New Releases by Stuart M. Kaminsky

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 . . .

“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).

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).

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

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).

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).

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.

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.”

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).

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

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.

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

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.

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. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A murder and possible theft at a diamond mine leads Rostnikov and his detectives on a merry chase with stunning international complications.

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 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.

"The Edgar Prize-winning author Kaminsky tells the tale of one of literature''s most famous detectives: Sherlock Holmes. In a witty, imaginative story filled with twists and unexpected surprises, Detective Holmes unravels a murder only to find himself the unwilling target of the killer-at-large. Along with the aid of his loyal and inquisitive companion, Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes uses his masterful power of deduction to make a nebulous situation seem "simply elementary." The Final Toast is an exciting new take on the classic characters of fiction we know and love, and its ending will please even the most savvy mystery connoisseurs"--Publisher''s website.

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 that 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 home town, 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 hidden secrets stay buried. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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.

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.

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.

Le corps d''un homme est retrouvé dans l''ascenseur d''un immeuble du quartier bourgeois de l''Upper East Side, à Manhattan. Mac Taylor et Aiden Burn sont chargés de l''enquête. Mais le meurtrier n''a laissé ni arme du crime, ni trace ADN derrière lui. Serait-ce un crime parfait ? Pendant ce temps, à quelques encablures de là, Stella Bonasera et Danny Messer enquêtent sur le meurtre d''un témoin, une femme théoriquement sous protection de la police. Les hommes censés la protéger assurent que la victime a passé la nuit dans une chambre d''hôtel fermée à double tour... Comment le meurtrier s''y est-il pris ? Au plus profond de l''hiver, l''équipe du CSI de New York est chargée de réunir toutes les preuves possibles pour résoudre deux crimes mystérieux commis au cœur de New York, la ville qui ne dort jamais.

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.

Stuart Kaminsky takes the readers into the personal lives and homes of well-known contemporary mystery writers.

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.