The Toby Peters Mysteries Series

Frankly, a killer doesn’t give a damn about offing Clark Gable—or Toby Peters—in this “fast-paced and colorful addition to a very successful series” (Publishers Weekly).   On December 10, 1938, Atlanta burned again. In the back lot at David O. Selznick’s studio, sets from a dozen old pictures were pushed together and set ablaze to provide a backdrop for the climax of what Selznick promised to be the movie of the century: Gone with the Wind. Toby Peters, then just a studio security guard, was on hand to help keep the Confederate extras in line. When the fire was over, he found one of them dead, impaled on his own sword.   Five years later, Peters scratches out a living as a private detective for Hollywood’s best known stars. Now it’s Clark Gable who needs his help. He’s been getting death threats. On the back of a cryptic poem, the sleuth finds a list of people on scene the night the extra died. Two are already dead, and the rest are next. Sure enough, one of those marked for death is Gable. The other is Toby Peters . . .   “Nostalgic readers with a yen for the good old days . . . will find Kaminsky’s story entertaining, clever, eminently readable, and chock-full of snippets from Hollywood’s Golden Age.” —Booklist

The first in a mystery series set in 1940s Hollywood, where a hard-boiled private eye helps a cast of real-life stars: “Nostalgic fun” (Publishers Weekly).   Hollywood, 1940: It’s been four years since security guard Toby Peters got fired from the Warner Brothers lot for breaking a screen cowboy’s arm. Since then he’s scratched out a living as a private detective—missing persons and bodyguard work mostly—but now his old friends, the Warners, have a job for him.   Someone has mailed the studio a picture of Errol Flynn caught in a compromising position with an underage woman. Although Flynn insists it’s a fake, the studio is taking no chances. Peters is to deliver the blackmailer five thousand dollars and return with the photo negative. It should be simple, but Flynn, a swashbuckler on and off the screen, has a way of making things complicated.   Soon it’s up to Peters to clear Flynn’s name, following a twisted trail that surprisingly leads to the set of The Maltese Falcon, involving Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet. As real-life PI Toby Peters meets Bogie’s Sam Spade, he doesn’t fall prey to being star-struck. But he may still fall prey to a killer.   “If you like your mysteries Sam Spade tough, with tongue in cheek and a touch of the theatrical, then the Toby Peters series is just your ticket.” —Houston Chronicle

It doesn’t take a genius to see Albert Einstein’s life is in danger, but it will take a hard-headed Hollywood PI to save him. It’s all relative.   It’s April 1942, the world is at war, and LA private detective Toby Peters has been summoned to Princeton, New Jersey, to deal with a situation of the utmost gravity—the world’s greatest physicist is being threatened. Blackmailers claim to have evidence that Albert Einstein has been passing nuclear secrets to Russia, and Nazi assassins want to do away with one of the most famous opponents of Hitler’s rule. Sounds like a formula for disaster.   Peters is used to dealing with Hollywood’s elite—not exactly a brain trust—but the East Coast is a new beat for him. Soon he’s swept up in some serious Manhattan mayhem, trying to keep Einstein from harm but also trying to stay alive himself.   Incorporating cameos from Paul Robeson and Frank Sinatra, Edgar Award–winning author Stuart M. Kaminsky “has such a good time writing, and he so loves the period, that the reader is swept along willy-nilly” (TheNew York Times Book Review).

In this “marvelously entertaining” mystery, a hard-boiled Hollywood private eye investigates a murdered Munchkin on the set of The Wizard of Oz (Newsday).   A year after The Wizard of Oz’s smash success, the yellow brick road is crumbling. The famous sets have been left standing on a soundstage in the depths of the MGM back lot in case the studio greenlights a sequel. But that doesn’t explain what Judy Garland is doing there—or why she finds a Munchkin in full costume, lying facedown with a knife buried in his back.   To avoid even a whiff of scandal and protect Judy’s wholesome image, the studio boss hires Toby Peters, a Hollywood private detective with a reputation for discretion. But as Peters quickly learns, the real threat to Miss Garland isn’t the tabloids—it’s the psychopathic killer who stalks the back lot and plans to kill the young actress next.   In addition to the murder mystery swirling around Judy Garland, the second Toby Peters novel features cameos from “Clark Gable and Raymond Chandler [who] give an assist in this imaginative mystery recreated from yesterday’s movie-land” (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland).

