Toby Peters

Hollywood detective Toby Peters does a job for one of Tinseltown's finest 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 a very young girl. Although Flynn insists it's a fake, the studio is taking no chances. Toby is to deliver the blackmailer $5,000 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.   Though he isn't impressed by movie stars, if Toby Peters isn't careful he may end up dying for one.

Toby Peters investigates threats to Judy Garland and a body on the MGM lot A year after The Wizard of Oz's smash success, the yellow brick road is crumbling. The famous sets are stashed on a soundstage in the depths of the MGM back lot while the studio plans a sequel, and a strange addition has just been made to the scene: a munchkin in full costume lying facedown with a knife buried in his back.   The studio boss calls Toby Peters, a Hollywood detective with a reputation for discretion, and asks for help keeping the murder quiet. MGM is a family company, and Judy Garland, who found the body, is a wholesome actress whose rising star cannot risk a whiff of scandal. But as Peters quickly learns, the threat to Miss Garland isn't the tabloids: It's the psychopathic killer whose turf is the back lot, and whose crime of choice is the murder of the silver screen's finest.

Toby Peters goes to Chicago to clear up a famous comic's gambling debts There's nothing funny about the package that comes for Chico Marx. It's a severed ear, a simple message from a Chicago bookie who wants $120,000 from the world-renown Marx brother. The strange thing is that, though Chico likes to gamble, he hasn't been making bets in Chicago. Terrified, he goes to the studio for help. Louis B. Mayer, king of Hollywood, places a call to Toby Peters.   Peters's first lead is promising. Traveling on the studio's dime, he makes his way to Florida where he gets an interview with Al Capone, deposed lord of the Chicago underworld. The retired bootlegger's mind has gone soft, and he doesn't know anything about Chico's bookie, but he suggests Peters speak to his brother. With Scarface's good word as an introduction, Peters goes to Chicago, where it will take more than a good sense of humor to keep the Marxes from getting axed.

A counter-espionage job leads to Toby Peters facing the barrel of a gun After midnight, NBC Studios is as quiet as a grave. For Toby Peters, it may as well be a sealed coffin. He came on a stakeout, and has spent hours in the dark of a television soundstage waiting for the appearance of a man with a silenced pistol. The killer has already taken three lives, and Peters's may be the next. After a long wait, Peters's dulled reflexes let the gunman get the drop on him. A frantic chase through the deserted studio leaves Peters shoeless, gunless, and out of ideas. Finally the killer corners him and prepares to fire.   The stakeout was Howard Hughes's idea. Earlier that week, the aviation magnate hired Peters to investigate the theft of top-secret blueprints from his home. What starts as counter-espionage turns into a murder investigation, and Peters finds himself in the uncomfortable role of murderer's bait.

Toby Peters tries to protect a Western star against a vicious salami-mogul Toby Peters is enjoying a moonlighting gig as the house detective at a hot-sheets motel when two giant men come to take him for a ride. They're Chicago toughs, visiting Los Angeles with their boss, Lombardi, who has come west to establish himself as the cold-cuts king of California. His message to Peters is simple: Stop asking questions and tell Cooper he didn't find anything. Or else.   "Cooper" is Gary Cooper, who recently hired a detective named Toby Peters to quiet a blackmailer. But that wasn't Toby-it was the dentist who shares his office. The amateur sleuth bungled the case so badly that now they're all in danger from Lombardi, the blackmailers, and anyone else with a hot head and a .45. If Toby Peters can't sort this out quickly, the next batch of Lombardi hot dogs will be made of one hundred percent pure-ground detective.

As a favor to his brother, Toby Peters does a job for a fading Hollywood diva You can't trust a man who's dressed as Mae West, especially not in Mae West's house. One of Hollywood's earliest sex symbols, the whip-smart blonde's star has fallen since the Hays Code cracked down on the racy repartee that made her famous. Her latest project is a thinly veiled autobiographical novel, whose only copy is stolen just after she finishes her first draft. Tonight she's having a Mae West party, with every guest a man dressed as her. The thief is among those in drag, and Toby Peters has come to tear off his wig.   He's there as a favor to his brother, a brutal cop who had a fling with West when she first moved to Hollywood. But this is more than a theft. The crook wants to destroy Mae West, and he has murder on his mind.

