Freebies

The reliably entertaining Max Allan Collins is offering, between today and Thursday, a couple of his mystery/thrillers for free on Kindle, Nook, and one or two other e-book platforms. Do yourself a favor and pick them up. Collins always tells a good story, and has been doing so for about four decades.

These particular books are actually Collins team-ups, as the chilling, dark-sounding You Can't Stop Me was written along with collaborator Matthew Clemens, and the much lighter "cozy" style mystery Antiques Roadkill was written by both Mr. Collins and his wife Barbara, under the pen name Barbara Allan. Both are initial chapters of their respective series. As Mr. Collins recently said on his engaging website, "I'm basically using the drug dealer trick: you get the first ones free."

I've already read Antiques Roadkill and the second book in that series, Antiques Maul (see reviews elsewhere on this blog), so I can recommend these quirky, funny books without reservation. Regarding You Can't Stop Me, I'll paraphrase horror host Count Floyd from the old SCTV comedy show (who routinely introduced horror movies he knew absolutely nothing about): "I'm not actually familiar with this one, kids, but I'm sure it's real scaaaaaaaary!"

Of course, in Count Floyd's case, the "scary" movies were usually anything but (hilariously, Whisper of the Wolf turned out to be an old Ingmar Bergman film with actors in profile spouting subtitled inanities in monotone Swedish). But I'm sure You Can't Stop Me will deliver just fine on the thrills and scares front. I'll let you know for sure in the near future when I dive into it, but for now, what's the harm in downloading your copy for free?

Speaking of that, the accompanying photograph shows my new graphite-colored Kindle 3, eagerly showing off one of the free Collins downloads now residing in its ample memory. Handsome little device, isn't it?