As a hard-boiled Hollywood PI enlists Al Capone’s help to save the Marx Brothers, Kaminsky “makes the totally wacky possible” (The Washington Post).   It’s 1941 and the Marx Brothers’ first movie for MGM, Go West, has the country in stitches. But now Chico Marx is worried he’s going to need stitches when he receives a severed ear in the mail—a simple message from a Chicago bookie who wants $120,000, or else. Chico is baffled because, although he loves to gamble, he’s never made a bet in Chicago. Desperate, he turns to the king of Hollywood, Louis B. Mayer, who puts in a call to Toby Peters.   A Hollywood private detective who’s proven himself adept at keeping scandals out of the tabloids, Peters flies to Florida for an interview with Al Capone, deposed lord of the Chicago underworld. The retired bootlegger’s mind has gone soft, and he doesn’t know anything about Chico’s bookie, but he suggests Peters speak to his brother. With Scarface’s good word as an introduction, the PI heads to Chicago. But it will take more than a good sense of humor to keep Groucho, Harpo, and especially Chico from getting axed.   Edgar Award–winner Stuart Kaminsky’s “Toby Peters series was a delight. They were written with more than a dash of humor and featured a variety of improbable real-life characters, ranging from the Marx Brothers to Judy Garland” (Library Journal).

Gen. Douglas MacArthur enlists the help of a discreet private detective in “one of the sprightliest of the [Toby Peters] series” (Time).   It’s September 1942, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur believes he’s got what it takes to win the war in the Pacific—but he’s got a personal problem to take care of first. An aide has run off with his war chest, his donor list, and a handful of embarrassing private letters: a haul that would make the general a perfect target for blackmail and derail the post-war presidential run he’s planning. This is one battle he can’t afford to lose.   So the general enlists Det. Toby Peters, who has built a reputation for discretion among Hollywood’s elite, not to mention the White House. Forming a surprising alliance with former Pinkerton agent and legendary crime novelist, Dashiell Hammett, Peters follows the trail to Angel Springs, California, and a mysterious millionaire who’s definitely no angel. In protecting the general from blackmail, Peters hopes to avoid paying the ultimate price himself.   Edgar Award winner Stuart M. Kaminsky “has a delightfully original mind enriching—rather than just borrowing from—an old literary form” (Los Angeles Times).

Someone’s gunning for John Wayne in this “well-plotted” mystery set in 1940s Hollywood featuring a wisecracking private eye (Publishers Weekly).   Something about Lewis Vance’s story doesn’t add up. The guy claims to be John Wayne’s stand-in, and he’s called Det. Toby Peters about a possible job involving the star. But when Peters meets him in a seedy hotel room, Vance slips him a mickey. After Peters comes to, his head pounding, he sees the real John Wayne pointing a .38 at him. Vance was not exactly a dead ringer for the Duke—but he is dead, lying on the hotel bed with a bullet hole drilled in his forehead. And it’s a dead heat as to who’s more confused—the gumshoe or the movie star.   On screen no one gets the drop on the Duke, but in real life someone’s trying to kill him. Wayne hires Peters to get to the bottom of things, and soon he’s tangled up in a twisted conspiracy that also involves a dubious desk clerk named Teddy Spaghetti, the Russians, and none other than the Little Tramp himself, Charlie Chaplin.   “As in the other entries in this series, Kaminsky’s use of period detail and his appealing renderings of real-life celebrities provide the strongest recommendations for this well-plotted mystery.” —Publishers Weekly