To avenge a long-ago death, a killer puts Toby Peters in his sights 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 alight 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 dozens of Confederate extras in line. When the fire was over, he found one of them dead, impaled on his own sword.   Five years later, Toby scratches out a living as a private detective for Hollywood's finest, several of whom have just been marked for death. On the back of a cryptic poem is a list of names of men who were on the scene the night the extra died. Two are already dead. One is Clark Gable. The other is Toby himself.

To save a film star's fingers, Toby Peters gives dance lessons Fred Astaire has a headache named Luna. The moll of a well-known Los Angeles gangster, Luna has demanded dance lessons from Hollywood's finest hoofer, and whatever Luna wants, Luna gets. But after two lessons with the lead-footed lady, Astaire tires of her making passes at him, and hires famously discreet private investigator Toby Peters to break the news gently. Trouble is, Luna and her boyfriend-nicknamed "Fingers" because he likes to cut them off-don't take bad news well. To protect the star's digits, Toby attempts to pass himself off as a dance instructor. For his troubles, he earns a spanking from Fingers and a promise of more pain if Astaire doesn't come around. Not long after, Luna surfaces with a cut throat, never to dance again.   Toby may not be a dancer, but to escape this deadly mire he has no choice but to stay nimble and keep his feet moving.

Toby hunts for the man who wants to kill a fallen star of silent film As Toby Peters crouches behind a tombstone, hiding from a crazed gunman, the private eye thinks of Charlie Chaplin. A few days earlier, the pioneer of film comedy sat in Toby's office, and told him of the hundreds of people who want him dead. Beloved when his public could not hear him speak, his political leanings have made him a pariah. Right-wing radicals, the Ku Klux Klan, and the fathers of the innumerable young women Chaplin has deflowered have all threatened the "Little Tramp." But now someone has broken into Chaplin's house with a long knife, telling him to quit making movies and leave Fiona Sullivan alone. Chaplin has never heard of Fiona, and wants Toby to find out why he's supposed to stay away.   Toby Peters is about to learn a lesson Chaplin learned years ago: If you want to stay alive in Los Angeles, keep your mouth shut.

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.

Toby and his brother team up to protect a magician from disappearing for good In the six years since he lost his job working security at the Warner Brothers' lot, private investigator Toby Peters has taken cases from oddballs ranging from Peter Lorre to W. C. Fields. But none of them had the stage presence of Harry Blackstone, the greatest magician in the world. When an anonymous rival demands the illusionist reveal his secrets on stage or suffer the consequences, Blackstone hires Toby and his brother, ex-cop Phil, to run security at the show.   What starts as a simple protection job turns dicey when Toby finds himself onstage, with a possibly unsafe magic saw about to slice through his midsection. Bodies pile up around the act, and the two detectives begin to think that the killer isn't a jealous member of the Los Angeles Friends of Magic, but rather the great magician himself.

As a hard-boiled Hollywood PI enlists Al Capone's help to save the Marx Brothers, Kaminsky "makes the totally wacky possible" (The Washington Post). It's 1941 and the Marx Brothers' first movie for MGM, Go West, has the country in stitches. But now Chico Marx is worried he's going to need stitches when he receives a severed ear in the mail-a simple message from a Chicago bookie who wants $120,000, or else. Chico is baffled because, although he loves to gamble, he's never made a bet in Chicago. Desperate, he turns to the king of Hollywood, Louis B. Mayer, who puts in a call to Toby Peters. A Hollywood private detective who's proven himself adept at keeping scandals out of the tabloids, Peters flies to Florida for an interview with Al Capone, deposed lord of the Chicago underworld. The retired bootlegger's mind has gone soft, and he doesn't know anything about Chico's bookie, but he suggests Peters speak to his brother. With Scarface's good word as an introduction, the PI heads to Chicago. But it will take more than a good sense of humor to keep Groucho, Harpo, and especially Chico from getting axed. Edgar Award–winner Stuart Kaminsky's "Toby Peters series was a delight. They were written with more than a dash of humor and featured a variety of improbable real-life characters, ranging from the Marx Brothers to Judy Garland" (Library Journal).

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).