Stuart Kaminsky’s PI, Toby Peters is on the case for Warner Brothers Studios. Seems there is a photo of Errol Flynn in a compromising situation, with a very young girl. Warner Brothers wants to know if it is real or fake. Flynn says it’s a fake. Damage control is desperately needed or Flynn’s career will be down the tubes!

A ransom demands has been made and Toby is to be the delivery boy. Toby is skeptical about being given the original negative when he delivers the money. His suspicions of the exchange being a set-up are confirmed when he is hit over the head at the drop and wakes up to being in the company of a dead body!

As Toby tries to solve the murder and get the original negative, dead bodies keep turning up. Not a good thing.

A romp through 1940s Hollywood and the world of movie studios, with appearances of Peter Lorre, William Faulkner, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart and more make this book a delight. The turns are sharp and the pace is steady, with humour interlaced with danger.

I’ve read a couple of books in the series and enjoyed them. This was the first of the series, and it did not disappoint. ( )

In the brief first chapter of “Bullet for a Star” (1977), Stuart Kaminsky works Charlton Heston, William Faulkner, Pat O'Brien and Errol Flynn into the story, setting the pattern for the 23 other name-dropping Toby Peters mysteries that would follow.

Peters is a private investigator based in Hollywood during the 1940s whose cases always involve movie stars or other famous people from that era. In “Bullet for a Star,” Errol Flynn is being blackmailed with a fake photograph showing him in a compromising situation with an underage girl, and the studio hires Peters to pay the money and retrieve the photo and the negative. It's not that simple, of course, and soon there are a series of murders, with Peters himself becoming the main suspect.

Always complicating these novels is the fact that our hero's brother is a homicide detective with a love-hate relationship with Toby. Sheldon Minck, the hapless dentist with whom Peters shares an office, appears briefly, while other regulars in this wonderful series have yet to be introduced.

This first Toby Peters adventure, if not as funny as those that would follow, sets the pattern. Why the first book in the series remained unread by me for so long I cannot explain. ( )

I've enjoyed other works by this author but until picking up Bullet for a Star I'd not read any of his Toby Peters mysteries. It's a decent read, with lots of name-dropping of Hollywood stars of the 1930s and just the right amount of humor, in my opinion. And for the reader who prefers stories without graphic sex or violence, this almost makes the grade. I'll keep an eye out for additional books in this series. ( )

A breezy detective yarn, set in Hollywood's golden age. Lots (!) of name dropping and cameo appearances from notables of days gone by.

Toby Peters is hired to stop a blackmailer of Errol Flynn. Well put together. ( )