Another Toby Peters novel by Stuart M. Kaminsky. Light, seriocomic entertainment. Can’t go wrong with these. In fact, I think I found Dancing In the Dark a little funnier than most of the others.

Hard-luck Hollywood PI Toby Peters has been having a run of unaccustomed good fortune. He actually has a little money in the bank for a change, and his creditors aren’t hounding him. Then he gets hired by Fred Astaire. Astaire’s job poses certain challenges. A woman named Lyla, mistress to gangster “Fingers” Intaglio (who got his nickname because he likes to cut people’s fingers off) demanded he get her dancing lessons from Astaire. Once Astaire agreed, she started pressuring him to go to bed with her, or else she’d denounce him to her knife-happy boyfriend. Toby’s on the case, even if it involves learning to dance – a pastime for which he has zero talent.

Before he knows it, Layla has been murdered, and she’s only the first of a string of victims. Backed up by his cowardly dentist friend and his gigantic ex-wrestler/poet office landlord, Toby does his best to avoid gangsters, solve the murders, and keep Astaire out of the newspapers. Meanwhile, he finds himself in a new relationship with a woman who got away many years ago.

The sexual mores here are not ones I approve of (but what else is new?). And Toby makes a decision to let one suspect off that puzzles me.

On the other hand, at one point he finds himself dancing with Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth. That seems to me to qualify as a good day even if somebody’s shooting at you.

Bottom line – Dancing In the Dark is a fun book, and one of my favorites in a fun series.