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On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Howard Hughes hires Hollywood gumshoe Toby Peters to find stolen blueprints in the "marvelously entertaining" series (Newsday).Millionaire Howard Hughes likes his secrets. He likes to keep them—and he definitely doesn't like having them stolen. Hollywood PI Toby Peters has a rep for being discreet. So when the film tycoon and aviation magnate needs a detective to very privately investigate the theft of top-secret blueprints taken from his home during one of show more his fabulous parties, he summons Peters. But what starts as counter-espionage intrigue turns into a triple murder, and Peters soon finds himself bait for a killer.
As America is pulled into World War II, Peters is just trying to stay alive as a gunman chases him through a deserted television soundstage. With help from some unlikely allies—including Basil Rathbone, the silver screen's Sherlock Holmes, and gangster/patriot Bugsy Siegel—Peters is determined to dodge the bullets long enough to recover the blueprints before they fall into the wrong hands.
The Chicago Sun-Times calls the Toby Peters mysteries "entertainment at its best" as Edgar Award–winning author Stuart Kaminsky takes readers on a rollicking tour of Hollywood in the forties. show less
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The Howard Hughes Affair by Stuart Kaminsky is the 4th entry in his mystery series that features private detective Toby Peters. Peters works in L.A. during the 1940's and often gets called by the famous to help them get out of whatever trouble they have gotten themselves into. This time he is called by Howard Hughes to find out who stole the plans for an experimental plane.
Although he is working for Howard Hughes, Toby is aided in this case by movie star, Basil Rathbone, which greatly added to my enjoyment as Basil Rathbone is one of my favorite actors from that era. They team up to question the suspects which appears to stir things up as before too long, Toby is dodging bullets and stumbling over corpses.
I find this a fun series with show more it's great 1940s Hollywood setting and the inclusion of many of the top stars of the day. This plot with it's many references to Nazis took place in the days leading up to Pearl Harbor. I am already looking forward to Toby's next case which is foreshadowed at the end of this book as Toby gets a phone call from Boris Karloff. show less
Although he is working for Howard Hughes, Toby is aided in this case by movie star, Basil Rathbone, which greatly added to my enjoyment as Basil Rathbone is one of my favorite actors from that era. They team up to question the suspects which appears to stir things up as before too long, Toby is dodging bullets and stumbling over corpses.
I find this a fun series with show more it's great 1940s Hollywood setting and the inclusion of many of the top stars of the day. This plot with it's many references to Nazis took place in the days leading up to Pearl Harbor. I am already looking forward to Toby's next case which is foreshadowed at the end of this book as Toby gets a phone call from Boris Karloff. show less
I love this series. Currently re-reading, casually.
Toby is hired by Howard Hughes to find out if one of his dinner guests copied secret plans for a war plane, from his office. The usual gaggle of historical people, including help from Basil Rathbone doing his best Holmes impression (with emotions!), show up. Guns, gals, and a steady stream of bodies.
Pulp fun, at its best.
Toby is hired by Howard Hughes to find out if one of his dinner guests copied secret plans for a war plane, from his office. The usual gaggle of historical people, including help from Basil Rathbone doing his best Holmes impression (with emotions!), show up. Guns, gals, and a steady stream of bodies.
Pulp fun, at its best.
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Author Information
126+ Works 7,302 Members
Stuart M. Kaminsky is head of the radio/television/film department at Northwestern University in Illinois. He is also a writer of textbooks, screenplays, and mystery novels. The more popular of his two series of detective novels features Toby Peters. Set in the 1930s and 1940s, the Peters books draw on Kaminsky's knowledge of history and love of show more film by incorporating characters from the film industry's past in nostalgic mysteries. Murder on the Yellow Brick Road (1978), for example, features Judy Garland while Catch a Falling Clown (1982) stars Emmett Kelley as Peters's client and Alfred Hitchcock as a murder suspect. His other critically acclaimed series chronicles the cases of Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov. Kaminsky's detailed studies of Russian police procedure combined with aspects of life in Russia have earned the Series an Edgar nomination for Black Knight in Red Square (1984) and the 1989 Edgar Award for A Cold Red Sunrise (1988). Stuart Kaminsky was born in Chicago in 1934 and died in 2009. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Il giallo Mondadori (1682)
Zwarte Beertjes (2236)
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Il caso Howard Hughes
- Original title
- The Howard Hughes Affair
- Original publication date
- 1978
- People/Characters
- Toby Peters; Basil Rathbone; Bertolt Brecht; Howard Hughes
- Important places
- Los Angeles, California, USA
- Important events
- Pearl Harbor Attack
- Epigraph
- “We have got to the deductions and the inferences,” said Lestrade, winking at me. “I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies.”
“You are right,” said Holmes de... (show all)murely; “you do find it very hard to tackle the facts.”
—The Boscombe Valley Mystery, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - First words
- The microphone and boom thudded down on the stage within a sigh of taking off the toes of my bare right foot.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- ISBNs
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