Tag Archives: Stuart M. Kaminsky

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Fatal Glass of Beer,’ by Stuart M. Kaminsky

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“I find his movies deeply sad,” Jeremy said as we were driving.

“I don’t think he’d be happy to hear that,” I said. “He thinks they’re comedies.”

“Comedy does not mean we must laugh,” said Jeremy. “It is the reverse of tragedy. It suggests that life can continue without hope.”

The late Stuart M. Kaminsky’s Toby Peters novels are amusing reads, and they take a high road. I mean by that that a novelist, when producing stories about old Hollywood stars, would naturally be inclined to give the public what they want – sleaze and scandal. But Kaminsky (who was, I think, a very decent man), chose to handle them lightly, in comic stories. We get to see the stars at their best and most sympathetic.

The challenge of that approach seems to have been considerable in A Fatal Glass of Beer, in which Toby’s client is W. C. Fields. It’s hard to make Fields a likeable character, but Kaminsky does manage to make him a sympathetic one.

It’s 1943. Toby Peters, who for comic purposes persists as a low-rent PI, in spite of all the celebrity clients he’s served over the years, is facing some changes in his life. His ex-wife, for whom he’s carried a torch for years, is getting married to a movie star. He consoles himself, however, with a new girlfriend. He’s considering moving out of his broom closet office in a dentist’s office, due to a conflict with the dentist’s wife. And he’s reached a truce with his estranged brother, the cop, now that his sister-in-law has cancer.

W. C. Fields shows up with a problem that could have happened only to him. Over the years, during his vaudeville days, he put his financial eggs in many baskets by opening savings accounts, under assumed names, in various banks across the US. Now someone has stolen a number of his bank books, and is going around to the banks and withdrawing the funds. Fields wants Toby to accompany him on a road trip, to hunt the scoundrel down and recover the bank books and stolen money. Toby can use the business, though Fields is a challenging travel companion. Toby enlists his midget friend Gunther to serve as driver, and they set out on their transcontinental odyssey in Field’s Cadillac, fully equipped with a built-in bar and a stock of liquor in the trunk.

The hunt is a slapstick affair, until people start getting killed. Secrets are revealed, leading to further secrets. And W. C. Fields comes through it all unfazed, insensitive to others’ needs, dependent on alcohol, securely anchored in the persona he has created for himself, though we perceive more and more that in his heart he’s deeply lonely and sad. That Kaminsky succeeds in making us care about him is a testimony to his characterization skill.

I’d describe A Fatal Glass of Beer as one of the best entries in this classic series.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Lieberman’s Folly,’ by Stuart M. Kaminsky

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Dr. Ernest Hartman’s office was in Uptown on Bryn Mawr right next to the el stop. Dr. Hartman’s patients could, while they were waiting or having their fluids drained or taken, indulge in neighborhood bird watching. The trains came rumbling in front of his window and a sharp-eyed woman with the flu or man with a murmur would occasionally spot a Black-Jacketed Daytime Mugger on the platform, though you were more likely to catch sight of a Fleet-Footed Purse Snatcher.

Stuart M. Kaminsky was one of my favorite 20th Century mystery writers, and I’ve reviewed a number of his books before – though not recently, because I think I’ve read most of them. But I’d never read Lieberman’s Folly, which happens to be the first book in his classic Abe Lieberman series.

Abraham Lieberman is 60 years old, a veteran Chicago police detective. He’s a loving father and grandfather, a devout Jew, and an advanced student of human nature. A fragile and old-looking man, he’s no hard-boiled cop. He’s more likely to offer an understanding ear than a punch in the jaw.

His partner is Bill Hanrahan, a tough Irishman who’s crawled into a bottle since his wife left him. Bill’s essentially a good cop too, but he’s been letting his work slide for a while.

Abe likes to spend off-work time – when he’s not with his family – hanging out with a group of old men at his brother’s delicatessen. It’s there that Estralda Valdez, a high-priced hooker and one of Abe’s informants, comes to ask him for protection. Somebody wants to kill her, but she’s leaving town. Could they keep watch on her apartment until she’s gone?

