To Catch a Spy
by Stuart M. Kaminsky
Orion $105
In each of the Toby Peters series, the 1940s' private eye becomes involved with a Hollywood celebrity. This time, it's Cary Grant. An author's note in the front of the book says that, during the war, Grant worked for British intelligence. In Kaminsky's story, Grant tracks a cell of Nazi sympathisers and would-be saboteurs in Los Angeles. The plot is a frame on which to hang all the eccentric characters that crop up in the Toby Peters stories. He lives in a weird lodging house where the deaf landlady rules her guests with an iron rod and feeds them extraordinary meals (peanut butter being a major ingredient). He has a dwarf friend who helps in his investigations, a long-suffering girlfriend, and a brother who's a senior detective. The last words in the epilogue are 'Joan Crawford', indicating that she's the subject of the next saga.