By now I’ve read and reviewed the majority of the late Stuart M. Kaminsky’s amusing Toby Peters novels. Mildred Pierced is the second to last in the series, and I’m pretty sure I’ve covered the final one already. But I don’t read them in order. I read them based on how much I like (or am interested in) the celebrity client involved in each mystery. Mildred Pierced must – as any old film afficionado will guess – involve Joan Crawford, an actress who has never appealed to me in any way. Hence my delay in reading it (though she nosed in ahead of that Commie, Charlie Chaplin).

Mildred Minck is the unfaithful, abusive wife of Sheldon Minck, LA’s worst dentist, who shares an office with PI Toby Peters. Somebody killed her in a park with a crossbow bolt, and it is Sheldon’s great misfortune to have been seen standing near the body, holding a crossbow. Sheldon swears to Toby that he didn’t do it (and it’s hard to imagine a putz like Sheldon successfully murdering anybody) and asks Toby to prove his innocence. Therefore, Toby must question the witness, who just happens to be movie star Joan Crawford. To his surprise, she wants to hire him too – to keep her name out of the papers.

Now Toby has to investigate the people who put a crossbow into Sheldon’s hands – a crackpot group of proto-survivalists. Meanwhile, Toby’s sister-in-law is dying of cancer, and his cop brother Phil is contemplating retiring from the force.

Snappy, fast-moving, full of oddball characters, Mildred Pierced keeps faith with the template of the Toby Peters novels. I liked it a lot, even if I don’t like Joan Crawford much. Recommended. No serious content warnings are called for.