An ax-wielding monk hacks at the door. Toby Peters is on the other side, running as fast as his recently broken leg will allow. Alongside him is Salvador Dalí, dressed in a rabbit suit, emphatically muttering "grasshoppers" as they try to make their escape. Dalí insists on being carried across the lawn, so Peters hobbles along with the surrealist in his arms. They get in the car just as the monk chops down the front door. The car doesn't start, and the monk charges silently, ax held aloft. And this isn't even the strangest thing that has happened to Toby Peters this week.
Life has been peculiar ever since the call came from Dalí's wife. Peters, suffering from post-New Year's celebration malaise, was happy to look into the theft of three of Dalí's paintings. He had no idea, however, that the investigation might end with his face being literally turned into something resembling abstract art.
Hollywood detective Toby Peters is asleep on his floor when the dentist who shares his office calls, wailing that his wife has left him. While on the one hand, Toby is shocked that a woman as unpleasant as Mildred could ever attract a suitor, he's even more surprised by the name of the alleged Lothario: Peter Lorre, the scaly-voiced, bug-eyed Hollywood character actor.
Though he can't imagine why the dentist would want her back, Toby agrees to track down his missing wife. He finds Lorre in a greasy spoon near the Warner Brothers' lot, but the actor doesn't know a thing about the missing Mildred. Her boyfriend turns out to be a Peter Lorre impersonator, and by the time Toby finds him, he's doing a very credible imitation of a dead man. The bullet was meant for the real Lorre, who has just become Toby's client-whether Toby likes it or not.
A plot to murder Albert Einstein is uncovered, and Toby Peters is hired to solve the mystery. But if Einstein can’t figure it out, what chance does Toby have?
Toby Peters wakes up with a headache, a gun in his face, and a body on the hotel-room bed. He is less surprised by the gun than by the man holding it: Marion Morrison, a.k.a John Wayne. Both of them were lured here by the dead man. The next arrival is a prostitute named Olivia, and hot on her heels is the house detective, who’s come to check on the commotion in Room 303.
Reasoning that nobody knows all four of them besides the desk clerk, Teddy Spaghetti, the two detectives haul Teddy upstairs, where he confesses to the murder. Since Wayne, Peters, and Olivia all have careers to protect, the house detective agrees to keep their names out of it. It’s all very simple—much too simple. As he looks into the murder, Toby finds that powerful people want to stop him from learning what really happened while he was sleeping in Room 303.
You can't trust a man who's dressed as Mae West, especially not in Mae West's house. One of Hollywood's earliest sex symbols, the whip-smart blonde's star has fallen since the Hays Code cracked down on the racy repartee that made her famous. Her latest project is a thinly veiled autobiographical novel, whose only copy is stolen just after she finishes her first draft.
Tonight she's having a Mae West party, with every guest a man dressed as her. The thief is among those in drag, and P.I. Toby Peters has come to tear off his wig. He's there as a favor to his brother, a brutal cop who had a fling with West when she first moved to Hollywood. But this is more than a theft. The crook wants to destroy Mae West, and he has murder on his mind.
Coffins fill the basement of a crumbling Los Angeles movie theater. Five vampires crowd around fading horror idol Bela Lugosi, peppering him with questions. A malfunctioning plastic fang causes one of the undead-wannabes to lisp. The effect is less than fearsome, but Lugosi is terrified, for one of these oddballs has been making threats on his life. He hires Toby Peters to provide security against his unbalanced fans. The detective is not concerned, but he should be. Even fake vampires can kill.
Meanwhile, the Warner brothers contact Peters regarding a murder. A body has surfaced in one of Hollywood's darker corners, and police suspicion has fallen on one of the studio's star screenwriters: William Faulkner. As he struggles to balance the murder investigation while protecting Lugosi, Peters finds a thread connecting the two cases. To get Faulkner off the hook, he'll have to find out who wants to kill Hollywood's original Dracula.
In this fourth book of the Abe Lieberman Mystery series, the Chicago police detective finds he must catch a thief to nab a killer. George "Pitty Pitty" Patnik was a thief who thought he had everything planned for a nice, clean in-and-out burglary. But that was before he heard the screams and saw the blood. Before the long knife came down again and again. Before the murderer realized he had an audience. Now Pitty-Pitty is on the run - from the clever Lieberman who has figured it all out, from the murderer, and from the awful memories of what he's seen.
A killer terrorizes the San Francisco opera, and the maestro calls in Los Angeles detective Toby Peters to investigate-which might just set him up to be the next victim.
The uniformed man standing before Toby Peters is General Douglas MacArthur, a soldier who considers himself the only man who can defeat the Japanese. But though he may be all-powerful in the South Pacific, today he is in Los Angeles with a problem only a detective can solve. The general has an eye on a postwar promotion to the White House, and an aide has stolen his war chest, his donor list, and a handful of embarrassing private letters. To get them back, Toby may need some help. Lucky for him, he's just met Dashiell Hammett, one of the finest crime novelists of all time. Dodging his mistress while he's waiting to rejoin the army, Dash needs amusement and thinks Toby's case sounds like a lark.
In fact, the assignment proves dangerous. Toby isn't a soldier, but he soon finds he just might end up dying at a general's whim nonetheless.
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