canada who are not currently US expats or pretending to be. But I guess that just makes it even funnier, in a way.

Enjoy!

Description
The time: an entire night in Montreal.

The place: a narrow alley where two stubborn drivers come to a preposterous impasse.

The cast: a marvelous blend of misfits—Pelzic, the immigrant cabdriver whose ambition is to pull a retzic (bonanza) by throwing himself against moving vehicles and thereby milking some insurance company; Levin, the real estate fat cat whose tenants are pinpricking him mad with inane complaints; a tipsy millionaire; and a girl or two.

The book: Shmucks, a brutally sardonic, brilliantly funny novel of confrontation and alienation.