Mildred Pierced: (23 Toby Peters Mysteries)

"A page-turning romp" from the Edgar Award-winning author featuring a nutty dentist, a killer crossbow, and Joan Crawford in 1940s Hollywood (Booklist, starred review). Mildred Minck is an unremarkable woman--until one tragic night in June 1944 when she becomes the first citizen of Los Angeles to be murdered by crossbow. The prime suspect is her husband, dentist Sheldon Minck, who's found standing over her body with the weapon in hand, raving that only Joan Crawford can identify the killer. It seems like a natural insanity defense, but Sheldon wants his neighbor, private investigator Toby Peters, to prove his innocence. The dentist is telling the truth about one thing: Joan Crawford was there. The steely silver screen beauty is in the middle of a comeback, about to star in a film noir based on a James M. Cain novel, and insists Peters keep her name out of the papers. In exchange, the glamorous eyewitness points the sleuth toward the Survivors of the Future, a band of crackpot survivalists that the dentist was hoping to join. Sheldon's new friends want him sprung, but only because they want him dead . . . With its "irresistible" title, Edgar Award winner Stuart M. Kaminsky's penultimate Toby Peters mystery shines a spotlight on the legendary screen diva as well as one of the favorite supporting characters of the series (The Washington Post).

About the Author :
Stuart M. Kaminsky (1934-2009) was one of the most prolific crime fiction authors of the last four decades. Born in Chicago, he spent his youth immersed in pulp fiction and classic cinema--two forms of popular entertainment which he would make his life's work. After college and a stint in the army, Kaminsky wrote film criticism and biographies of the great actors and directors of Hollywood's Golden Age. In 1977, when a planned biography of Charlton Heston fell through, Kaminsky wrote Bullet for a Star, his first Toby Peters novel, beginning a fiction career that would last the rest of his life. Kaminsky penned twenty-four novels starring the detective, whom he described as "the anti-Philip Marlowe." In 1981's Death of a Dissident, Kaminsky debuted Moscow police detective Porfiry Rostnikov, whose stories were praised for their accurate depiction of Soviet life. His other two series starred Abe Lieberman, a hardened Chicago cop, and Lew Fonseca, a process server. In all, Kaminsky wrote more than sixty novels. He died in St. Louis in 2009.

Review :
"Kaminsky stands out as a subtle historian, unobtrusively but entertainingly weaving into the story itself what people were wearing, eating, driving, and listening to on the radio. A page-turning romp." --Booklist "The title is irresistible . . . And the set-up for this, the 23rd Toby Peters mystery by Stuart M. Kaminsky, is presented in glorious black and white." --The Washington Post "If you like your mysteries Sam Spade tough, with tongue-in-cheek and a touch of the theatrical, then the Toby Peters series is just your ticket." --Houston Chronicle