Hidden and Other Stories (Five Star First Edition Mystery Series)

Book by Kaminsky, Stuart M.

In his brief Introduction, the prolific Kaminsky (The Dog Who Bit a Policeman, 1998, etc.) maintains that he had fun writing every one of these 16 stories (196591), and it shows. Though the collection has its share of misfiresa shrill tale of infernal transmigration, an overelaborate escape from a mental hospital, a caper playlet that unfolds like Tennessee Williams at his most pointlessly experimentalKaminsky obviously doesn't mind the price of taking chances. Even the three apprentice detective stories starring boy detective Pete Breedlove and a short-short locked-room puzzle have ingenuity to burn. When Kaminsky wants to play safe, he falls back on a pair of ebullient Toby Peters adventures in old Hollywood. When he's feeling his oats, he isn't afraid to ask why Agatha Christie disappeared back in 1926, or what Porfiry Petrovich did with himself after sending up Raskolnikov, or how ex-President Harry Truman would have handled an attempt on his life. And his pastiches of Sherlock Holmes (``The Final Toast'') and Philip Marlowe (``Bitter Lemons'') are beautifully judged and worlds apart from one another. If the title story, with its unsettling prophecy of the Columbine massacre, is just a bit too tricky, that's only the down side of Kaminsky's exuberant powers of invention. A fine, varied showcase for a born storyteller. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.