A Few Minutes Past Midnight - Softcover

Kaminsky, Stuart M.

3.87

155 ratings by Goodreads

9780752849829: A Few Minutes Past Midnight

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752849824 ISBN 13: 9780752849829

Publisher: Orion, 2003

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Toby Peters is an unusual private eye. He's already cracked cases involving Humphrey Bogart, the Marx Brothers, John Wayne and Mae West, and now is gumshoeing for the celebrated screen star Charlie Chaplin. Welcome to Hollywood. Chaplin has cause for alarm. A sinister visitor wielding a large knife has not only rudely paid the movie legend a midnight call but also threatened him with death unless he stops production on his latest project, a film in which wealthy old women are married and then murdered for their money. Chaplin has been warned, too, that he'd better stay away from one Fiona Sullivan. Or else. Fiona, of course, is Toby's only lead.

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About the Author:

Stuart M. Kaminsky is the prolific Edgar-award winning author of more than seventy novels and three detective series, including the popular Toby Peters mysteries featuring stars of Hollywood's Golden Age. Kaminsky lives in Florida.

From Publishers Weekly:

It's a mystery how a rumpled, unprepossessing sort of private eye like Toby Peters has lasted long enough to save the hides of Hollywood stars such as the Marx Brothers and Bette Davis, literary luminaries William Faulkner and Dashiell Hammett and even political powerhouse Eleanor Roosevelt. Nonetheless, the intrepid sleuth returns for a 21st outing, his first since 1997's A Fatal Glass of Beer. It's 1943, and a beleaguered Charlie Chaplin is in need of Peters's services. A strange man has threatened Chaplin, whose latest movie project, about a serial killer who woos, marries and murders older women, seems to have offended a real-life counterpart. A familiar supporting cast is on hand to aid Peters: massive Jeremy Butler, ex-wrestler-turned-poet; Sheldon Minck, inept dentist and inventor; and Gunther Wherthman, suave, multilingual little person. With broad humor more likely to invite smiles than laughs and a substantial framework of nostalgia (Kaminsky doesn't just throw names around, he really evokes the era), Peters and friends pursue a crafty killer. Older readers will enjoy references that may be obscure to younger ones. For example, Peters drives a Crosley that "runs on washing machine and refrigerator parts," a reference to the defunct Crosley Co. that manufactured radios, refrigerators and appliances as well as cars. In sum, the author's facile competence has produced an amusing story full of suitable heroics. (Aug. 1)novels, including ongoing series about Russian policeman Porfiry Rostnikov, Chicago cop Abe Lieberman and Jim Rockford of TV's Rockford Files.

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