The late great Stuart M. Kaminsky’s series of comic mysteries starring small-time private eye Toby Peters have pleased me for some time. Toby makes a marginal living solving problems for a cast of clients who tend to be the greatest celebrities of the thirties and forties, yet he can’t afford a better office than a converted closet inside the offices of Dr. Sheldon Mink, the world’s most unsanitary dentist. Their building is owned by a former professional wrestler who writes poetry. Toby lives in a small apartment in a boarding house owned by the elderly Mrs. Plaut, who is convinced he’s either an exterminator or a book editor. His neighbor and best friend is Gunther Wherthman, a Swiss-born former munchkin who works as a translator. He has a brother who’s a Los Angeles police detective, and generally has to be physically restrained from punching him.
In other words, Toby Peter’s world is surreal. So who could be a more perfect client for him than the artist Salvadore Dali, who has had three paintings and three antique clocks stolen from him, and hires Toby to decipher the thieves’ cryptic clues in order to recover the property?
What’s hilarious about The Melting Clocks is that Dali fits into Toby’s world more easily than Toby himself does. Through the eyes of Dali, Toby discovers things about his own friends he never realized before.
Don’t look for fresh scandals in a Toby Peters novel. The celebrities in these stories are generally treated as decent folks with flaws like you and me. Pure entertainment here. Recommended.