Books by Stuart M. Kaminsky and Complete Book Reviews

Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author St. Martin's Press $18.95 (216p) ISBN 978-0-312-08836-1
Sixty-year-old Chicago cop Abe Lieberman (introduced in the praised Lieberman's Folly ) returns in a deliberately minimalist story carried by dialogue and characterization. Abe would rather shoot the breeze with his pals in the local deli than brave
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Gale Cengage $13.95 (209p) ISBN 978-0-684-18424-1
What is the connection between a psychotic woman carrying a trombone case for most unmusical purposes through the streets of Moscow and the theft of the deputy procurator's much-prized automobile? How does the slaying of a young policeman by a...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author St. Martin's Press $14.95 (194p) ISBN 978-0-312-51394-8
The setting is Hollywood in 1942, and someone is out to kill John Wayne, in this 11th adventure featuring private gumshoe Toby Peters (Down for the Count. A man named Lewis Vance lures Toby to his hotel room, ostensibly to hire him for a case. But...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author St. Martin's Press $15.95 (212p) ISBN 978-0-312-00190-2
In the 11th Toby Peters caper, Kaminsky (The Man Who Shot Lewis Vance relocates his seedy, middle-aged private eye to New York. Away from L.A. and his usual movie star clients, Peters is still working for celebrities. This time (April, 1942) his...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Scribner Book Company $14.95 (211p) ISBN 978-0-684-18666-5
Kaminsky's three novels (including the Edgar nominee Black Knight in Red Square starring the shrewd, temperate Inspector Rostnikov of the Moscow police have attracted many readers. This new tale finds Rostnikov trying to save a young circus...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author MacMillan Publishing Company $16.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-684-18905-5
The fifth novel in the Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov series offers another example of Kaminsky's ( A Fine Red Rain ) ability to spin a gripping, well-paced narrative peopled with vivid characters. Here the maverick Rostnikov, demoted after numerous...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Mysterious Press $15.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-89296-374-4
It's September 1942, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur has hired private eye Toby Peters to recover some incriminating papers that might keep the general from going into public life after the war. The papers, and funds that could help MacArthur finance a...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Mysterious Press $17.45 (179p) ISBN 978-0-89296-411-6
In the latest of Kaminsky's popular crime capers recreating lost times and glamorous figures, PI Toby Peters gets an assignment from Leopold Stokowski. The maestro's rehearsals for Madame Butterfly in 1942 incite anti-Japanese protests at the...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author St. Martin's Press $15.95 (216p) ISBN 978-0-312-05398-7
An overabundance of irrelevant character vignettes impedes Kaminsky's (Toby Peters and Inspector Rostnikov series) procedural, which features the partnership of Chicago cops Abe ``Rabbi'' Lieberman and Bill ``Father Murphy'' Hanrahan. When...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Scribner Book Company $19.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-684-19022-8
The central element of this seventh in a series (including 1988's Edgar-winning A Cold Red Sunrise ) pits the wise, humane, brave Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov against proto-Stalinist bureaucrats in the KGB, MVD and GRU who seem to be plotting to...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Mysterious Press $17.95 (198p) ISBN 978-0-89296-435-2
Edgar Award winner Kaminsky ( Poor Butterfly ) pairs his 1940s L.A. private investigator Toby Peters with surrealist painter Salvador Dali in the series hero's 16th outrageous escapade. Dali and his wife, Gala, hire Peters to find three paintings...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Mysterious $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-89296-747-6
Edgar-winner Kaminsky's 14th Rostnikov novel (after 2000's Fall of a Cosmonaut), about the imperturbable one-legged Russian policeman, weightlifter, plumber and family man, lacks narrative force due to its episodic structure. But while it...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Mysterious Press $18.95 (201p) ISBN 978-0-89296-527-4
Appearing for the 19th time, down-and-out Hollywood detective Toby Peters teams up with Clark Gable in this fast-paced and colorful addition to a very successful series. In 1943, after the movie star receives a poem linking him to a series of deaths
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Henry Holt & Company $19.95 (260p) ISBN 978-0-8050-2575-0
Kaminsky may be best known for his Toby Peters series, most recently The Melting Clock , set in 1940's L.A., but this third outing for Chicago homicide detective Abe Lieberman (after Lieb erman's Choice ) firmly establishes the characters and...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Mysterious Press $19.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-89296-528-1
