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The storytelling formula Stuart M. Kaminsky employs in his madcap mysteries featuring low-rent, World War II-era Los Angeles private eye Toby Peters has proved remarkably successful over more than a quarter century. Each entry in this series (beginning with 1977's Bullet for a Star) finds Toby taking on a celebrity client; being beaten silly at least once during the ensuing investigation; contending with a supporting cast of misfits ever eager to supply ludicrous asides; and eventually, despite meager expectations of his genius, unearthing clues enough to expose a murderer. Yet even with all those familiar ingredients in place, Now You See It, the 24th Peters tale, doesn't capture the magic of its recent predecessors.
Which is ironic, since this yarn is all about magic. Toby, now pushing 50 and freshly partnered with his brother, choleric ex-homicide cop Phil Pevsner, is hired in June 1944 to protect "the world’s greatest living magician," Harry Blackstone. It appears that a wealthy but demented rival, "third-rate parlor magician" Calvin Ott, intends to ruin Blackstone's reputation while simultaneously enhancing his own. However, his process of humiliation seems more than a tad extreme, involving not only slaying a seedy PI during Blackstone's buzz-sawing-the-girl-in-half illusion, but also shooting the deceased's "tiger lady" girlfriend. Prepared to curb Ott's scheme, Toby is surprised when Ott himself is done in--knifed in the back of the neck during a formal reception in Blackstone's honor, with more than five dozen witnesses unable to identify the perpetrator. Quite a trick, especially as it leaves Blackstone with means and motive for committing the crime. In order to save the white-maned prestidigitator, Toby must find a phony waiter and a phonier turbaned gunman, stomach punchlines from comic Phil Silvers, enlist the swashbuckling talents of leading man Cornel Wilde, and--riskiest of all--submit to the oral ministrations of his pal Shelly Minck, "the devil’s dentist."
There's a swell twist closing out this book, which proves once again the devious desirability of misdirection. And Kaminsky's decision to begin his chapters with excerpts from the old Blackstone, The Magic Detective radio show enhances both his tale's theme and its period flavor. At the same time, though, the formula of this series is strangely underaffected by Toby and Phil's new business relationship, and a swordplay scene, while entertaining, is gratuitous and unbelievable. Following two celebrated Peters outings, To Catch a Spy and Mildred Pierced, Now You See It conjures up comparatively little novelty. Kaminsky may have to pull a rabbit out of his hat next time to stay on top. --J. Kingston Pierce
From Publishers Weekly
When PI Toby Peters answers the bell for the 24th time, his footwork is as nimble as ever, even if the dance will be familiar to fans of Kaminsky's Hollywood historical series. The celebrity-friendly detective has aided every kind of star from Errol Flynn in the first book (Bullet for a Star) to Joan Crawford in the most recent (Mildred Pierced). Toby often earns gratitude, frequently reaps scars and bruises, but never garners the kind of riches likely to change his boarding-house lifestyle. As WWII appears headed for a close, the great magician Harry Blackstone, who's been challenged and (apparently) threatened by a third-rate competitor, approaches Toby. Now teamed up with his brother, Phil, Toby undertakes to protect and unmask Blackstone's nemesis. Kaminsky makes an art of interjecting bits and pieces of period color, from Toby's dilapidated Crosley auto to 1940s songs or jingles. The running madcap humor includes landlady Irene Plaut's endless memoirs and dentist Shelly Minck's wacky inventions. Murder transforms Blackstone from magician to suspect and leaves him holding the bag, with predictably enjoyable results. Intriguing but simple magic tricks borrowed from Blackstone: The Magic Detective radio show serve as clever chapter lead-ins. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Kaminsky is tirelessly inventive, with more than 70 novels in three ongoing series, one set in old-time Hollywood and two more in contemporary Chicago and Moscow, respectively. What's more, Kaminsky neatly sidesteps the traps many prolific writers fall into--the first, of assuming the reader has been with the series from the beginning and failing to let new readers in on the series secrets; the second, of making grotesque soap operas out of the basic series format in an attempt to remain fresh. It's hard to find a clunker in the Kaminsky canon, so believable are his bizarre situations and quirky characters. This mystery brings back Hollywood private-eye Toby Peters, newly partnered in confidential investigations with his ex-LAPD cop brother. From the 1930s, Toby has trolled Hollywood back lots and back alleys in cases involving the likes of Munchkins, stuntmen, studio bosses, Cary Grant, and Joan Crawford. Now it's 1944, and the famous magician Harry Blackstone, doing his wartime bit by performing for the USO, reaches out to Toby and his brother because someone is threatening to kill him if he doesn't reveal the secrets to his illusions. The attempts on Blackstone's life are staged like magic tricks themselves. And the book resembles one of Blackstone's own boxes made out of cunningly crafted compartment--in this case, wartime Hollywood, the history of magic, Blackstone, and his illusions, all opening and shutting on a plot that piles up bodies and puzzles. A marvelous magic trick of a mystery. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Illusion gets more deadly than reality on Toby Peters's twenty-fourth outing from Edgar-winning author Stuart M. Kaminsky. A string of star-studded successes-most recently with Cary Grant in To Catch a Spy and an edgy Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierced-has won Tinseltown detective Toby Peters a bit of local celebrity, and that's something his new client, Harry Blackstone, understands. At the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles, Blackstone is billed as the World's Greatest Living Magician. Of course, should the giant buzz saw in the climax to Blackstone's act cut the beautiful young woman in fact in half, his sterling reputation would be ruined. And someone among the Los Angeles Friends of Magic is decidedly intent upon ruining it-whatever the price, including the life of Toby's prime suspect. Unfortunately, with the corpse count mounting, the evidence is pointing increasingly to Toby's client as the man behind the murders. As always, adding to the wackiness of Toby's investigation are the ungentle dentist Sheldon Minck, wrestler-poet Jeremy Butler, the suave, small-statured Swiss multilingualist Gunter Wherthman, and daffy Mrs. Plaut. But to solve the case, Toby finds he needs someone else-the dashing star of the movie A Thousand and One Nights, Cornel Wilde.
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