Catch a Falling Clown, Stuart M. Kaminsky
Catch a Falling Clown, Stuart M. Kaminsky
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Catch a Falling Clown

Author: Stuart M. Kaminsky

Narrator: Stuart M. Kaminsky

Unabridged: 5 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/20/2021

Synopsis

A hard-boiled Hollywood PI has to work without a net to save Emmett Kelly from a killer who's not clowning around: "Nostalgic fun" (Publishers Weekly).

In February 1942, Californians may be living in fear of a Japanese attack, but the show must go on. The circus is in town—unfortunately so is a killer saboteur who's targeting the star attractions. Private detective Toby Peters is no stranger to going undercover, but this is the first time his disguise will include a red nose.

The killer has already electrocuted an elephant, and hobo clown Emmett Kelly has had a close brush with death. The second-rate circus in this sleepy coastal town seems like another world from Peters's usual Hollywood beat, but of all people, Alfred Hitchcock, the director of Suspicion, is under suspicion. With the investigation on the verge of becoming a three-ring circus, it's up to Toby Peters to cage the killer before anyone else meets a bad end under the big top.

Edgar Award winner Stuart M. Kaminsky's "Toby Peters series [is] a delight . . . Written with more than a dash of humor" and this big-top murder mystery is a "fun, lightweight book for all mystery fans" (Library Journal).

About Stuart M. Kaminsky

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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Fredrick on May 06, 2020

This is an old fashioned mystery novel set in World War II California. Investigator to the stars Toby Peters is hired to investigate the electrocution of a circus elephant. Soon it transforms into a murder investigation.......more

Goodreads review by K on July 31, 2016

I'm a fan of Stuart Kaminsky and his many characters' series. This story was in the Toby Peters series, which often places famous characters into the plot. The subject here was the circus and Emmet Kelly, and while not as funny or involving as others in this series, it was a solidly entertaining boo......more

Goodreads review by Ben on March 20, 2019

A medium-boiled P.I. whodunit with a superb setting--a 1940s circus--murder, Alfred Hitchcock, elephants and one very angry gorilla. My first experience with Kaminsky's Toby Peters series, but it won't be my last.......more

Goodreads review by Benjamin on May 06, 2018

Continuing my tour of great mystery writers of the 20th century, I turned to the well-regarded Stuart M. Kaminsky and a sample from his 24-book series featuring 1940’s Hollywood PI Toby Peters. Toby Peters is often considered to be the first historical private detective series, predating Max Allan C......more

Goodreads review by Tommy on December 27, 2018

Niet een zoveelste verhaal over helden/sukkelaars in het circusleven maar een hardboiled kijk van Toby Peters erop. Moord gegarandeerd. En ook een inkijk bij de achtergronden van de personen die om allerlei redenen deel uitmaken van het circus en bij wie het circus in het bloed zit. Al bij al toont d......more

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