When the Dark Man Calls

A radio therapist is haunted by her parents' killer.

It is 1957, and Jean Kaiser is pretending to sleep. She strains her ears to hear her parents, waiting for them to go to bed so she can indulge in her great joy - listening to the far-off radio stations that play Paul Anka, Pat Boone, and Elvis. But instead of bedtime sounds, she hears her mother's voice calling her name so strangely that Jean thinks it must be a nightmare. When she awakes in the morning, the nightmare is real - a killer has slaughtered her parents.

More than two decades later, Jean has done her best to move past her childhood trauma, parlaying a degree in psychology into a position as the host of a radio call-in show. One night, an anonymous caller reaches out to her, talking menacingly about unfinished business. When Jean and her daughter, Angie, get home, they find their pet parakeet crushed to death over Jean's bed. Her parents' killer has reemerged ready to tie up loose ends, meaning mortal danger not just for Jean, but for Angie, too.

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.