Bitter Tea and Mystery: Murder on the Yellow Brick Road: Stuart M. Kaminsky

Bitter Tea and Mystery: Murder on the Yellow Brick Road: Stuart M. Kaminsky: The Toby Peters mystery series is set primarily in Hollywood, California. Each book in the series is centered around a celebrity. Toby is a ...

Bitter Tea and Mystery: Books Read in May 2026

Bitter Tea and Mystery: Books Read in May 2026:   I read nine books in May, more than I expected to, but it is a good thing, because with only 3 days left in June, I have only read three b...

Bitter Tea and Mystery: Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express: Stuart M. Kaminsky

Bitter Tea and Mystery: Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express: Stuart M. Ka...: Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express is a fictional ride on the Trans-Siberian Express. It is part of a series by Stuart M. Kaminsky, set i...

Bitter Tea and Mystery: Tarnished Icons: Stuart M. Kaminsky

Bitter Tea and Mystery: Tarnished Icons: Stuart M. Kaminsky: This is the eleventh novel in Stuart Kaminsky's Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov series, set in Russia in the late 1990's. Many things ha...

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Dancing in the Dark by Stuart M. Kaminsky

Stuart M. Kaminsky (1934-2009) was a wondrously gifted author who wrote more than 60 mystery novels and several volumes on cinema. Mystery Writers of America awarded him the title of Grand Master in 2006 and the Private Eye Writers of America gave him The Eye Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. He had four series characters: Lew Fonesca, a sad process server in Sarasota, Florida, six books released between 1999 and 2009; Abe Lieberman, a Jewish police detective in Chicago, 10 books released between 1990 and 2007; Porfiry Rostnikov, a philosophical police inspector in Moscow, Russia, 16 books released between 1981 and 2010; and Toby Peters, a private investigator in Los Angeles whose clients were 1930s and 1940s movie stars, 24 books released between 1977 and 2004.

I read a few of the Lew Fonesca books some time ago, and the Toby Peters series has been on my TBR list for a while. So, when I found a copy of Dancing in the Dark (Mysterious Press, 1996) in one of my interminable book clean-outs, I took it as a sign. In this, #19 of Toby’s adventures, Fred Astaire has attracted the interest of a determined girlfriend of a Detroit mobster. She wants Astaire to teach her to dance and to undertake other activities with her, much to his dismay.  While the mobster changed his name when he relocated to Los Angeles, he did not otherwise change his thuggish ways, and Astaire has valid concerns about his future health and well-being.

Astaire is focusing on his wartime bond-raising tour and signs Toby up to teach the girlfriend in his place. Toby unfortunately has two left feet, as the saying goes, and makes a poor substitute.  When the girlfriend turns up dead in a ballroom where Toby and his friends are the logical suspects, Toby scrambles to protect himself, his friends, and Fred Astaire from the mobster’s wrath.

Excellent investigative work wrapped in effortless Golden Age Hollywood period detail. The scene where Toby borrows Cornel Wilde’s dinner jacket for an impromptu turn across the stage of Wiltern Theatre in front of a huge audience is side-splitting. An entertaining read.

·         Hardcover: 228 pages

·         Publisher: Mysterious Press; First edition (January 1, 1996)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0892965282

·         ISBN-13: 978-0892965281

Aubrey Hamilton ©2019

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Bitter Tea and Mystery: Blood and Rubles: Stuart M. Kaminsky

Bitter Tea and Mystery: Blood and Rubles: Stuart M. Kaminsky: The Inspector Rostnikov series began in 1981 when Russia was still part of the USSR; the 16th and  last book in the series was published in ...

FFB Review: "THE FALA FACTOR (1984) by Stuart M. Kaminsky" (Reviewed by Barry Ergang)

Barry Ergang gets things started here on this first Friday in December with a new review. After you read his review,  head on over to Patti Abbott’s blog for other reading suggestions.  

THE FALA FACTOR (1984) by Stuart M. Kaminsky

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

The ninth in a series of 24 novels starring and narrated by ex-cop-turned-Los Angeles- private-detective Toby Peters, as quintessentially down-and-out as any fictional P.I. I can think of, this one finds Toby hired by none other than First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to find her husband Franklin’s Scottish Terrier Fala. Mrs. Roosevelt is certain the dog has been kidnapped by a former District of Columbia veterinarian named Roy Olson, and wants Peters to recover him before President Roosevelt discovers he’s missing.

A case which involves a couple of murders and the president’s pooch has some contemporary political analogs when Toby encounters some ultra-right-wingers with governmental ideas of their own. He also has to deal with one Academy Dolmitz, a bookie fond of film trivia who fronts as a bookstore proprietor and who might have knowledge of Martin Lyle, who in turn is aided by Elmo Bass, a former pro-wrestler and current bonebreaker-on-payroll.

Then there are the women: Jane Poslik, who used to work for Olson, and Anne Olson, who is not necessarily what she seems but who takes a somewhat carnal interest in Toby.

As often happens in a hardboiled but wry-toned Toby Peters case, our hero must contend with his landlady, Mrs. Plaut, who thinks his name is—and refers to him as—Mr. Peelers; the incompetent and  less-than-hygienic dentist Sheldon Minck, from whom he rents office space; the antagonistic Sergeant John Cawelti, from the Wilshire District police station; recently promoted-to-captain-of-the-aforementioned-district Phil Pevsner, Toby’s oft-abusive brother; and Detective Steve Seidman, with whom he gets along fairly well—though whether he will after Shelly Minck gets through with Seidman remains to be seen.

Toby also has his allies: Jeremy Butler, former pro-wrestler, landlord of the Farraday Building and aspiring poet; and Gunther Werthman, a fellow resident of Mrs. Plaut’s boarding house. Jeremy is of particular value in this adventure since he and Elmo Bass have tangled in the past. And, because those Toby Peters novels I’ve previously read have all included more than one “guest star,” I must mention that this one involves an entertaining sequence with the great deadpan comic, Buster Keaton.

Readers who are fond of fast-paced detective stories that meld mystery with action and humor are likely to enjoy Toby Peters and his Hollywood adventures.

© 2015 Barry Ergang

Examples of Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang’s work can be found at Smashwords and Amazon. His website is http://www.writetrack.yolasite.com/