A hard-boiled Hollywood PI has to work without a net to save Emmett Kelly from a killer who’s not clowning around: “Nostalgic fun” (Publishers Weekly).   In February 1942, Californians may be living in fear of a Japanese attack, but the show must go on. The circus is in town—unfortunately so is a killer saboteur who’s targeting the star attractions. Private detective Toby Peters is no stranger to going undercover, but this is the first time his disguise will include a red nose.   The killer has already electrocuted an elephant, and hobo clown Emmett Kelly has had a close brush with death. The second-rate circus in this sleepy coastal town seems like another world from Peters’s usual Hollywood beat, but of all people, Alfred Hitchcock, the director of Suspicion, is under suspicion. With the investigation on the verge of becoming a three-ring circus, it’s up to Toby Peters to cage the killer before anyone else meets a bad end under the big top.   Edgar Award winner Stuart M. Kaminsky’s “Toby Peters series [is] a delight . . . Written with more than a dash of humor” and this big-top murder mystery is a “fun, lightweight book for all mystery fans” (Library Journal).

A 1940s Hollywood gumshoe heads to San Francisco to foil a very real phantom of the opera in this “believable and entertaining” mystery (Publishers Weekly).   1942 is a dangerous year to stage Madama Butterfly. Although Puccini’s masterpiece is a perennial favorite of the San Francisco opera crowd, its sympathetic depiction of a Japanese girl causes tension a year after Pearl Harbor. Newspaper editorialists rage against the production, opera buffs picket the theater, and a note appears nailed to the house door, threatening violence against cast and crew.   But someone is doing more than making idle threats—a self-styled phantom of the opera. When a workman on the opera house renovation is killed, the maestro, Leopold Stokowski, the conductor who starred in Disney’s Fantasia, calls Hollywood PI Toby Peters to catch a madman.   With two days to go before opening night, the attacks are building to a crescendo. As Peters hunts for the phantom, he falls for one of the company starlets. But they must tread lightly, or face a finale far more tragic than anything dreamed of by Puccini.   “Hardly a pause separates the frightful, madly comic and nostalgic incidents made believable and entertaining in Kaminsky’s artful handling” (Publishers Weekly).

A PI performs some fancy footwork to protect Fred Astaire as “Edgar winner Kaminsky effortlessly choreographs Hollywood history . . . and dirty doings” (Publishers Weekly).   Sometimes fools must step in where Fred Astaire fears to tap.   Luna Martin, the moll of a well-known Los Angeles gangster nicknamed “Fingers” (because he likes to cut them off), has demanded dance lessons from Hollywood’s finest hoofer—and whatever Luna wants, Luna gets.   To sidestep the flirtations of the lead-footed lady, Astaire hires private investigator Toby Peters to pose as a dance instructor and take over the lessons. But when someone cuts in and cuts Luna’s throat, the grieving gangster makes Peters an offer he can’t refuse: Find the killer—or go from having two left feet to one foot in the grave.   Now, instead of punishing the parquet, the silver screen’s most famous song-and-dance man is pounding the pavement with his new partner—a rumpled, middle-aged gumshoe who just wants to live to shuffle through another day . . .

In this “lively noir mystery,” a 1940s Hollywood private eye tries to clear heavyweight champ Joe Louis and corner a killer (Library Journal).   Joe Louis may be the heavyweight champ of the world, but private detective Toby Peters is pretty sure he’s not a cold-blooded killer. Pretty sure, because Peters has just found the boxer standing over a man on the beach who’s clearly been beaten to death. Louis claims he was just out for a run, but it doesn’t look good. Offering his services on the spot, Peters joins the champ’s corner.   The corpse isn’t just anyone. He happens to be Peters’s ex-wife’s new husband, the one she just hired him to find. Well, he found him. As the detective begins to investigate, he discovers the victim had lately taken an interest in the boxing world, which only further complicates matters. To clear the Louis, Peters will need to go a few rounds with a killer who won’t be pulling any punches.   The Edgar Award winner once again delivers a TKO in the hard-boiled detective genre with a tale Library Journal calls “vintage Kaminsky.”

