Books by Stuart M. Kaminsky

From Hollywood''s Golden Age to a rock ''n'' roll tragedy, this pair of detective novels from two award-winning maestros of mystery hits all the right notes. From Edgar Award–winning author Stuart M. Kaminsky, Dancing in the Dark shines a light on the 1940s Los Angeles dancing scene. Paired with Ellery Queen Award–winning author Ed Gorman''s "gripping, amusing, thoughtful and hugely entertaining" The Day the Music Died, these two kooky and delightful mysteries are now available in one volume (Dean Koontz). Dancing in the Dark by Stuart M. Kaminsky: It''s going to take some fancy footwork for hard-boiled Hollywood private detective Toby Peters to get Fred Astaire off the hook. After giving a gangster''s moll dancing lessons, he tires of her making passes at him and hires the famously discreet private investigator to break the news gently. When a killer cuts in and the moll ends up dead, Peters must take the lead in solving the case . . . or face the music himself. The Day the Music Died by Ed Gorman: After his rock ''n'' roll hero, Buddy Holly, dies in a plane crash, young Iowa lawyer and part-time PI Sam McCain just wants to play his records and grieve—until the nephew of an eccentric judge kills himself after his trophy wife is murdered. The police see it as a clear-cut murder-suicide, but Sam wants to know more. But diving into this mystery will get dangerous faster than he can say "bye, bye, Miss American Pie."

A "chilling . . . stunning thriller" from the Edgar Award–winning author of Exercise in Terror ( Booklist). It is 1957, and Jean Kaiser is pretending to sleep. When her parents go to bed, she''ll turn her radio on low, and groove to Elvis. But from her parents'' room, she hears something strange—her mother calling her name in a choking, terrified voice so chilling that Jean assumes it can''t be real, and wills herself to sleep. When she awakens in the morning, the nightmare has come true—a killer has slaughtered her parents in their bed. More than two decades later, Jean has done her best to move past her childhood trauma, parlaying a degree in psychology into a position as the host of a radio call-in show. One night, an anonymous caller shakes her to the core when he brings up details that remind her of her parents'' murder. When Jean and her daughter, Angie, get home, they find their pet parakeet crushed to death over Jean''s bed. Her parents'' killer has reemerged ready to tie up loose ends. The nightmare never ended, and now Jean and Angie must fight—or die.

The first novel in a crime series about "two Chicago cops, one Jewish, one Irish . . . Told with deceptive simplicity [and] a gentle wit" ( The Boston Globe). Detectives Abe Lieberman and Bill Hanrahan have been partners a long time—long enough to call each other "Rabbi" and "Father Murphy." Lieberman is sixty, a grandfather, and a devout Jew. Hanrahan is a lapsed Catholic who''s been hitting the bottle pretty heavily ever since his wife walked out on him. They may be flawed, but they''re good cops. But even good cops have bad days. On a hot Chicago afternoon, Lieberman would prefer to be watching his beloved Cubs from the bleachers at Wrigley Field instead of sitting in his brother Maish''s deli with Hanrahan, meeting a prostitute and valued informant. But Estralda Valdez needs their protection from a psychotic john, and the partners agree to watch her back on their off-duty time. That Friday night, while Lieberman is in temple, Hanrahan has the first watch, across the street from Estralda''s apartment in a Chinese restaurant. But while he passes the time with two doubles and flirts with the waitress, the beautiful prostitute is brutally murdered. Tortured by guilt and chewed out by their chief, Lieberman and Hanrahan race against the clock to find the killer. They owe at least that much to Estralda. Lieberman''s Folly is "first-rate work, featuring characters you can almost touch and streets you can almost walk on, and an expertly plotted story" ( The Phildelphia Inquirer).

A Moscow cop is left out in the cold in this “impressive” Edgar Award winner for Best Mystery Novel (The Washington Post Book World). When forced to choose between the law and the party line, Police Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov has a disturbing tendency to fight for justice, and that has won him no friends at the Kremlin. Now his enemies in the KGB have arranged a transfer to the lowest rungs of Moscow law enforcement, a backwater department assigned to only the most hopeless cases, one of which is about to take Rostnikov deep into Siberia. A corrupt commissar has been stabbed through the eye with an icicle. A murder at this level should be a top priority, but Rostnikov gets the distinct impression that the powers-that-be would prefer this case go unsolved—and that Rostnikov not survive this Siberian winter. “As always, Kaminsky provides a colorful, tightly written mystery . . . filled with twists, countertwists, and a surprise ending that is plausible and clever.” —Chicago Tribune

