Bullet For A Star, Stuart M. Kaminsky
Bullet For A Star, Stuart M. Kaminsky
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Bullet For A Star

Author: Stuart M. Kaminsky

Narrator: Patrick Lawlor

Unabridged: 4 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/22/2021


Synopsis

The first in a mystery series set in 1940s Hollywood, where a hard-boiled private eye helps a cast of real-life stars: "Nostalgic fun" (Publishers Weekly).

Hollywood, 1940: 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 an underage woman. Although Flynn insists it's a fake, the studio is taking no chances. Peters is to deliver the blackmailer five thousand dollars 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.

Soon it's up to Peters to clear Flynn's name, following a twisted trail that surprisingly leads to the set of The Maltese Falcon, involving Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet. As real-life PI Toby Peters meets Bogie's Sam Spade, he doesn't fall prey to being star-struck. But he may still fall prey to a killer.

About Stuart M. Kaminsky

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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Robert on May 01, 2014

I like the pictures. A lot. I’m not ashamed to admit it either, because I don’t think liking the pictures and liking books are mutually exclusive. And I love a good, strong hardboiled character as much as the next guy. So reading about Errol Flynn and Peter Lorre, along with a Gary Cooper cameo appe......more

Goodreads review by F.R. on March 21, 2017

Hollywood private eye, Toby Peters, could actually be a screen tough guy of the 1940s. He has the anglicised name, the broken nose which advertises toughness and a definite shortness of stature. All those old school Hollywood tough guys were short. Peters was made for the movies, and you can almost......more

Goodreads review by Alberto on April 20, 2023

Una novela policiaca muy entretenida. Me gusta especialmente como se van introduciendo personajes reales del Hollywood de los años 40.......more

Goodreads review by Kathy on March 09, 2019

This was the first of 24 Toby Peters books written by Kaminsky, and the first time reading this author who died in 2009. It is the only kindle available on my library site, and I believe the books will be hard to find. This author will have to go on my list for used book sales. Several famous actors......more

Goodreads review by Johnny on November 09, 2009

The Bullet for a Star in the title of Stuart Kaminsky’s first Toby Peters’ mystery was intended for Erroll Flynn. I found this novel in my local public library, only a few miles away from where Kaminsky teaches (or taught) at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. I thought I had read all of......more