Even Fred Astaire can't dance his way out of trouble without help from Toby Peters, detective to the stars in wartime Hollywood. In Toby's 19th entertaining case (after Tomorrow is Another Day), mob moll Luna Martin wants dance lessons. Her...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Henry Holt & Company $22.5 (0p) ISBN 978-0-8050-3749-4
A thick layer of tension and a seething urban hostility mix with the droll verbal shenanigans that distinguish this series (Lieberman's Day, etc.). The old Jewish men in the deli find it hard to crack wise when a synagogue is defaced and the...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Forge $22.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-312-86229-9
The tremendous appeal of James Garner as low-rent California PI Jim Rockford translates quite nicely from the 1970s TV series and later TV movies into this briskly paced novel. Rockford's old dad, Rocky, has passed on, even if his pickup truck is...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Mysterious Press $22 (240p) ISBN 978-0-89296-630-1
The 20th appearance of Toby Peters, Hollywood's Golden Age PI, begins on April 1, 1943, and traces Peters's road trip with W.C. Fields as they try to catch up with the thief who is emptying out bank accounts the comedian has stashed in different...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Forge $22.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-86444-6
Jim Rockford returns with his trusty Firebird, without his deceased father and with Angel, his con man pal, in a loose and lively second adventure (after The Green Bottle). Jim's trashy beachfront trailer home becomes a safe haven for Melisa...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Forge $22.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-312-86927-4
The versatile and prolific Kaminsky introduces his fifth series hero, Lew Fonesca, in this outstanding mystery. Fonesca is a middle-aged, widowed process server, a transplanted Chicagoan who has made a new home in Sarasota, Fla. He joins a...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Mysterious Press $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-89296-668-4
Even middle-range Rostnikov is better than much other mystery fiction, as Kaminsky proves in his 13th book about the one-legged Moscow policeman, whose stature and resilience fully justify his nickname of ""The Washtub."" The three cases that occupy
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Mysterious Press $21.5 (288p) ISBN 978-0-89296-667-7
One of the most prolific mystery writers working today, Kaminsky is also one of the best, as he demonstrates in this 12th installment of his deliciously mordant series about Moscow cop Porfiry Rostnikov. Rostnikov, a weight-lifting, one-legged...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Carroll & Graf/ Penzler $24 (240p) ISBN 978-0-7867-0862-8
It's a mystery how a rumpled, unprepossessing sort of private eye like Toby Peters has lasted long enough to save the hides of Hollywood stars such as the Marx Brothers and Bette Davis, literary luminaries William Faulkner and Dashiell Hammett...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Forge $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-312-87452-0
Dysfunction drives the pr0lific Kaminsky's engrossing second Lew Fonesca novel (after 1999's Vengeance). Emotionally scarred by the hit-and-run death of his wife a few years earlier in Chicago, Lew lives in a room behind his office, uses the
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Carroll & Graf/Penzler $24 (240p) ISBN 978-0-7867-1023-2
For anyone with a taste for old Hollywood B-movie mysteries, Edgar winner Kaminsky offers plenty of nostalgic fun in his 22nd book to feature good-natured, unprepossessing sleuth Toby Peters (after 2001's A Few Minutes Past Midnight). Having...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Forge $23.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-312-87453-7
You can always expect a witty, entertaining read from prolific Edgar-winner Kaminsky, and he delivers the goods in this seventh Lieberman novel (after 2000's The Big Silence). Abe Lieberman, the tolerant, justice-seeking Chicago homicide...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Carroll & Graf $24 (224p) ISBN 978-0-7867-1182-6
Old pro Kaminsky serves up his usual amiable blend of nostalgia, humor, eccentricity and a mystery built around a celebrity (typically a film star) in his 23rd book to feature PI Toby Peters (after 2002's To Catch a Spy). While his long career...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Forge $23.95 (269p) ISBN 978-0-7653-0462-9
The prolific Kaminsky cleverly uses Lew Fonesca's struggle to reclaim his own life as a counterpoint to his clients' problems in the third novel (after 2001's Retribution ) to star the emotionally wounded sleuth, who's retreated to...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Carroll & Graf/Penzler $25 (227p) ISBN 978-0-7867-1423-0
When PI Toby Peters answers the bell for the 24th time, his footwork is as nimble as ever, even if the dance will be familiar to fans of Kaminsky's Hollywood historical series. The celebrity-friendly detective has aided every kind of star from...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Forge $23.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7653-0463-6
