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 arm. Since then he’s scratched out a living as a private detective-missing persons and bodyguard work mostly-but now his old friends, the Warners, have a job for him.

Someone has mailed the studio a picture of Errol Flynn caught in a compromising position with an underage woman. Although Flynn insists it’s a fake, the studio is taking no chances. Peters is to deliver the blackmailer five thousand dollars and return with the photo negative. It should be simple, but Flynn, a swashbuckler on and off the screen, has a way of making things complicated.

Soon it’s up to Peters to clear Flynn’s name, following a twisted trail that surprisingly leads to the set of The Maltese Falcon, involving Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet. As real-life PI Toby Peters meets Bogie’s Sam Spade, he doesn’t fall prey to being star-struck. But he may still fall prey to a killer.

If you like your mysteries Sam Spade tough, with tongue in cheek and a touch of the theatrical, then the Toby Peters series is just your ticket. -Houston Chronicle