Abe can’t do it that night because of a domestic crisis. But Bill has nothing better to do. Unfortunately, he spends too much time, at his post in a Chinese restaurant across the street, drinking and flirting with a waitress. Estralda is stabbed to death, and their captain is not happy when he hears the story.

Through a narrative rich with eccentric characters and surprises, Abe will do his quiet best to uncover secrets and balance the scales of justice.

Lieberman’s Folly was – like most of Kaminsky’s work – solidly crafted and sympathetic. I enjoyed it very much.

Fiction, Reviews

The Rostnikov novels, by Stuart M. Kaminsky: An appreciation

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A Whisper for the Living

I’ve been spending my New Year holiday in a manner delicious to me – staying at home mostly, resting, and trying to let a new set of medications kill off this bronchial infection that’s taken up residence in my respiratory system. I think the next step, if this fails, is tenting and fumigation.

And so I finished at last Stuart M. Kaminsky’s fascinating police procedural series set in Russia, starring Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov. I’ve reviewed several of these books before, so I’ll just do a blanket appreciation of the series here. It’s weary to work to put up a string of direct links to each volume on Amazon. So here’s the link to Amazon’s list of Rostnikov books.

The books are remarkably consistent, and yet there are major changes over time. Rostnikov and his team remain generally intact all through, with only limited alterations (major or minor) in relationships and domestic situations. There’s young detective Sasha Kotch, constantly bedeviled by a libido that threatens his marriage, and might result in his losing his children. He suffers greatly with guilt, but not enough to really change his ways. His peace of mind is not improved by the constant meddling of his mother, a deaf woman who refuses to use her hearing aids, turning every conversation into a shouting match.

There’s Emil Karpo, “the Vampire,” a man who aspires to becoming the perfect Communist machine. He excels in logic and eschews human relationships. And yet humanity creeps in. Regular liaisons with a prostitute morph into genuine human tenderness. The loss of that relationship, along with the fall of the Soviet Union (traumatic for Karpo) leave him in genuine existential despair. It’s hard to create a Communist character with whom I am willing to sympathize. Kaminsky succeeded with Karpo. Continue reading The Rostnikov novels, by Stuart M. Kaminsky: An appreciation →

Fiction, Reviews

‘Death of a Russian Priest,’ by Stuart M. Kaminsky

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Death of a Russian Priest

“You are a true believer,” she answered. “A true believer needs a cause or he will wither. It is known in the lives of the saints that a man is twice blessed who embraced the devil before he embraces God. I see it in your eyes. During the service for Father Merhum the Holy Mother found you.”

I’m kind of flying through Stuart M. Kaminsky’s series of Russian police procedurals starring Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, Moscow detective. Rostnikov is a squat man whose nickname is “the Washtub.” He drags along a crippled leg, a souvenir of his teenaged service in World War II. When not solving crimes, he likes to fix his neighbors’ plumbing, read American crime novels, and lift weights. He is a man of deep compassion who approaches his cases from human understanding. Though his passion for justice has often brought him into conflict with police officials and the KGB, his native shrewdness has allowed him and his team to stay on the job. He always has to compromise somehow, the world being what it is, but he survives.

The series is longer than I realized, and it extends past the fall of the Soviet Union. In the unsettled times of Glasnost and Perestroika, Rostnikov’s demotion to a division with mostly ceremonial duties proves a career advantage. His successful investigations raise his division’s prestige, and its lack of political connections allows it to rise unimpeded in the political chaos.

