A Few Minutes Past Midnight

Toby Peters, private detective, is a hard-boiled, middle-aged, ex-cop, divorced, scarred physically and emotionally. Private detectives of essentially the same description may be found in the works of Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, James Lee Burke, Steve Hamilton and even Sue Grafton, among others, but somehow Stuart Kaminsky manages to make Toby Peters seem brand new each time out.In each of the series Toby Peters is hired by a person famous in the 1930s or 1940s. Among his clients have been Salvatore Dali, the Marx Brothers, Eleanor Roosevelt, W.C. Fields and Humphrey Bogart. In this book, Charlie Chaplin hires Toby Peters to find out who is threatening the life of the clown genius. In every case, the famous person is great fun.The plots are more or less the same in each book, but somehow they feel new. At least, they feel okay. The atmosphere and the characters are what the reader finds interesting. Peters has a semi-deaf landlady who thinks he is an exterminator and book editor. In the same rooming house is a midget who works as a literary translater. Peters rents office space with an incompetent dentist who smokes cigars as he tortures unsuspecting patients. An ex-pornographer has offices upstairs. A mechanic known as "no neck" works on the detective's car. Peters wanders through a world of greasy restaurants, partiaking of tacos and Pepsi. He listens to period radio shows and drives a Crosley. It is a wonderful world of nostalgia, jeopardy, and humor. There is no one quite like Kaminsky, and I would recommend his books to any mystery reader.

I read my first Toby Peters' story twenty-five years ago. It was A BULLET FOR A STAR, and I immediately fell in love with him, the characters that surround him, the world he lives in, and with the writing of the author who created him. During that twenty-five years, Toby has managed to star in twenty mystery adventures (each with its own celebrity guest star) while only aging five fictional years. That is why its strange that the characters seen to have aged and changed so much in the time between this novel and previous one, A FATAL GLASS OF BEER. Maybe, the war or personal concerns are wearing them down. Or maybe it's the fact that the Golden Era of Hollywood is winding to a close. Or maybe, we, the readers and the author, are just growing old. I hope not, Toby Peters exists in a time warp that Stuart Kaminsky, his creator was always able to capture so perfectly. Besides, I still have hopes that someone in television will finally realize that Toby's adventures would make a GREAT television series.Anyway, return to a wartime Hollywood in 1943 - Charlie Chaplin is Toby's latest co-star and client - and it seems as if someone has borrowed the plot of Lady Killer, Chaplin's latest movie project, for a real life murder spree. Now all Toby and his cast of supporting players (a midget, a giant and a mad dentist) have to do is catch the killer before he completes his gruesome project.While this book was not up to par with earlier Toby Peter's adventures, I still enjoyed it and I encourage you to give it a try and meet Toby and his associates. By the way, though Toby does not meet his next client at the end of this book as he usually does, I understand that the next adventure will co-star the lord of the jungle himself, Johnny Weismuller. And I can't wait!

I've read all of Stuart Kaminsky's mysteries, but I started with the Toby Peters series, and I reread several of them frequently. It's been quite a few years since the last entry in the series--the excellent "A Fatal Glass of Beer"--an I was beginning to wonder is Kaminsky had simply lost interest in Peters. Admittedly, the Peters books are often slight affairs. Kaminsky's Rostnikov and Leiberman books, while displaying the same talent for colorful characters and fast-moving plots, are weightier, and present a coherent--if often melancholy--worldview.This long-awaited return to the Peters series suggests, I think, that Kaminsky is having trouble getting back into the more light-hearted spirit of the earlier books. The usual wonderful characters are all here, but they're aging; Shelly is depressed, Gunther may soon move away, Jeremy's wife is getting more and more concerned about his health. Toby's brother Phil and his ex-wife Ann are showing the years, too, and the weary resignation that has always been present in the Rostnikov books is now almost as dominant here.Don't get me wrong--I enjoyed the book, I recommend the book, and I'm happy to see these characters again. But it seems appropriate that the celebrity guest here is Chaplin, whose humor has always been tinged with pathos and an awareness of mortality. I have to wonder if this is Kaminsky's farewell to his first series character.

One of the things I've always enjoyed about the Toby Peters series is the fun, interesting cast of supporting characters. This latest entry makes excellent use of the best of them--Gunther, Jeremy & Shelly. It also has a very well-constructed plot (as do all of Kaminsky's novels) and the usual high level of humor. I also enjoyed Toby's growing relationship with his brother. One of Kaminsky's strength is his ability to combine humor with realistic and touching characterizations.

At last! A new "Toby Peters". I've been a fan since the first ("Bullet for a Star") and have every last one except "You Bet Your Life" (which has been stolen from me... twice!) in first editions. Sure, Kaminsky writes other books of greater depth and more realistic characters. Sure, the Peters books are formula. And, sure, we get idealized portraits of the movie stars Peters deals with, instead of anything resembling in-depth studies of them that we might expect from film-historian Kaminsky. But, so what! For pure unadulterated FUN there has never been a series to equal it! If you're a film fan, hell, if you've ever seen a movie made before 1980, you're gonna love this one (and all the others in the series). Keep up the good work Mr. K., and fergoshsakes, let's not have another half decade between adventures!