“When one listens to this WWII comic thriller, narrator Stephen Bowlby inhabits so many distinctive, memorable characters that it’s hard to believe he’s narrating all by himself. . . . Bowlby makes even the bit players shine in this energetic production.”
      —AudioFile

“Kaminsky has such a good time writing, and he so loves the period, that the reader is swept along willy-nilly.”
      —The New York Times Book Review

“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

“Kaminsky has a delightfully original mind enriching—rather than just borrowing from—an old literary form.”
      —Los Angeles Times

STUART M. KAMINSKY (1934-2009), a Mystery Writers of America Master as well as an Edgar Award-winning author, was one of the most prolific crime fiction writers 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.