Goodness has nothing to do with it as a hard-luck private eye in 1940s Hollywood takes a case for legendary silver screen sex symbol Mae West.   In the early days of talking pictures, the greatest sex symbol in Hollywood was the platinum-blonde bad girl Mae West. Naughty and gorgeous with a razor-sharp wit, West wrote her own material and controlled her own image—until the censors came in and outlawed the racy repartee that made her famous. By the forties, her star has faded and she’s banking everything on a scandalous memoir that she hopes will set the stage for a comeback. When the only copy is stolen, she calls in a favor from an old beau—the brother of wisecracking PI Toby Peters.   When Mae West asks, “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?” you don’t say no. Peters arrives at a party at West’s house, where every guest is a man dressed as the woman herself—and one of them may be the thief who stole the manuscript. But before he can tear off the culprit’s wig, Peters finds that this is about more than theft. The crook wants to destroy Mae West, and he has murder on his mind.   The star of Edgar Award winner Stuart M. Kaminsky’s fun forties private eye series, “Peters is a good guy with a sense of humor, and every appearance he makes is a welcome one” (Booklist).

This “enjoyable lark” is a road-trip mystery with an old Hollywood backdrop, starring PI Toby Peters and the great comic W. C. Fields (Library Journal).   Under names like Otis J. Raisincluster, Quigley E. Sneersight, and Cormorant Beecham III, W. C. Fields squirreled away nearly a million dollars in banks across the country during his vaudeville days—before he became one of the silver screen’s most recognizable funnymen. But it’s no laughing matter when a burglar has the audacity to rob him blind, stealing his bankbooks and cleaning out his accounts. Steaming, the comedian hires Hollywood private investigator Toby Peters to track down the missing dough and protect what remains of his nest egg.   On a cross-country road trip through small-town 1940s America, a frequently inebriated Fields and a frequently exasperated Peters encounter complications in the form of the Amish, John Barrymore, and the Ku Klux Klan. But can they catch their elusive quarry—Lester O. Hipnoodle?   “Even on the printed page . . . Fields’ nasal rap seems to rise up and envelop you” in the Edgar Award–winning author’s “mesmerizing” comic mystery (Chicago Sun-Times).

The stakes are life and death when Bela Lugosi is threatened in this “affectionate parody of the hard-boiled private-eye” genre (The New York Times).   1942: In the basement of a crumbling Los Angeles movie palace, five vampires crowd around Bela Lugosi. They should not frighten the fading horror icon, who found worldwide fame as Dracula, for these are only wannabes—diehard fans who get their kicks dressing up as bloodsuckers. But Lugosi is terrified, because he knows that one of these crackpots has been making threats against his life. Their fangs may be plastic, but their lethal intentions are all too real.   For protection, Lugosi hires Hollywood private eye Toby Peters, who’s splitting his time between this case and a job for his old employers: the Warner brothers. A Hollywood murder has been linked to one of the studio’s star screenwriters: the brilliant novelist and violent drunk, William Faulkner. To his horror, Peters finds a connection between the two cases. To get Faulkner off the hook, he’ll have to find out who wants to close the coffin lid on Dracula.   With “shades of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett” Edgar Award–winning author Stuart Kaminsky’s 1940s Hollywood PI is once again cracking wise and saving celebrities from psychos (The San Diego Union-Tribune).

The final Toby Peters Hollywood whodunit from the Edgar Award–winning author is “a marvelous magic trick of a mystery” featuring Harry Blackstone (Booklist, starred review).   When an anonymous rival demands that master illusionist Harry Blackstone reveal his secrets on stage or die, the magician hires Toby Peters and his brother, ex-cop Phil Pevsner, to run security for his show at the famous Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Of course, Peters doesn’t expect the job to include replacing a showgirl for Blackstone’s show-stopping sawing-a-woman-in-half trick after the saboteur has stolen the blade.   Peters’s brief career in magic is only the first surprise as a blackmailing con man turns up shot in a dressing room backstage and one of Blackstone’s competitors ends up dead at a testimonial dinner. With “The Great Blackstone” now a murder suspect, the sleuth will need to pull a rabbit out of a hat to solve this mystery . . .