With his Edgar Award–winning series about a Moscow cop, “Kaminsky’s a master of tone, maintaining the edgy excitement of suspense” (The Washington Post). In the 1960s, Russian children wanted to be cosmonauts like Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space. But the Soviet Union is history, and Gagarin’s glory is long gone. For the men and women aboard the decaying Mir space station, life is an unending series of near-disasters. During one such breakdown, cosmonaut Tsimion Vladovka asks ground control to contact Moscow police inspector Porfiry Rostnikov if anything happens to him. The cosmonaut returns to Earth safely, but a year later he goes missing and his former crew members start turning up dead. Vladovka was in possession of state secrets, so there’s also a potential security risk. He must be found, dead or alive. In the days of the USSR, no one could navigate the bureaucratic maze of the Kremlin like Rostnikov—but he’s never encountered anything like the labyrinth that is Star City, home of the Russian space program. Still, the veteran policeman is convinced: The answer to what happened to the cosmonaut on Earth lies in something that happened in space. Bringing to life historic shifts in contemporary Russian history, as seen through the eyes of one hard-boiled Moscow cop, “Kaminsky’s Rostnikov novels are among the best mysteries being written” (The San Diego Union-Tribune).

A Moscow cop juggles cases of kidnapping, murder, and a missing Czarist-era document in a modern-day mystery with “never a dull moment” (Library Journal). In the waning days of the Russian Empire, the Czar inked a secret treaty with Japan that was stolen en route by one of the workmen on the Trans-Siberian Railway. More than a one hundred years later, the Soviet Union has gone the way of the Czardom, and police inspector Porfiry Rostnikov is trying to find his way in the Russia of Vladimir Putin. A large amount of money is being sent from Odessa to Vladivostok to purchase a mysterious Czarist document, and Rostnikov’s superior believes it may be this long-lost treaty. Eastbound ticket in hand, Rostnikov sets out to investigate. Meanwhile, his subordinates in Moscow tackle a female Jack the Ripper and an anti-Semitic punk rocker whose mob connections may have gotten him kidnapped. It’s a brave new world in western Russia, but where Rostnikov is going, the landscape hasn’t changed in centuries.

Moscow’s gone to the dogs in the “imaginative” Edgar Award–winning crime series about a conscientious Russian cop (The New York Times Book Review). With packs of stray wild canines roaming Moscow, it was inevitable that enterprising criminals would find a way to get rich. As dogfighting became big business, the Mafia got involved, and venues upgraded from alleys and garages to private arenas with padded seats. Police Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov has assigned Sasha Tkach and Elena Timofeyeva to go undercover and bust up a dogfighting ring. But the only ones more vicious than the dogs are the ones who profit from them. Speaking of fighting in the streets, an international drug cartel has chosen Moscow as its next port of call. One man stands in their way—a young Russian mobster whose brutality is matched only by his madness. In a gang war of this magnitude, no civilian is safe. It’s up to Rostnikov and the Office of Special Investigation to prevent a full-scale bloodbath. “As usual, Kaminsky manages to make the postlapsarian fracas strangely engrossing. His major characters are vivid and varied . . . Good storytelling in yet another of a distinguished series.” —Kirkus Reviews

"Never miss a Kaminsky book, and be especially sure not to miss Death of a Russian Priest." —Tony Hillerman, New York Times–bestselling author In the darkest hours of communist rule, Father Merhum fought to protect the sanctity of the Orthodox Church. Now the Soviet Union is gone, but the bureaucracy survives, and within it lurk men who would do anything to undermine the fragile new Russian democracy. Father Merhum is on his way to Moscow to denounce those traitors when he is struck with an ax and killed. As police inspectors Porfiry Rostnikov and Emil Karpo dig into the past of this celebrated village priest, they uncover strange church secrets and a conspiracy to carry the vile corruption of the former regime on into the twenty-first century. But if they don''t watch their steps, someone may need to say the last rites for them. With the Edgar Award–winning Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov series, "Stuart Kaminsky evokes Russian life like a born Muscovite. . . . Don''t miss this one. It''s even better than his Edgar-winning A Cold Red Sunrise." — The Philadelphia Inquirer "Kaminsky moves closer to becoming the Ed McBain of Mother Russia . . . The usual strengths of the series—ingenious plotting, solid police procedure, and Rostnikov''s shrewdly perceptive presence—are joined here by casually effective glimpses of the old Soviet Union in chancy transition. It all adds up to Rostnikov''s best outing since A Cold Red Sunrise." — Kirkus Reviews

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 . . .

