Stuart M. Kaminsky
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Four years ago Lew Fonesca's wife was struck and killed in a hit-and-run within sight of their apartment. He fled Chicago, driving mindlessly until his car gave up the ghost in Sarasota, FL. Working from a cheap office behind the Dairy Queen on Highway 301, he makes a threadbare living as a process server and savors his clinical depression like a fine wine. Then his therapist, who alternately acts as his conscience and his sparring partner, tells
...Inspector Rostnikov is a Russian bear of a man, an honest policeman in a very dishonest post-Soviet Russia. Known as "The Washtub," Rostnikov is one of the most engaging and relevant characters in crime fiction, a sharp and caring policeman as well as the perfect tour guide to a changing (that is, disintegrating) Russia. Surviving pogroms and politburos, he has solved crimes, mostly in spite of the powers that rule his world. In People Who Walk
...Private eye Toby Peters follows boxing as much as the next guy, but he never expected to encounter heavyweight champion Joe Louis this way: covered with blood and standing on a deserted beach next to the corpse of Peters's ex-wife's husband. The champ is innocent, but he has something to hide, and Toby agrees to protect the Brown Bomber from the police and the press.
Following up on names he gets from the dead man's address book, Peters soon
...