When his temple is defaced, Lieberman battles Chicago's most hateful citizensOver a decades-long career in Chicago homicide, Abe Lieberman has something most cops only dream of: a personal life. He has hobbies, a wife, and a grandchild who is about to celebrate his bar mitzvah. But Lieberman's personal and professional lives collide when his temple is attacked by vandals, and he uncovers a river of hate that runs right through the heart of Chicago's North Side. Too moderate for the hard-liners, too outspoken to win friends among the Arabs, the Conservative Temple Mir Shavot is caught in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian debate. When a hate group breaks into the temple, scrawling graffiti and stealing a valuable Torah, Lieberman must decide if the guilty party was neo-Nazis, militant Palestinianseven, perhaps, a group of uncompromising Orthodox Jews. Death waits at the intersection of politics and religion, and Abe Lieberman must face it head on.

Toby joins forces with a famous PI to save a general from embarrassmentThe 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 post-war 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 may not be a soldier, but he’s finally gotten a chance to die at a general’s whim.From Publishers WeeklyIt's September 1942, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur has hired private eye Toby Peters to recover some incriminating papers that might keep the general from going into public life after the war. The papers, and funds that could help MacArthur finance a campaign, have been stolen by a civilian aide, Andrew Lansing. Meanwhile, Peters is offered the services of another detective, former Pinkerton op Dashiell Hammett, who's hiding out from Lillian Hellman while trying to recover his health so he can enlist in the army. The chase leads the two to Angel Springs, Calif., and to the mysterious and eccentric millionaire, Mr. Pintacki, who has his own ideas about keeping America great, which don't include a general as president. After Peters discovers Lansing's body on Pintacki's property, the crazed tycoon and his goons pursue Hammett and Peters; the latter, at the same time, tries to make time with his former wife and runs afoul of his uptight cop brother Phil. This 13th entry in Kaminsky's ( The Man Who Shot Lewis Vance ) immensely popular series about Peters tries too hard and spreads itself too thin: the background and the effort to establish it are just a little too obvious. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A hotel murder involves Toby Peters with one of Hollywood’s toughest starsToby 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, the two detectives haul Teddy upstairs, where he confesses to the murder. Wayne, Peters, and Olivia all have careers to protect, so the house detective agrees to keep their names out of it. It all seems too simple. As he looks into the murder, Toby finds that powerful people want to stop him from learning what happened while he was sleeping in Room 303.

A thief puts his life in danger when he becomes an unwitting witness to a murder sceneHarvey Rozier has planned the murder carefully. Unseen, he slips out of the concert hall and sneaks home, knowing that if all goes perfectly he will have an hour to stab his wife to death. But things don't go smoothly, and he is pursuing the bleeding woman through the kitchen when he trips over a toolbox, and finds himself face-to-face with a shocked cat burglar. George Pitty-Pitty Patniks had planned his crime even more thoroughly than Rozier, but was not counting on stumbling into a homicide. He escapes before Rozier can stop hima witness to a hideous crime that he cannot report to the police. Long-suffering Chicago homicide detective Abe Lieberman suspects Rozier instantly, but cannot find enough proof to arrest him. To bring this killer to justice, he will have to find the thief who saw it allbefore Pitty-Pitty Patniks's mouth gets shut forever.

Tie into this month's Toby Peters mystery hardcover, The Devil Met a Lady, with his 16th adventure. Surrealist painter Salvador Dali enlists Toby's help in retrieving three stolen paintings--from thieves Dali hired as a publicity stunt.From Publishers WeeklyEdgar Award winner Kaminsky ( Poor Butterfly ) pairs his 1940s L.A. private investigator Toby Peters with surrealist painter Salvador Dali in the series hero's 16th outrageous escapade. Dali and his wife, Gala, hire Peters to find three paintings and three ornate Russian clocks stolen from their house in Carmel. The only clue is an enigmatic note that, once deciphered with the help of his friend Jeremy Butler, ex-wrestler and poet, leads Peters to a murdered man, one clock and a painting defaced with another coded message. Aided again by Jeremy, Peters discovers another dead man, another clock and another work of art, on which is scrawled the message "Time is running out. "Dali confesses planning the theft and the notes as a publicity stunt, but he is horrified by the murders. Peters fears that the painter will be the third victim and enlists the aid of Jeremy and another friend, Gunther, for protection. Once again Kaminsky mixes the real--in this case the surreal--with the fictional for a quick-paced, clever revisionist Hollywood romp. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalAny tale opening with Salvador Dali in a deerstalker and white-rabbit costume pursued by an axe-wielding monk while more consumed by his grasshopper phobia is bound to be considerable fun, and this Toby Peters mystery certainly is. Tom Parker gives each character a distinctive voice, with his French/Spanish accent for Dali a particular delight. Wartime Los Angeles detective Peters, previously on cases involving Fred Astaire, Albert Einstein, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and other prominent 1940s figures (e.g., Poor Butterfly, Audio Reviews, LJ 1/97), has been hired by the immensely eccentric artist to recover three Dali paintings and three valuable Russian clocks. As with Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr series, Kaminsky's book is more concerned with comic mood than with actual detection, and the plot weakens toward the end. Yet the period details about radio programs and dishes such as apples Eisenhower create a charming atmosphere. Highly recommended for public libraries.?Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr., New YorkCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.