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).

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).

"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).

This tome collects the long-out-of-print first two Kolchak TPB''s all in one affordable package! Contains seven complete stories: "The Night Stalker," "Get of Belial," "Fever Pitch," "Mask of Moment," "Pain Most Human," "Pain without Tears," and "Devil in the Details."

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

"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

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).

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).

Carl Kolchak was TV''s first paranormal investigator, albeit a reluctant one. His exploits have been the inspiration for the X-Files and beyond! Kolchak is a talented newspaper reporter who used to handle all of the big stories, but his reputation has taken a few hits over the years as his stories have become more and more strange, surreal, and unknown. He is a relentless truth-seeker, no matter how bizarre that truth may be. The fact that no one believes him, and that his stories rarely get printed anymore, only fuels his desire to get to the beating heart of the matter!

Abe Lieberman: a strong, sympathetic Chicago cop. His love for his family is matched by his quiet, zealous commitment to do what is right. Sometimes he''s faced with some uncomfortable ethical choices in order to see that justice—rather than the letter of the law—is meted out. Lou Fonesca: a world-weary guy who got in a car and just started driving after his wife died and wound up in front of a Dairy Queen in Sarasota. He now makes his way amid bail jumpers and lost wives, solving the little cases and trying to get by. What do these two men have in common? They are both created by one of America''s best loved mystery authors, Stuart Kaminsky. Putting two of his most beloved series into one volume gives readers an introduction into Kaminsky''s world. Not Quite Kosher and Bright Futures and are two full length novels that Kaminsky fans will cheer at. Double Shot introduces new readers to a national treasure in the mystery field.

Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, an honest policeman in a very dishonest post-Soviet Union, and his team search for a serial killer who has claimed at least 40 victims while protecting a visiting British journalist who is working on a story about a Moscow prostitution ring that produces leads to a high-level source seemingly beyond Rostnikov''s reach.

When it comes to sex, lies often follow... and in the dark heart of the city, death can be the ultimate payback! Moonstone Books, publisher of fine books and comics since 1995, is proud to present this landmark collection of all-new, original noir stories with the theme of ''sex for sale''. Written by some of today''s top crime writers, Sex, Lies and Private Eyes features a stunning cast of legendary characters from the best mysteries of the past and present, including Alo Nudger and Fred Carver (John Lutz), Blackshirt (Adi Tantimedh), Candy Matson (Christine Matthews), Domino Lady (Gail Mcabee), Jack Hagee, PI, Kolchak: the Night Stalker and Lai Wan (CJ Henderson), The Envoy (Gary Phillips), Johnny Dollar (David Tischman), Mr. Keen (Mike Bullock), Pat Novak (Steven Grant), Sherlock Holmes (Loren D. Estleman), The Silencers (Fred Van Vliet), The Maze Agency (Mike W. Barr), Toby Peters (Stuart Kaminsky), and Truxton Lewis (Robert Randisi).

Lovable everyman Lew Fonesca, the Man Who Makes Things Work in Sarasota, is once again faced with cases that try his patience and test his sanity. A local curmudgeon who has been campaigning to end state-sponsored school funding is brutally killed. A recent graduate of a public high school for the gifted is arrested for the crime and turns to Lew for help. A semi-retired and much beloved singer of children''s songs is being anonymously pushed to leave Sarasota, threatened with exposure as a sexual predator. It is up to Lew to uncover the blackmailer and determine whether there is any truth to the accusation. Lew has decided that life is worth more than just going through the motions. But will the good life that Lew so richly deserves elude him as he uncovers some very sad truths? His final choice--do the right thing and see his happiness evaporate... or betray a trust and stay happy... At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"The Dead Don''t Lie" is the latest in Edgar Award winner and MWA''s Grand Master Stuart Kaminsky''s Abe Lieberman mystery series. Lieberman and his partner, Bill Hanrahan, are hell or heaven bent on making the mean streets of Chicago just a little safer. As usual they have their hands full. Three prominent members of the Turkish community are all brutally murdered and Lieberman must find out what, if anything, ties these murders together. It doesn''t help that the key to the puzzle might be an event that took place over a century ago. Bill Hanrahan finds himself assigned to a case where a hospitalized chef claims to have been beaten by two people and shot by a third, a bespectacled Chinese man. As Bill digs deeper he finds himself at odds with an old nemesis, a man who has an unusual affinity for Bill''s wife. Both Lieberman and Hanrahan struggle to do the right thing even if it means bending the letter, not the spirit, of the law.

Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov travels to Siberia to investigate a murder at a diamond mine, where he discovers an old secret...and an even older personal problem. His compatriots head to Kiev on a trail of smuggled diamonds and kidnapped guest workers....and what they discover leads them to a vast conspiracy that not only has international repercussions but threatens them on a very personal level.

From the Edgar Award–winning author, a novel of danger, despair, and determination with "an incredibly taut plot that keeps twisting back on itself" ( Mystery Scene). 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. Life''s a sneaky mistress, though, and has a way of suckering you into caring. Lew''s found that he''s really good at helping people get out of bad situations. That he matters. And Lew''s therapist, who alternately acts as his conscience and his sparring partner, tells him that unless he''s willing to leave the planet, it''s about time that he goes back to Chicago and closes the door to the past so he can finally get on with the rest of his life. Lew hates to admit it, but he''s beginning to see her point. So Lew returns to his hometown, to friends and family . . . and to a grief that threatens to engulf him. He''s resolved to dig until he finds out who killed his wife. In doing so, he''ll uncover both sweet and painful memories of his past. He''ll also confront a murderer who''ll not hesitate to kill again to make sure secrets stay buried . . . "Will] keep readers hurtling along to the very end." — Publishers Weekly "A psychologically acute and fast-moving crime series." — Booklist

New York is known as the city that never sleeps. On its constantly hustling, bustling streets crime never sleeps either; and nor do the ever-vigilant crime-fighters who strive to solve its murder cases and bring perpetrators to justice using the very latest in forensic investigative techniques. Now, high-tech science comes to the Big Apple as Detective Mack Taylor (Sinise) and his partner, Detective Stella Bonasera (Kanakaredes), lead a team of dedicated, case-cracking experts in the gritty, kinetic city. In DELUGE, six straight days of heavy spring rain threaten to cripple New York. Already several people have been electrocuted by fallen power lines and flooding on some subway tracks has stopped trains. In the midst of all this Mack and his colleagues have no less than three pressing cases to solve: a series of grisly murders in which the victims all seem to have an unusual connection; the puzzling death of a teacher on the upper west side and the suspicious collapse of an entire building – which puts one of the team in deadly danger.

The second original novel based on the hit CBS series. A family is murdered inside their home in a quiet neighborhood in Queens. In Brooklyn, an Orthodox Jew is found dead in his synagogue. Two different crimes with one commonality: CSI investigators who won''t give up. Original.

Detective Abe Lieberman works to discover a common link between a baseball player whose career has been cut short by tragedy, a religious fanatic who employs unorthodox conversion methods, and a murdered single mother.

A thrilling original novel based on the television series CSI: New York! Detective Mac Taylor is a dedicated and driven crime-scene investigator who believes that everything is connected and everyone has a story. He and his partner, Detective Stella Bonasera, lead a team of experts through the gritty and kinetic world of New York City. These skilled investigators, who see New York in a unique light, follow the evidence as they piece together clues and eliminate doubt to ultimately crack their cases. The body of a middle-aged man is found in the elevator of a ritzy doorman building on the Upper East Side. Mac Taylor and Aiden Burn''s initial investigation yields no bullets, no DNA evidence, and no motive. Could this be the perfect crime? Meanwhile, only a few blocks away, Stella Bonasera and Danny Messer investigate the murder of a witness being held in protective custody. The law enforcement officers on duty swear that the victim spent the night in a locked hotel room—only to be found dead in the morning. From the heart of midtown to the outer boroughs, the New York CSI team must piece together the evidence and solve two puzzling crimes in the city that never sleeps.

Behind the velvet ropes and closed curtains, buried in the back lots, you’ll find the darker side of the spotlight. It’s where stars are created overnight, and burn out just as quick. Where deals are made to be broken, and fame and fortune are paid for in blood. With an outstanding ensemble cast of today’s brightest talents, Mystery Writers of America presents this collection of all-new short stories of movies, music, murder, and mayhem will take you from vaudeville to Vegas, from the bright lights to the back alleys, and make it chillingly clear that in the world of entertainment, if you want to make it, you may have to step on some people—or over their dead bodies.