Fri 6 May 2022
An Archived PI Mystery Review by Jim McCahery: STUART KAMINSKY – Murder on the Yellow Brick Road.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
STUART KAMINSKY – Murder on the Yellow Brick Road. Toby Peters #2. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1977. Penguin, paperback, 1979.
This is the second in Stuart Kam1nsky’s historical series starring his 1940’s Hollywood private investigator, Toby Peters (a.k.a. Tobias Leo Pevsner), who made his own debut last year in Bullet for a Star. This second entry is far superior to the first. Once again, Hollywood stars join the fun in both major and minor roles.
In this vehicle Toby is summoned from the Warner Brothers lot (where he helped Errol Flynn in Bullet) to M.G.M by an urgent call from Judy Garland, who has just discovered the body of a murdered Munchkin on the still-standing publicity set of Munchkin City from The Wizard of Oz, released more than a year earlier. Peters is hired by Louis B. Mayer himself to keep the investigation quiet and protect Judy, whose own safety seems at stake. Toby’s interview with the “little” suspect arrested in connection with the murder convinces him of his innocence.
Peters, of course, whose wife has already walked out on him and who shares office space with a dentist, is a progeny of the classic Hammett/Chandler tradition:
And again:
Indeed, Raymond Chandler also has a bit part as himself in the novel. He spots Toby while doing research on flophouses and decides to shadow him, but is waylaid for his efforts. Since Toby is the first real detective he has ever met, our investigator lets him tag along on the case so he can drink in some local color and dialogue first hand.
A second fatal stabbing, a defenestration., and two attempts on Toby’s life all ensue before the climax, in which even Judy has a hand (or an elbow, to be more exact).
Murder on the Yellow Brick Road is a well-paced and very neat yarn, indeed, even if it doesn’t require a wizard to spot the culprit. The dialogue is crisp and lively, especially between Toby and his antagonistic brother, LAPD Lieutenant Philip Pevsner, whose boiling point is nil whenever he runs up against his younger brother.
Add Clark Gable in a minor role as a prospective witness and several other M.G.M. stars in walk-through parts and it all adds up to quite a pleasant stroll down memory lane as well. Unfortunately, there was a very careless printing job by St. Martin’s Press on the first edition which will hopefully be corrected in subsequent printings, including that scheduled for the Mystery Guild.
Kaminsky’s third work is already in progress and will involve Toby Peters with the Marx Brothers.
May 6th, 2022 at 9:29 pm
Celebrity mystery wasn’t new, but Kaminsky found a pleasant way to do it and the books, though there was a lot of variation, were mostly fun.
When it works as it does here, in Ron Goulart’s Groucho stories or Stephen Mertz’s Rat Pack it can be a lot of fun.
May 6th, 2022 at 11:25 pm
I think Ron did a good job capturing the Marx Brothers kind of humor. I haven’t read Stephen’s take on the Rat Pack, but that’s because I have no interest in the Rat Pack in any shape or form.
As for Toby Peters and the movie stars and other celebrities he kept running into, the books
were fun for a while, but I stopped reading them when I realized that he was doing so even more than murders were happening in Cabot Cove. My problem, not his or Mr. Kaminsky’s.
I had the same problems with the Nathan Heller books.
May 7th, 2022 at 7:04 am
Fun, but I much prefer Kaminsky’s Porfiry Rostnikov and Abe Lieberman series.
May 7th, 2022 at 8:55 am
For The Record:
The Rat Pack books are written by Bob Randisi – not Stephen Mertz.
I know this because I have them all.
So There Too.
(Check the lists of both writers.)
Also For The Record:
Murder, She Wrote had a strictly enforced rule at the top:
Only five (5) stories set in Cabot Cove in any given season – no more and no less.
In twelve seasons, this makes sixty cases out of 261 – OK, that’s a lot, but scarcely the massacre that the old bad joke maintains.
Note: midway in the run, J.B. Fletcher relocated part-time to New York City; the Rule Of Five held there as well.
May 7th, 2022 at 9:00 am
Bob, if you’re reading this, apologies!!
And thank you, Mike, for setting the record straight, and like this time, sometimes it really needs it.