Never Cross a Vampire

Toby Peters guards a horror icon against a gang of crazed vampire enthusiasts. 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. 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. "If you like your mysteries Sam Spade tough, with tongue-in-cheek and a touch of the theatrical, then the Toby Peters series is just your ticket." - Houston Chronicle. "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.