I’m not going to review the whole series, which I haven’t finished yet, but Death of a Russian Priest stood out for me. In the new Russia, the Orthodox Church is reasserting itself, but does not stand unchallenged. Father Vasili Merhum of the village of Arkush, after performing his final mass before leaving town to lead a protest against government policies, is murdered with an ax. Porfiry Rostnikov is sent to investigate, along with a faithful member of his team, Emil Karpo. Karpo is a troubled soul. A dour, impassive man who looks like a vampire, his whole life has been spent in monk-like devotion to the Communist Party. Now his god has failed, and he operates on automatic pilot, troubled by frequent migraines. What made this book particularly interesting to me was Karpo’s reluctant attraction to what he sees in the church, the only institution that appeals for the same kind of commitment he longs to give. Continue reading ‘Death of a Russian Priest,’ by Stuart M. Kaminsky →

Fiction, Reviews

‘Black Knight in Red Square’ by Stuart M. Kaminsky

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Black Knight in Red Square

In the second Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov police procedural by Stuart M. Kaminsky, Black Knight in Red Square, the shrewd Moscow police detective faces the challenge of terrorism. The Moscow Film Festival is going on, and someone just poisoned four hotel guests – two Russians and two foreigners.

Rostnikov’s superiors assign him and his team to investigate – but on the quiet. Keep it out of the news. He suspects strongly that they expect him to fail, and that they are fine with that. He’s expendable. But Rostnikov has his own agenda. He’s working out a way to emigrate to the West with his Jewish wife.

In the midst of a three-pronged investigation, one of Rostnikov’s assistants – the dangerous-looking fanatic Communist Karpo – will come face to face with an adversary who is his equal in shrewdness and single-minded devotion to a cause. The climax is highly dramatic and satisfying. We also get to see Rostnikove participate in a weight-lifting competition.

What can I say? It’s Kaminsky, so it’s a satisfying story, full of well-conceived and rounded characters. Also it’s set in summer. I can bear Moscow a little better in summer than in winter. (That comment should indicate how good the author is at evoking place and climate.)

Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews, Uncategorized

‘Death of a Dissident’ by Stuart M. Kaminsky

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Death of a Dissident

The doznaniye or inquiry is based on the frequently stated assumption that “every person who commits a crime is punished justly, and not a single innocent person subjected to criminal proceedings is convicted.” This is repeated so frequently by judges, procurators, and police that almost everyone in Moscow is sure it cannot be true.

I felt a sudden longing for an old favorite author, so I thought I’d tackle Stuart M. Kaminsky’s Inspector Porphiry Rostnikov books. I’ve generally avoided this series, because the one I did read was so grim. It’s not that the writing’s bad. It’s great (as witness the dry-humored passage above), and Kaminsky’s always perceptive and humane characters are as good here as anywhere else. I just don’t like the Soviet Union. The ugliness of the architecture, the scarcity and hunger, the deadening regulations, the fear of surveillance, even the cold of Moscow – it tends to wear me down. Even when the stories are good and the characters fascinating. As they are here.

Author Kaminsky decided to challenge himself to write a police procedural like Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct books, but set it in Moscow. The result is, I think, very successful (when you adjust for my prejudices). Porphiry Rostnikov, hero of Death of a Dissident, is a wounded World War II veteran (the time is the 1980s), disabled by an old leg injury, which doesn’t stop him working. In fact, he’s a weight lifter, contemplating entering an amateur competition. His subordinates are Karpo (a dedicated Marxist who looks like a vampire), and Tkatch (a young detective recently married).

When a prominent dissident is murdered in his apartment two days before his scheduled trial, a suspect is quickly identified and arrested. Word comes down from above that this will do for an investigation. No further inquiry will be required. However, a seemingly connected murder that follows shortly after has Rostnikov walking a dangerous line, trying to stop a serial killer while not upsetting the political cart. A man of lesser strategic intelligence would wreck his career and perhaps lose his freedom, but Rostnikov knows his business.

Good book, and people less prejudiced toward the Soviet Union than I will probably enjoy it even more than I did. There’s nothing pro-Soviet here; the anti-Communism is subtextual but ubiquitous. Nothing much in the way of objectionable material either.

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“Thanks for stopping by”

1 Comment

This is one of the intangible rewards of blogging.

A few days ago I wrote about the death of mystery writer Stuart M. Kaminsky, mentioning how much I liked his books.

Today Kaminsky’s son Peter responded in the comments.

How very strange and satisfying.