Best Selling Books by Stuart M. Kaminsky

A woman fights to protect her family when, eight years after her husband’s murder, his killers return Bittie’s hot dogs are worth waiting for. Outside the hot dog stand one summer afternoon, Maureen sits with her two children in the family’s car, wishing her husband would hurry up and get their food. Two men lurk nearby—a couple of drunks who had followed them from the supermarket. Before David can get into the car, the drunk men confront him, attack him, and take a baseball bat to his skull, while Maureen desperately tries to shield their little boy and girl. Eight years later, Maureen doesn’t eat hot dogs anymore. She makes a living as an exercise instructor and all-around fitness freak, a rigorously disciplined lifestyle that has just managed to see her family through the horror of David’s murder. But one day, the phone rings—a message from the killers that they are not finished tormenting her family. They are coming for Maureen, and no matter how fit she is, she cannot run fast enough to escape.

Stuart M. Kaminsky, the veteran author of more than forty novels and the creator of such wonderful characters as Abe Lieberman, Toby Peters, and Inpsector Rostnikov, has created a new PI: Lew 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, Florida. He now makes his way amid bail jumpers and lost wives, people who want to be found and those who will do anything to stay under their rock. He spends his days solving cases both big and small and trying to get by, while attempting to figure out how to make the rest of his life make sense. Retribution not only picks up where the first novel in the series, Vengeance, left off, but raises the bar big-time. Lew has solved his share of cases, and most of them-to his pride-have wound up having happy endings; in Vengeance, he saved a young runaway who has had a childhood nobody should ever have, and she finally seems to be turning her life around. But when she becomes involved with a reclusive best selling author and several valuable manuscripts disappear, Lew knows that young Melanie is in way over her head. And if he doesn''t act fast, not only could a few reputations get tarnished--the bodies might start piling up. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

An Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov novel.

A simple job turns treacherous when Toby Peters stumbles upon a corpse It’s a lucky thing that Cary Grant once trained as an acrobat, because Toby Peters’s life is in the actor’s hands. As the two men sprint through the pitch-dark woods, trying to elude the man with the gun, they come to a canyon ledge. With nowhere to go but down, they scramble over the side. Peters slips, and Grant grabs hold of his wrist. As the killer closes in, Cary’s grip begins to falter. The job began simply. Grant hired the Hollywood detective as a bagman in a blackmailing hand-off. He gives Toby a satchel full of cash, to be exchanged for an envelope of the leading man’s secrets—not sexual or financial, but details of his work for the British crown. When the envelope bearer winds up dead, Toby and Cary dive into a complex plot of murder, money, and Nazi spies, which ends with them trapped in an all-too-literal cliffhanger.

For a man who just wants to ease through life without any complications, Lew Fonesca has a pretty full plate in his third outing. When people start showing up dead, he knows he''s in way over his head.

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 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.

A classic Rockford case involves retrieving stolen property, locating a cat for an eccentric, wealthy old lady, thugs out to rearrange Rockford''s anatomy, and a hunt that turns deadly when a beautiful woman in search of Hollywood fame turns up missing.

In this book, Kaminsky and other scholars use the sophisticated critical tools of contemporary literary and film analysis to examine popular American television genres. Critical approaches ranging from historical to anthropological to structural and psychoanalytic are clearly presented and then used to analyze a variety of shows including soap operas, police dramas, game shows, and news programs. Throughout the book the authors explore the ways in ehich the genres of popular television regularly viewed by millions are significant on a cultural and social level. These explorations reveal that popular television can be understood as a rich and complex art form. This book will provide the student with a detailed introduction to the art of television criticism.

Kaminsky''s series character Toby Peters appears with John Wayne in The Man Who Shot Lewis Valance and D.W. Griffith in Busted Blossoms. Hidden finds a determined detective searching for the truth when a teenage boy is suspected of savagely killing his family. In Drop Number One, who can tell who is crazy and who is not when three men break out of an insane asylum?

An Edgar Award–winning author steals the show again in “a beautifully calibrated mix of wit, suspense, and quiet honesty” (The Washington Post Book World). It should have been an easy score—a suburban house on a quiet cul-de-sac, with the owners scheduled to be gone all night. But career burglar George Patniks has chosen the wrong time to go breaking and entering, because tonight Harvey Rozier will murder his wife. Patniks is the only witness to the brutal killing, but of course he can’t go to the police. Wise, world-weary Homicide Det. Abe Lieberman has been lied to a lot in his long career on the Chicago police force. Rozier’s claim of a robbery-gone-wrong just doesn’t add up, but Lieberman needs hard evidence to confirm his gut instinct. Along with his partner, Bill Hanrahan, Lieberman is looking for a break—and he just might get one . . . if the killer doesn’t catch the thief first. “Outstanding . . . Another stellar performance, alight with menace and compassion.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Lew Fonesca is faced with one case that will try his patience and another that may break his heart. He finds that they are tied together in ways he can''t hope to untangle.