Edgar-winner Kaminsky's eighth Abe Lieberman mystery (after 2002's Not Quite Kosher ) gets off to a dramatic start. After a prologue in which a gunman confronts a young Lieberman in the middle of a morning prayer service in 1969, the action...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Forge $23.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1165-8
In the brilliant scene that introduces Kaminsky's haunting story, PI Lew Fonesca reluctantly opens his door to Ann Horowitz, a no-nonsense octogenarian therapist. Under Ann's skillful prodding, Lew admits he has been investigating two...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Forge $23.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1164-1
Edgar-winner Kaminsky writes four ongoing mystery series, but his books about close-to-retirement Chicago police detective Abe Lieberman are the ones that get the least attention. With luck, this terrific ninth book (after 2004's The Last Dark...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Forge $23.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-765-31601-1
In MWA Grand Master Kaminsky's psychologically layered fifth Lew Fonesca mystery (after 2005's Denial ), the Sarasota, Fla., process server and occasional PI emerges from his clinical depression to start tracking down the hit-and-run driver...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Forge $23.95 (301p) ISBN 978-0-765-31602-8
MWA Grand Master Kaminsky's 10th Abe Lieberman mystery (after 2006's Terror Town ) will mostly appeal to longtime fans. Lieberman, a living legend on the Chicago police force, is drawn into a series of murders centered on the search for a...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Forge $23.95 (287p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1886-2
While Chief Insp. Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov isn't as well developed a character as, say, Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko, he's still one of the better contemporary examples of an honest policeman navigating the shoals of a corrupt...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Forge $23.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1828-2
At the start of the superb sixth Lew Fonesca hard-boiled whodunit (after 2006’s Always Say Goodbye ) from MWA Grand Master Kaminsky, 17-year-old Greg Lagerman, a student at a school for the gifted, hires Fonesca, who’s been working as a...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author . Forge $23.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1888-6
In MWA Grand Master Kaminsky's so-so 16th Porfiry Rostnikov novel (after 2008's People Who Walk in Darkness ), the chief inspector of Russia's Office of Special Investigations pursues a serial killer, the Bitsevsky Maniac, named for...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Scribner Book Company $16.95 (261p) ISBN 978-0-684-19023-5
Inspector Rostnikov of Kaminsky's Edgar-winning series ( A Cold Red Sunrise ) duels for the sixth time with the KGB in this superb mystery-thriller. The novel bursts into action as Rostnikov is visiting his wife, Sarah, hospitalized in their home...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Ballantine Books $20 (247p) ISBN 978-0-449-90725-2
From the uncertainties that bear in modern Russia, Kaminsky (Death of a Russian Priest) continues to craft his crisp and thoughtful series featuring Moscow police inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov and the enduring cast that comprises his team....
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Fawcett Books $5.99 (0p) ISBN 978-0-8041-0837-9
This continues Kaminsky's series of mysteries set in the contemporary Soviet Union, with Moscow police inspector Porfiry Rostnikov. (Oct.)
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Ballantine Books $21 (0p) ISBN 978-0-449-90949-2
Kaminsky excels each time he enters the harshness of post-Cold War Russia, a politically and socially volatile world where his Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov is a rarity among policeman: shrewd, utterly incorruptible and destined to survive each...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author Forge $23.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-86926-7
Versatile, prolific and reliable, Kaminsky seldom disappoints, whether spinning a tale about his Russian policeman (Porfiry Rostnikov), private eye to the stars (Toby Peters) or Chicago policeman Abe Lieberman. Here Lieberman and his Irish partner,...
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, read by Stephen Bowlby. HighBridge Audio, unabridged, digital download, nine hrs., $18.87 ISBN 978-1-62231-112-5
This 13th entry in Kaminsky’s breezy, entertaining series featuring 1940s private eye Toby Peters finds the engaging Southern California sleuth in the company of real-life celebrities and fictional screwballs and lawbreakers. With WWII raging in the
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Stuart M. Kaminsky, Author, John Lutz, Author Henry Holt & Company $22.5 (238p) ISBN 978-0-8050-2576-7
The fourth in Kaminsky's Chicago mystery series starring put-upon detective Abe Lieberman begins with a career burglar stealing into a home only to witness the man of the house murdering his wife. George Patnicks, the small-time thief--who's also a...
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