The Fala Factor

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 only thing that keeps her husband from buckling under the pressures of the presidency is his dog, a sprightly black terrier named Fala. As America gears up for war, Mrs. Roosevelt has a secret domestic problem: She fears that Fala has been kidnapped and replaced by an imposter.

As he investigates the dog's whereabouts, Toby learns that the dog is the linchpin in a fiendish plot against the White House. He must recover the real Fala quickly, for the fate of the free world rests in the terrier's paws.

About the Author.

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.

Review quote.

"Kaminsky stands out as a subtle historian, unobtrusively but entertainingly weaving into the story itself what people were wearing, eating, driving, and listening to on the radio. A page-turning romp." - Booklist.

"For anyone with a taste for old Hollywood B-movie mysteries, Edgar winner Kaminsky offers plenty of nostalgic fun... The tone is light, the pace brisk, the tongue firmly in cheek." - Publishers Weekly.

"Marvelously entertaining." - Newsday.

"Makes the totally wacky possible... Peters [is] an unblemished delight." - Washington Post.

"The Ed McBain of Mother Russia." - Kirkus Reviews.