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.”

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 works to 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 Asian wife. Both men struggle to do the right thing even if it means bending the letter if not the spirit of the law. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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).

When his temple is defaced, Lieberman battles Chicago’s most hateful citizens Over a decades-long career in Chicago homicide, Abe Lieberman has something most cops only dream of: a personal life. He has hobbies, a wife, and a grandchild who is about to celebrate his bar mitzvah. But Lieberman’s personal and professional lives collide when his temple is attacked by vandals, and he uncovers a river of hate that runs right through the heart of Chicago’s North Side. Too moderate for the hard-liners, too outspoken to win friends among the Arabs, the Conservative Temple Mir Shavot is caught in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian debate. When a hate group breaks into the temple, scrawling graffiti and stealing a valuable Torah, Lieberman must decide if the guilty party was neo-Nazis, militant Palestinians—even, perhaps, a group of uncompromising Orthodox Jews. Death waits at the intersection of politics and religion, and Abe Lieberman must face it head on.

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 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).

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

When a witness’s son is kidnapped, Chicago’s gangland erupts into chaos Once a college football star, Bill Hanrahan has had a hard time of it ever since his bad knees kept him out of the pros. He became a homicide detective with the unfortunate reputation of losing witnesses and loving the bottle. Now Hanrahan is off the sauce, and working a job that should be straightforward: He’s guarding a mob informant’s ex-wife and teenage son while they tour colleges. Everything is fine until the last night of their trip. At three in the morning, Hanrahan hears shots from their motel room. By the time he breaks down the door, it’s too late. The woman is dead, the boy has been kidnapped, and Hanrahan wants a drink more than he ever has before. The mob issues a simple instruction to the informant: Kill yourself and your son lives. Hanrahan and his partner, Abe Lieberman, tear the city apart in search of the kid, hoping against hope that for once they will be able to keep both witnesses alive.

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.”

An Abe Lieberman mystery Abe Lieberman is a strong, sympathetic character, an Everyman whose love for his family is only matched by his quiet, zealous commitment to justice. "A figure out of Talmudic lore-endearing, wise in his crotchets, weary with his wisdom," says The Washington Post. He loves what he does, but it takes its toll as his commitment to what is right is sorely tested every day on the mean streets of Chicago. As a moral man, he is sometimes faced with some uncomfortable ethical choices in order to see that justice-rather than the letter of the law-is meted out. And in Not Quite Kosher, the latest Abe Lieberman mystery by veteran Edgar Award-winning Stuart Kaminsky, our hangdog sleuth is up to his eyeballs in tsurris, the kind of trouble that will drive a man to madness. From tracking a pair of low-rent thieves who stumble into a heist way over their heads to finding out what happened to a man who predicted his own death in a bizarre twist of fate, not to mention planning for a grandson''s bar mitzvah that threatens to send him to the poorhouse, Lieberman will do much to find a way to make everything right, even if it takes years off his life. And his Irish partner, Bill Hanrahn, the Priest to Lieberman''s Rabbi, is in trouble of his own making. For the woman he loves is the object of affection of one of the kingpins of the Asian crime syndicate in Chicago and the notion of this woman marrying anyone from a different culture is anathema. How far will he go to win the woman he loves? And at what cost? Just another day in the lives of a pair of Chicago''s most amiably odd detective team . . . At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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

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.

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.

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).

Protecting a starlet from kidnappers gets Toby Peters kidnapped himself For Hollywood private eye Toby Peters, hell is Bette Davis. After two days locked in a hotel room with the Oscar-winning diva, her ice-queen persona and witty repartee are driving him mad. He’s there on behalf of her husband Albert Farnsworth, an aeronautics engineer with a head full of government secrets. Blackmailers are threatening his wife, demanding plans for America’s new long-range bomber. Always eager to help out Uncle Sam, Toby hides Bette in a fleabag motel. After forty-eight hours together he’s fantasizing about killing his client. As it turns out, someone may do it for him. The thugs track them to the hotel and escort them out at gunpoint. He’ll have to crack the spy ring fast, lest this be Bette’s—and his—final performance.

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

Private eye Jim Rockford receives a visit from a girl claiming to be his daughter and she has proof. The girl says her mother, the woman with whom Rockford had an affair, is missing and may have been murdered by her husband. Rockford investigates.

Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov and his colleagues battle against a conspiracy to assassinate a politburo member, a bomb scare at Lenin''s tomb, and abounding corruption