Customer Reviews

The Melting Clock

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Stuart M. Kaminsky takes the absurd to new heights with THE MELTING CLOCK. It is reading entertainment at its best.
A devious Salvador Dali hires Toby Peters to find three paintings, which he'd arranged to have stolen. The problem is he only arranged for two and three were taken. It is the third one which can destroy his career.
Step back to 1942 and enter the sleazy world of a private detective who can't seem to stop stumbling over bodies to complete his work for his clients.
Nash Black, author of SINS OF THE FATHERS.

Top Parker gives us a first rate performance of Toby Peters in this Los Angeles based detective series. Kaminsky has turned to more serious stories in his two more recent series, but it is these witty books centered on the problems faced by various celebrities of the 1940's on which his reputation for superior entertainment is based. The Melting Clock gives us Salvador Dali as Peters often bewildering and bewildered client in need of professional help to find stolen pictures and clocks. Murder inevitably dogs Peters in his quest for the elusive objects; just as inevitably it brings him to the attention of various and sundry law enforcement officials who would like nothing better than to pin some crime, any crime, on him. Of course, steady readers know that the law enforcement officer most offended by Toby's inability to stay out of trouble is his brother, who can barely control his hot temper whenever Toby stumbles into something that comes to his attention. Toby's landlady is on hand to spread her customary confusion over everything happening, as are his two chief volunteer assistants, a Gentle Giant, ex-wrestler, Poet and a short sized large brained neighbor. As usual, there is a puzzle to solve and the dilemma as to how Toby is going to avoid ending up in jail or in range of his brother's ready fists.
I feel comfortable in recommending the book to anyone who has a taste for a Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, who doesn't have their talent, class or brains, but does provide more humor, a lighter touch, more human failings, than do the obvious prototypes. For those with a taste for Old Time Radio, Toby is a character along the lines of the late Dick Powell's Richard Rogue.