Stuart M. Kaminsky

In the darkest hours of communist rule, Father Merhum fought to protect the sanctity of the Orthodox Church. Now the Soviet Union is gone, but the bureaucracy survives, and within it lurk men who would do anything to undermine the fragile new Russian democracy. Father Merhum is on his way to...

Murder intrudes on a Moscow cop's vacation: "Kaminsky's Rostnikov novels are among the best mysteries being written" (The San Diego Union-Tribune). Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov is finding spring in Yalta to be quite lovely. Accompanying his wife, Sarah, as she gets much needed rest and...

This "superb mystery-thriller" featuring a Moscow cop reminiscent of Arkady Renko delivers "riveting suspense" (Publishers Weekly). Porfiry Rostnikov and his wife, Sarah, have been in love for decades, since the end of World War II. Now the police inspector is by his wife's bedside as she...

The Soviet Union is dead, and Russian society has been fractured into a thousand pieces. Through those cracks seeps the first serial killer in the country's history, whose exploits send Moscow into a frenzy. As his colleagues hunt for the pipe-wielding maniac who's killed 40 women so far, Police...

Working in Hollywood, Private Eye Toby Peters has met a lot of phonies. But his newest case concerns a four-legged faker who threatens the fate of the free world. A few classy dames have crossed the detective's doorstep, but none can touch the hem of the dress of the first lady herself, Eleanor...

The first in a mystery series set in 1940s Hollywood, where a hard-boiled private eye helps a cast of real-life stars: "Nostalgic fun" (Publishers Weekly). Hollywood, 1940: It's been four years since security guard Toby Peters got fired from the Warner Brothers lot for breaking a screen cowboy's...

In this mystery introducing a hard-boiled Soviet police inspector, "Kaminsky gets Russia right" (Ed McBain). Aleksander Granovsky has dedicated his life to exposing the brutality of the Russian penal system. In two days, he will be tried for the crime of smuggling essays to the West. It is a...

A Moscow cop is left out in the cold in this "impressive" Edgar Award winner for Best Mystery Novel (The Washington Post Book World). When forced to choose between the law and the party line, Police Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov has a disturbing tendency to fight for justice, and that has won him...

A Chicago cop is out to avenge his nephew's murder in this "masterly creation" that puts the Edgar Award-winning author in "the Parker/Paretsky league" (Chicago Tribune). When you're a 62-year-old cop with bad knees, most days feel pretty long. But the longest day of Abe Lieberman's life begins...

In this "marvelously entertaining" mystery, a hard-boiled Hollywood private eye investigates a murdered Munchkin on the set of The Wizard of Oz (Newsday). A year after The Wizard of Oz's smash success, the yellow brick road is crumbling. The famous sets have been left standing on a soundstage in...

As a hard-boiled Hollywood PI enlists Al Capone's help to save the Marx Brothers, Kaminsky "makes the totally wacky possible" (The Washington Post). It's 1941, and the Marx Brothers' first movie for MGM, Go West, has the country in stitches. But now Chico Marx is worried he's going to need...

A dentist dangles from the window of a swanky Park Avenue hotel, while Toby Peters, a Los Angeles detective who's very far from home, clutches the man by his jacket, which is tearing slowly, stitch by stitch. Across the room, a dead man lies on the bed, his killer pounding on the hotel room door...

"Edgar winner Kaminsky offers plenty of nostalgic fun" as Hollywood PI Toby Peters teams up with Cary Grant in this World War II-era spy romp (Publishers Weekly). Since the start of World War II, Cary Grant has been working undercover in Hollywood as a spy for the British crown. When a ring of...

In an era of financial free-for-all in Russia, a Moscow cop deals with rampant crime in a "terrific" and "exceptional" police drama (Detroit Free Press). It's the mid-'90s, and capitalism and privatization have come to Russia. As the trickle of cash turns to a torrent, bureaucrats become...

Tension runs high as a Moscow cop investigates murder under the big top - from the Edgar Award-winning "Ed McBain of Mother Russia" (Kirkus Reviews). Porfiry Rostnikov was one of the top detectives in Moscow - until he crossed the KGB. On the orders of the secret service, this bulldog cop is...

Coffins fill the basement of a crumbling Los Angeles movie theater. Five vampires crowd around fading horror idol Bela Lugosi, peppering him with questions. A malfunctioning plastic fang causes one of the undead-wannabes to lisp. The effect is less than fearsome, but Lugosi is terrified, for one...

The year 1942 is a bad time to stage Madame Butterfly. Although Puccini's masterpiece is a perennial favorite of the San Francisco opera crowd, its sympathetic depiction of a Japanese girl causes tension in the dark months following Pearl Harbor. Newspaper editorialists rage against the...

With his Chicago cops, Edgar Award winner "Kaminsky is hard to beat for a thoughtful, well-plotted, well-written mystery" (The Washington Post Book World). Most days, the counters at Maish's Deli on Chicago's North Side are crowded with elderly Jewish men who trade stories and crack wise. But...

Frankly, a killer doesn't give a damn about offing Clark Gable - or Toby Peters - in this "fast-paced and colorful addition to a very successful series" (Publishers Weekly). On December 10, 1938, Atlanta burned again. In the back lot at David O. Selznick's studio, sets from a dozen old pictures...

A Moscow cop juggles cases of kidnapping, murder, and a missing Czarist-era document in a modern-day mystery with "never a dull moment" (Library Journal). In the waning days of the Russian Empire, the Czar inked a secret treaty with Japan that was stolen en route by one of the workmen on the...