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The year 1942 is a bad time to stage Madame Butterfly. Although Puccini's masterpiece is a perennial favorite of the San Francisco opera crowd, its sympathetic depiction of a Japanese girl causes tension in the dark months following Pearl Harbor. Newspaper editorialists rage against the production, opera buffs picket the theater, and a note appears nailed to the house door, threatening violence against the cast and crew. When the first workman dies,...
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Frankly, a killer doesn't give a damn about offing Clark Gable-or Toby Peters-in this fast-paced and colorful addition to a very successful series
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 ablaze 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...
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Sometimes fools must step in where Fred Astaire fears to tap.
Luna Martin, the moll of a well-known Los Angeles gangster nicknamed "Fingers" (because he likes to cut them off), has demanded dance lessons from Hollywood's finest hoofer-and whatever Luna wants, Luna gets.
To sidestep the flirtations of the lead-footed lady, Astaire hires private investigator Toby Peters to pose as a dance instructor and take over the lessons. But when someone cuts...
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A huckster repeatedly robs a comedian, leading Toby on a cross-country chase The bank accounts are in the names of men like Otis J. Raisincluster, Quigley E. Sneersight, and Cormorant Beecham, but any comedy connoisseur knows that names that nonsensical could come only from the twisted brain of W. C. Fields. When toiling on the vaudeville circuit, the acid-tongued comic actor opened a new account in every town he played, adding up to a mountain of...
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Toby tries to clear a dentist accused of a medieval murder Though an otherwise unremarkable woman, Mildred Minck has the distinction of being the first citizen of Los Angeles to be murdered by crossbow. The police find her dentist husband, Sheldon, standing over the body with the weapon, swearing that only Joan Crawford can identify the real killer. An insanity defense seems a natural fit, but Sheldon wants his neighbor, private investigator Toby...
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The final Toby Peters Hollywood whodunit from the Edgar Award-winning author is a marvelous magic trick of a mystery featuring Harry Blackstone.
When an anonymous rival demands that master illusionist Harry Blackstone reveal his secrets on stage or die, the magician hires Toby Peters and his brother, ex-cop Phil Pevsner, to run security for his show at the famous Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Of course, Peters doesn't expect the job to include replacing...
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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...
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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....
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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...
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A hotel murder involves Toby Peters with one of Hollywood's toughest stars Toby Peters wakes up with a headache, a gun in his face, and a body on the hotel-room bed. He is less surprised by the gun than by the man holding it: Marion Morrison, a.k.a John Wayne. Both of them were lured here by the dead man. The next arrival is a prostitute named Olivia, and hot on her heels is the house detective, who's come to check on the commotion in Room 303. Reasoning...
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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...
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Toby Peters gets caught between a pair of Peter Lorres Hollywood detective Toby Peters is asleep on his floor when the trouble starts. The dentist who shares his office calls, wailing that his wife has left him. Toby is shocked that a woman as unpleasant as Mildred could attract a suitor. Even more surprising is the name of the alleged Lothario: Peter Lorre, the scaly-voiced, bug-eyed Hollywood villain. Though he can't imagine why the dentist would...
13) To Catch a Spy
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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...
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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...
15) The Fala Factor
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Hollywood PI Toby Peters looks for a kidnapped dog-with political connections If he is surprised to find Eleanor Roosevelt waiting for him in his dingy little office, Toby Peters does not show it. Although this is his first time working for the First Lady of the United States, years of private investigations for the Hollywood elite have left him unfazed by a famous face. The First Lady comes straight to the point. Six months after Pearl Harbor, the...
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Coffins fill the basement of a crumbling Los Angeles movie theater. Five vampires crowd around fading horror idol Bela Lugosi, peppering him with questions. A malfunctioning plastic fang causes one of the undead-wannabes to lisp. The effect is less than fearsome, but Lugosi is terrified, for one of these oddballs has been making threats on his life. He hires Toby Peters to provide security against his unbalanced fans. The detective is not concerned,...
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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...
18) Buried Caesars
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The uniformed man standing before Toby Peters is General Douglas MacArthur, a soldier who considers himself the only man who can defeat the Japanese. But though he may be all-powerful in the South Pacific, today he is in Los Angeles with a problem only a detective can solve. The general has an eye on a postwar promotion to the White House, and an aide has stolen his war chest, his donor list, and a handful of embarrassing private letters. To get them...
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An ax-wielding monk hacks at the door. Toby Peters is on the other side, running as fast as his recently broken leg will allow. Alongside him is Salvador Dalí, dressed in a rabbit suit, emphatically muttering grasshoppers as they try to make their escape. Dalí insists on being carried across the lawn, so Peters hobbles along with the surrealist in his arms. They get in the car just as the monk chops down the front door. The car doesn't start, and...
20) Smart Moves
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A dentist dangles from the window of a swanky Park Avenue hotel, while Toby Peters, a Los Angeles detective who's very far from home, clutches the man by his jacket, which is tearing slowly, stitch by stitch. Across the room, a dead man lies on the bed, his killer pounding on the hotel room door, which sounds like it's going to give way as quickly as the dentist's jacket. Somehow, this entire mess is Albert Einstein's fault. Two nefarious groups have...
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