“Edgar winner Kaminsky offers plenty of nostalgic fun” as Hollywood PI Toby Peters teams up with Cary Grant in this World War II–era spy romp (Publishers Weekly).   Since the start of World War II, Cary Grant has been working undercover in Hollywood as a spy for the British crown. When a ring of Nazi sympathizers gets wise, they start blackmailing the debonair leading man. Now Grant has hired Toby Peters to handle the payoff. But when the blackmailer is killed, the rumpled detective and the suave movie star are thrust into a complex plot of murder, money, and Nazi spies, leading to a literal cliffhanger . . .   “For anyone with a taste for old Hollywood B-movie mysteries, Edgar winner Kaminsky offers plenty of nostalgic fun in his 22nd book to feature good-natured, unprepossessing sleuth Toby Peters . . . Toby and the acrobatic Grant at his lithe best make an appealing team. The tone is light, the pace brisk, the tongue firmly in cheek.” —Publishers Weekly

On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Howard Hughes hires Hollywood gumshoe Toby Peters to find stolen blueprints in the “marvelously entertaining” series (Newsday).   Millionaire Howard Hughes likes his secrets. He likes to keep them—and he definitely doesn’t like having them stolen. Hollywood PI Toby Peters has a rep for being discreet. So when the film tycoon and aviation magnate needs a detective to very privately investigate the theft of top-secret blueprints taken from his home during one of his fabulous parties, he summons Peters. But what starts as counter-espionage intrigue turns into a triple murder, and Peters soon finds himself bait for a killer.   As America is pulled into World War II, Peters is just trying to stay alive as a gunman chases him through a deserted television soundstage. With help from some unlikely allies—including Basil Rathbone, the silver screen’s Sherlock Holmes, and gangster/patriot Bugsy Siegel—Peters is determined to dodge the bullets long enough to recover the blueprints before they fall into the wrong hands.   The Chicago Sun-Times calls the Toby Peters mysteries “entertainment at its best” as Edgar Award–winning author Stuart Kaminsky takes readers on a rollicking tour of Hollywood in the forties.

With “shades of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett,” a 1940s Los Angeles private eye must recover FDR’s kidnapped dog (The San Diego Union-Tribune).   Working in Hollywood, private eye Toby Peters has met a lot of phonies. But his newest case concerns a four-legged faker who threatens the fate of the free world. A few classy dames have crossed the detective’s doorstep, but none can touch the hem of the dress of the First Lady herself, Eleanor Roosevelt, who’s come to him on a matter of top-secret national security.   Six months after Pearl Harbor, Mrs. Roosevelt has developed a terrible suspicion. She thinks the president’s sprightly Scottish terrier, Fala, has been kidnapped and replaced by an imposter, and she wants Peters to find the real rover—for without him, all may be lost.   As usual, the First Lady is right. Peters learns that the presidential pooch is the linchpin in a fiendish plot against the White House. Fortunately, this old detective has learned some new tricks, and he has no intention of rolling over and playing dead.   Featuring a cameo by Buster Keaton, this Toby Peters mystery is further proof that Edgar Award–winning author Stuart M. Kaminsky “has a delightfully original mind enriching—rather than borrowing from—an old literary form” (Los Angeles Times).

Hired as a bodyguard for diva Bette Davis, this wisecracking Hollywood PI better fasten his seat belt, it’s going to be a bumpy night.   Bette Davis has three words to describe her hotel hideaway: “What a dump!”   After two days locked in a rented room with the acid-tongued actress, private eye Toby Peters is starting to feel like he’s her husband—instead of Arthur Farnsworth—and he wants a divorce. The diva’s real hubby—an aeronautics engineer with a head full of government secrets and a gang of blackmailers on his trail—has hired Peters to keep Bette safe from kidnappers. But when thugs burst through the hotel room door, it’s almost a relief.   Almost . . .   Because Peters still has a job to do. And to rescue the snatched star, he needs to crack a Nazi spy ring while at the same time keeping a bit of indiscreet evidence involving Bette and Howard Hughes from falling into the wrong hands . . .   “For anyone with a taste for old Hollywood B-movie mysteries, Edgar winner [Stuart M.] Kaminsky offers plenty of nostalgic fun” in the Toby Peters mysteries. “The tone is light, the pace brisk, the tongue firmly in cheek” (Publishers Weekly).

