Never Cross a Vampire by Stuart Kaminsky is the 5th book in the Toby Peters series. Toby is a private eye who works in the Los Angeles area and many of his clients are connected to Hollywood. Currently he is working for Bela Lugosi who is being stalked and sent threatening messages. He is also contacted by a studio lawyer and asked to investigate murder charges that have been brought against author William Faulkner.

With plenty of humor and a fair amount of violence, the constantly injured Toby works his two cases by stirring things up to see what arises. He is successful but suddenly the two cases seem connected which makes no sense at all. Toby eventually puts the pieces together and exposes both the murderer and the stalker with very little help from his brother, a police lieutenant with anger issues.

The author fills his books with interesting characters, many of whom live on the fringes of Hollywood. In this outing, the real characters of Bella Lugosi and William Faulkner come across much as one would expect them to and Toby is a character who is easy to root for. I enjoyed this outing and look forward to the next one which, I believe is going to highlight one of my personal favorites - “super duper” Gary Cooper. ( )

Bela Lugosi is being threatened and William Faulkner is in jail, framed for murder. Toby is up to his badly banged-up skull in wanna-be vampires, bad Hollywood writers, and his brother Phil, the cop who delivers most of his injuries.
Another fun romp through a nostalgic, early 1940s LA with Toby Peters, the dedicated, reasonably competent PI with Hollywood connections. With help from his friends, Gunther, a polyglottal Swiss midget and Butler, his ex-wrestler office landlord.
I always enjoy these books. For whatever reason, I embrace the romanticism of Toby and his life in Mrs. Plaut's rooming house and his small cubby-office off of Sheldon Minck's terrible dentist office. His brother, the police lieutenant who takes out his frustrations by beating on Toby, his ex-wife who has had enough of his bs, and his sense of fair play that puts him in a lot of his near-fatal situations.

Here's Toby,in a nutshell:
"'No money,' I said...
'And no offers of flesh,either,' I added. 'I have no ambition,' I explained. 'Absolutely none. I don't want or need a lot of money. I have no dreams money can buy. What I always need is just a little more than I've got, not a lot more, and I'm not about to be bought in for a few hundred dollars. It's a bind, but it keeps my reputation clean and my suits old.'
'And when you go to that great Pinkerton agency in the sky, they may reward you bymaking you a night watchman on the gate of heaven,' she spat.
'Or the gate of hell,' I added. 'I'd like that.'"

That's my Toby. ( )

Pulpy fun thanks to breezy B-movie noir dialogue that will be sure to bring a smile to the face of anyone who enjoys dime-store mystery novels set in LA with a PI and plenty of rain and red herrings. The inclusion of Lugosi is handled well, although Faulkner's appearance doesn't add much, and his character is not written in an endearing way; his scenes tends to drag the short book. Otherwise, the story moves along pretty fast with a crazy cast of characters that play well together. A guilty pleasure that's good to waste an afternoon with. ( )

Originally written in the 1970s and set in the 1940s, this mystery had a very film noir, dark and gritty atmosphere. I liked Toby as a character but I could not follow the murder mystery plot or figure out how he was solving it. I’m not sure if this was because I listened to it on audio and so I couldn’t flip back and re-read parts or if it was the book’s fault. I suspect some of both.

I liked all the voices the narrator did except for Toby. The book is written in first person from Toby’s point of view so there is a lot of Toby’s voice. I think he was trying to make Toby seem cool and confident but most of the time Toby sounded bored.

The author often had Toby commenting on how much something costs or what news is on the radio as he’s driving around. If you have nostalgia for the 1940s or the past in general, I think you’ll find this interesting. ( )

Enjoyable tale that includes Bela Lugosi and William Faulkner as characters (Faulkner accused of murder and arrested, and Toby Peters has to get him off). Story takes place in 1942 and there are many product and entertainment references from that time. I think Kaminsky got it wrong when he wrote about an event on the Fibber McGee and Molly program where the mayor wanted McGee to run for water commissioner against Gildersleeve, but by that time Gildersleeve was living in a different town, so the two could not have opposed one another for the position. But overall, a very entertaining book. -- Read January 2010 -- ( )