Toby Peters Mystery

16 primary works • 24 total works

Bullet for a Star

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 June 1977

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.

You Bet Your Life

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 January 1978

The Howard Hughes Affair

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 January 1979

High Midnight

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 January 1981

Catch a Falling Clown

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 December 1981

The Fala Factor

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 November 1985

The Man Who Shot Lewis Vance

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 January 1986

Smart Moves

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 31 December 1986

Think Fast, Mr. Peters

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 12 December 1999

Buried Caesars

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 April 1989

Poor Butterfly

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 June 1990

Melting Clock

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 December 1991

Tie into this month's Toby Peters mystery hardcover, The Devil Met a Lady, with his 16th adventure. Surrealist painter Salvador Dali enlists Toby's help in retrieving three stolen paintings--from thieves Dali hired as a publicity stunt.

A Fatal Glass of Beer

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 May 1997

A Few Minutes Past Midnight

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 August 2001

Toby Peters is an unusual private eye. He's already cracked cases involving Humphrey Bogart, the Marx Brothers, John Wayne and Mae West, and is now 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 has 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. This calls for help from Toby's team of investigators: an eccentric dentist, a former wrestler and a multilingual Swiss midget. What ensues proves to be constantly surprising, grandly wacky, increasingly suspenseful and frequently hilarious - not unlike a Chaplin movie.

Mildred Pierced

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 July 2003

Now You See it

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 November 2004

Down for the Count

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 January 1985

He Done Her Wrong

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 May 1984

As a private detective, Toby Peters has had some pretty impressive clients over the years but none of them has been quite as memorable as his latest: A tough-as-nails, sharp-witted, damsel-in-distress named Mae West. Mae, it seems, has discovered that her only copy of her sizzling autobiography is missing. And when Peters' brother, Phil, is forced to ask for his help, the private eye agreed to track it down. But after taking a beating from a man named Tessner- a thief, a master of disguise and, even more dangerous, a frustratced actor- Peter rcalises that his job is just beginning. Following the trail of Mae's scandalous memoirs soon leads Peters into the midst of a family feud of Herculean proportions and a California sanitorium, from which he must make a daring escape worthy of Ressner himself...

Never Cross a Vampire

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 1 January 1980

Toby Peters's services have just been retained by the private eye's strangest client, the film star Bela Lugosi. After frightening people on screen as Dracula, Lugosi now finds his own life in danger from a stalker.

The Devil Met a Lady

by Stuart M Kaminsky

Published 26 August 1993

Fasten your seatbelts--it's going to be a bumpy ride through 1940s Hollywood as detective Toby Peters is assigned to protect Bette Davis from a rag-tag group of spies. And when the no-nonsense leading lady is kidnapped not once, not twice, but three times, Toby wonders who is going to protect him from her.