Time is running out for surrealist painter Salvador Dalí and a 1940s Hollywood PI: “Fast-paced, well-plotted, consistently funny” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).   Talk about surreal! An ax-wielding monk hacks at a door, while on the other side private detective Toby Peters is running as fast as his recently broken leg will allow, alongside Salvador Dalí, dressed in a rabbit suit, repeatedly muttering “grasshoppers” as they try to make their escape.   It all started when Dalí hired a gang of burglars to steal three of his own paintings—a publicity stunt that spiraled out of control when the thieves refused to give the missing masterpieces back. Dalí hired Peters to find the artwork, but now it seems the pair may have painted themselves into a corner.   “The flamboyant prankster-artist [Dalí] holds his own among the hero’s circle of zany friends in Mr. Kaminsky’s Technicolor fantasy of 1940’s Hollywood.” —The New York Times   “Once again Kaminsky mixes the real—in this case the surreal—with the fictional for a quick-paced, clever revisionist Hollywood romp.” —Publishers Weekly

A forties Hollywood PI does not forsake Gary Cooper: “Like all of Toby [Peters’s] adventures, High Midnight is high entertainment” (The Cincinnati Post).   When laconic leading man Gary Cooper needs a detective, he does the smart thing and hires Toby Peters, sleuth to the stars. But the man he finds in Peters’s office isn’t the famously discreet private eye—it’s the dentist who shares his office, who’s always had a fantasy of playing gumshoe, and happily agrees to take care of Cooper’s blackmail problem. Impersonating Peters, the dentist bungles the case disastrously, and setting it right will be like pulling teeth.   Cooper is in trouble with a Chicago gangster named Lombardi, who’s come to Los Angeles intending to set himself up as the cold cuts king of California. Thanks to the dentist’s meddling, he wants the actor dead. When Cooper hightails it with his old drinking buddy Ernest Hemingway, it’s up to Peters to avoid a showdown.   High Midnight shows once again how Edgar Award winner Stuart M. Kaminsky “has a delightfully original mind enriching—rather than just borrowing from—an old literary form” (Los Angeles Times).

In a fun series with “shades of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett,” a 1940s PI must find out who’s gunning for Peter Lorre (TheSan Diego Union-Tribune).   Scaly-voiced and bug-eyed actor Peter Lorre has become one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood, especially after appearing in the Sam Spade crime drama, The Maltese Falcon, last year. Yet Hollywood PI Toby Peters still has to contend with his landlady believing the star of Think Fast, Mr. Moto, is Japanese. Whether playing an Asian detective or a weaselly villain, one role Lorre will probably never get is romantic lead—except apparently in real life. Because the distraught dentist who shares offices with Peters insists his wife has run off with Peter Lorre and begs the detective to find her.   As it turns out, the boyfriend in question is a Peter Lorre impersonator—perhaps an even more bizarre romantic choice. But by the time Peters finds him, the mimic is doing a terrific imitation of a corpse. The bullet was meant for the real Lorre, who has just become the gumshoe’s client—whether he likes it or not.   “If you like your mysteries Sam Spade tough, with tongue-in-cheek and a touch of the theatrical, then the Toby Peters series is just your ticket.” —Houston Chronicle

“A page-turning romp” from the Edgar Award–winning author featuring a nutty dentist, a killer crossbow, and Joan Crawford in 1940s Hollywood (Booklist, starred review).   Mildred Minck is an unremarkable woman—until one tragic night in June 1944 when she becomes the first citizen of Los Angeles to be murdered by crossbow. The prime suspect is her husband, dentist Sheldon Minck, who’s found standing over her body with the weapon in hand, raving that only Joan Crawford can identify the killer. It seems like a natural insanity defense, but Sheldon wants his neighbor, private investigator Toby Peters, to prove his innocence. The dentist is telling the truth about one thing: Joan Crawford was there.   The steely silver screen beauty is in the middle of a comeback, about to star in a film noir based on a James M. Cain novel, and insists Peters keep her name out of the papers. In exchange, the glamorous eyewitness points the sleuth toward the Survivors of the Future, a band of crackpot survivalists that the dentist was hoping to join. Sheldon’s new friends want him sprung, but only because they want him dead . . .   With its “irresistible” title, Edgar Award winner Stuart M. Kaminsky’s penultimate Toby Peters mystery shines a spotlight on the legendary screen diva as well as one of the favorite supporting characters of the series (The Washington Post).

