<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br><b>Hollywood detective</b> <b>Toby Peters does a job for one of Tinseltown's finest <p/></b>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 a very young girl. Although Flynn insists it's a fake, the studio is taking no chances. Toby is to deliver the blackmailer $5,000 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. Though he isn't impressed by movie stars, if Toby Peters isn't careful he may end up dying for one.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><b>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" (<i>Publishers Weekly</i>).</b> <p/> 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. <p/> 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. <p/> Soon it's up to Peters to clear Flynn's name, following a twisted trail that surprisingly leads to the set of <i>The Maltese Falcon</i>, 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. <p/> "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." --<i>Houston Chronicle</i><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>"Reminiscent of Chandler." --<i>Publishers Weekly</i> "Peters is a good guy with a sense of humor, and every appearance he makes is a welcome one." --<i>Booklist</i> "Marvelously entertaining." --<i>Newsday</i> "Kaminsky came to detective fiction from academia, but the ease of his prose was anything but academic." --<i>The Guardian</i> "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." --<i>Houston Chronicle</i> "Kaminsky has a delightfully original mind enriching--rather than just borrowing from--an old literary form." --<i>Los Angeles Times</i> "Makes the totally wacky possible . . . Peters [is] an unblemished delight." <i>--The Washington Post</i><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Stuart M. Kaminsky (1934-2009) was one of the most prolific crime fiction authors of the last four decades. Born in Chicago, he spent his youth immersed in pulp fiction and classic cinema--two forms of popular entertainment which he would make his life's work. After college and a stint in the army, Kaminsky wrote film criticism and biographies of the great actors and directors of Hollywood's Golden Age. In 1977, when a planned biography of Charlton Heston fell through, Kaminsky wrote <i>Bullet for a Star</i>, his first Toby Peters novel, beginning a fiction career that would last the rest of his life. Kaminsky penned twenty-four novels starring the detective, whom he described as "the anti-Philip Marlowe." In 1981's <i>Death of a Dissident</i>, Kaminsky debuted Moscow police detective Porfiry Rostnikov, whose stories were praised for their accurate depiction of Soviet life. His other two series starred Abe Lieberman, a hardened Chicago cop, and Lew Fonseca, a process server. In all, Kaminsky wrote more than sixty novels. He died in St. Louis in 2009. <br>
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Most expensive price in the interval: 12.99 on December 20, 2021
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