Free from the author('s republishing consortium) via KDP Select @
Amazon:
Huckleberry Fiend by Edgar Award-winner Julie Smith (
SYKM,
Wikipedia), 2nd in her Paul MacDonald mystery series starring an ex-reporter turned mystery writer, originally out from Mysterious Press in 1987.
The most priceless American manuscript in existence has unceremoniously dropped into Paul Mcdonald's hands--now what?
In between much-needed therapy sessions, Paul's neurotic friend Booker the burglar stole it from his dad’s girl friend’s roommate, and now wants sometime-sleuth Paul to find its rightful owner. Because he’s pretty sure the roommate's not it.
Paul is so awed he can hardly bring himself to touch it. It’s none other than the missing holograph of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And Beverly the roommate's no librarian, she’s a flight attendant, so Booker suspects chicanery. He’s only too right: Beverly, it turns out, is dead. Murdered for the manuscript, if Paul’s guess is right.
He finds out it’s in high demand from a zany collection of collectors, Huckleberry Fiends of all stripes of crazy, every single one of them capable of murder. Suddenly he’s the protagonist of A Literary Nightmare, surrounded by Mysterious Strangers, playing out A Double-Barrelled Detective Story involving A Stolen White Elephant and pretty much Roughing It with the bullying Homicide Inspector Howard Blick.
Also free again from the author('s republishing consortium) as a long-term promo @
Kobo and thence price-matched to selected regional
Amazon stores (available to Canadians):
Death Turns a Trick by Julie Smith, 1st in her Rebecca Schwartz humorous mystery series starring a Jewish feminist lawyer, originally out from Walker in 1982.
Rebecca Schwartz, nice Jewish lawyer with a few too many fantasies, is happily playing the piano in a whorehouse when she suddenly finds herself assigned to make sure a near-naked state senator escapes a police raid. That dirty job done, a lovely evening turns even more delightful when she’s picked up by the cops and spends the next two hours at the Hall of Justice. Could this day get any worse? Of Course! Guess who arrives home to find a dead hooker on her living room floor!
Handsome Parker Phillips, Rebecca’s new beau and the most attractive man she’s met in ages, is arrested for the murder. (Worse, she suspects he might actually have done it.)
On the plus side, another very attractive man is following the case--reporter Rob Burns of the San Francisco Chronicle, a possible ally. And there are other possibilities.
Apparently, it looks like Smith has finally taken a large chunk of her backlist off of KDP Select exclusive and made them available @
Kobo (couponable) and other stores for a fairly low starting price.
Incidentally, there's a 99 cent bargain for a boxed set of 5 backlist novels from established mystery authors, should be available in all the regular Canada & US stores, maybe other regions as well, and couponable @ Kobo, here:
Killer Femmes: 5 Irresistible Crime Novels From Around the World Boxed Set, including novels by Julie Smith, Sujata Massey, Christine Kling, Zoe Sharp, and fellow MR member author Libby Fischer Hellman, all of which have been previously trad-published (and some of them were free via KDP Select a couple of years ago, but if you missed that, this is a really good price for them, especially if you can apply couponage).