As a hard-boiled Hollywood PI enlists Al Capone’s help to save the Marx Brothers, Kaminsky “makes the totally wacky possible” (The Washington Post).   It’s 1941 and the Marx Brothers’ first movie for MGM, Go West, has the country in stitches. But now Chico Marx is worried he’s going to need stitches when he receives a severed ear in the mail—a simple message from a Chicago bookie who wants $120,000, or else. Chico is baffled because, although he loves to gamble, he’s never made a bet in Chicago. Desperate, he turns to the king of Hollywood, Louis B. Mayer, who puts in a call to Toby Peters.   A Hollywood private detective who’s proven himself adept at keeping scandals out of the tabloids, Peters flies to Florida for an interview with Al Capone, deposed lord of the Chicago underworld. The retired bootlegger’s mind has gone soft, and he doesn’t know anything about Chico’s bookie, but he suggests Peters speak to his brother. With Scarface’s good word as an introduction, the PI heads to Chicago. But it will take more than a good sense of humor to keep Groucho, Harpo, and especially Chico from getting axed.   Edgar Award–winner Stuart Kaminsky’s “Toby Peters series was a delight. They were written with more than a dash of humor and featured a variety of improbable real-life characters, ranging from the Marx Brothers to Judy Garland” (Library Journal).

Gen. Douglas MacArthur enlists the help of a discreet private detective in “one of the sprightliest of the [Toby Peters] series” (Time).   It’s September 1942, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur believes he’s got what it takes to win the war in the Pacific—but he’s got a personal problem to take care of first. An aide has run off with his war chest, his donor list, and a handful of embarrassing private letters: a haul that would make the general a perfect target for blackmail and derail the post-war presidential run he’s planning. This is one battle he can’t afford to lose.   So the general enlists Det. Toby Peters, who has built a reputation for discretion among Hollywood’s elite, not to mention the White House. Forming a surprising alliance with former Pinkerton agent and legendary crime novelist, Dashiell Hammett, Peters follows the trail to Angel Springs, California, and a mysterious millionaire who’s definitely no angel. In protecting the general from blackmail, Peters hopes to avoid paying the ultimate price himself.   Edgar Award winner Stuart M. Kaminsky “has a delightfully original mind enriching—rather than just borrowing from—an old literary form” (Los Angeles Times).

PI Toby Peters comes to the aid of Charlie Chaplin when the Little Tramp becomes a big target in this “ingenious” mystery from the Edgar Award winner (Kirkus Reviews).   In 1943, Charlie Chaplin is far from the most popular man in America. His communist sympathies and romantic indiscretions with young women have enraged everyone from right-wing radicals and the Ku Klux Klan to furious fathers.   But when a knife-wielding intruder breaks into his house one night, the maniac isn’t talking politics. He demands Chaplin stop making his latest black comedy about a man who murders wealthy women for their money—and specifically tells him to stay away from one Fiona Sullivan. Who?   Chaplin turns to the shamus to the stars, Toby Peters, to keep him from harm and apprehend his nocturnal visitor. Peters’s lead on Fiona comes from a most unlikely source—his landlady, Mrs. Irene Plaut, knows the woman. Rallying his crew of diminutive Gunther Wherthman, wrestler Jeremy Butler, and dentist Sheldon Minck, Toby’s determined to catch the midnight madman before Chaplin is silenced forever.   In the twenty-first book in his long-running series, the Edgar Award–winning author offers an “ingenious twist on the old serial killer chestnut, with the usual manic Peters ménage obbligato” (Kirkus Reviews).