There are still a few of the late Stuart M. Kaminsky’s Toby Peters novels left that I haven’t read. But now I’ve read Buried Caesars, in which Toby meets Douglas MacArthur and Dashiell Hammett.
The Toby Peters novels, in case you’re not familiar with them, are set in Hollywood in the 1930s and ʼ40s. They are semi-comic in spirit, finding our private eye hero taking jobs for one famous figure or another (usually, but not always, movie stars), though he never achieves financial success, continuing to live in a shabby boarding house and sharing his office with a low-rent (and low-hygiene) dentist.
It’s 1942, and Toby is summoned to a large estate, where he meets a man who isn’t supposed to be in this hemisphere. General Douglas MacArthur is supposed to be in the Philippines, but he’s come home in secret to deal with a personal crisis. Certain of American victory, he has – he explains – made some plans for running for president after the war. He prepared some strategy papers for his campaign which would be highly embarrassing if they were made public at the present time. And now one of his aides has stolen the papers and is in California offering them to the highest bidder. MacArthur wants Toby to investigate because he’s a) known to be discreet, and b) almost unknown otherwise.
Toby promises to turn all his resources to the task. His problem is that his resources are in fact very limited. However, he is surprised to find a famous man in the dental chair of his office-mate – the author Dashiell Hammett. Hammett explains that he’s trying to enlist for the war (in spite of his age), and the army tells him he has to get his teeth fixed. He’s (temporarily) off the bottle, he has a couple days free, and he’s curious to see whether he still retains some of his old skills as a Pinkerton detective. So he and Toby set out together.
Clues lead them to a castle in the desert, where a crazy millionaire is plotting a military coup, but he’s not the only suspect. Toby will also pick up a stray cat and a framed photo of Wallace Beery in a woman’s wig.
Buried Caesars is undemanding entertainment. I always resent Dashiell Hammett in real life (as opposed to his novels, which I love) because of his unrepentant Communism, but as usual, author Kaminsky steers clear of the most controversial stuff.