Murder On The Yellow Brick Road (2000) - Plot & Excerpts
1977, #2 Toby Peters, a rather seedy PI in 1940 Hollywood; satirical/historical PI. With its classic (if not quite classy) PI themes played extremely broadly, lots of cameos without becoming boring or weird/out of context, and nifty plots, this series is lots of fun. Here Toby tries to find out who’s framing Judy Garland for the murder of an ex-Munchkin (with a bit of help from Raymond Chandler) whilst trying to keep the newspapers out of it and simultaneously keep his brother (the policeman) from arresting the young star. Other famous folks present include Louis B. Meyer, Clark Gable, William Randolph Hearst, Victor Fleming.One of the things I like best about this lovely, silly PI series is Kaminsky’s light touch. Yes, the pages are filled with *Stars!!*, sort of. He doesn’t dwell on each, showing us bits and pieces, some of the information well-known, some bits quite surprising even to this dedicated Old Movies fan. And he weaves all “The Famous Bits” into a very good plot, something that other stories of this kind often don’t do well. Admittedly, he was one of the first to do this, and I have hopes that his ability to do so will continue (this is an extremely long series, and I hope to read them all). And he has, so far at least, seemed to have kept all the famous folks believable, as none of them is *the* sleuth, or does fantastical, out-of-character things. Next up is The Marx Brothers, in YOU BET YOUR LIFE. Sounds like fun.
Murder on the Yellow Brick Road by Stuart Kaminsky is the second Toby Peters mystery I’ve listened to and I actually liked it better than the first. Toby Peters is a stereotypical PI, wise-cracking and under-paid with a soft spot for a damsel in distress, not just Judy but her assistant, who seems to find Toby irresistable. Toby should really have known better. His brother’s a cop and somehow Toby always end up as one of the main suspects in murders. He has quite a knack for being in the wrong place at the right time, whether he’s being paid to be there or not. Toby knows his way around the film industry and keeps asking questions, following suspects, getting shot at until he finds some answers.The dialogue is funny and Christopher Lane, who narrates the book pulls it off well, almost tongue-in-cheek, but not quite. At four hours, twenty minutes, the story is a good length, long enough to develop the characters and plot, but so long that you get tired of the vintage Hollywood gimmic. The celebrities are shown in as realistic a fashion as possible, but the line-up of potential suspects is actually pretty small since you know the killer has to be one of the fictional characters – so it isn’t too hard to figure out the culprit ahead of Toby. The classic Hollywood atmosphere is captured well, making me feel like I was there, watching.
What do You think about Murder On The Yellow Brick Road (2000)?
A good bit of fun. Bit light on plot, but some great dialogue in the vein of Chandlers Phillip Marlowe (Raymond Chandler, in fact makes a cameo appearance..along with Judy Garland and Clark Gable!) The plot centers around the murder of a munchkin from the movie "The Wizard of Oz" and is investigated by our PI Toby Peters. Peters is your archetypal gumshoe; world weary, wisecracking, and worn around the edges. Kaminsky paints a nostalgic picture of 40's LA, dropping in some current affairs from the period, and if you dig the whole noir genre, I think you'll enjoy this. Be warned, this may change your opinions of munchkins forever!As a side note, Kaminsky comes up with a great quote which I think is relevant today:"Funny thing, civilization. It promises so much, and what it delivers is mass production of shoddy merchandise and shoddy people." How true. How very true.
—Adam
Kind of weird prose style -- a little dry and lifeless. A number of excess passages that could be easily excised to the benefit of narrative flow. Lots of unbelievable feats and unnecessarily painful episodes. I also would have appreciated more about Judy Garland and less about unknown munchkins -- doesn't, after all, much of the excitement of historical fiction, lie in following the fabricated actions of the real-life famous person? To its credit, there's a cameo from Raymond Chandler (the pulp fiction writer helps Toby Peters with some investigative work) and the killer turns out to be someone really unexpected, and the main character Peters is an endearing dude. Oh, and I didn't understand the last page at all.
—Katherine
There's a dead munchkin on the MGM lot. Not just on the lot. On the set of the Wizard. And in costume. This is not the kind of publicity a wholesome studio wants. So enter Toby Peters, slightly hard-boiled and very hard luck private investigator. Again, Kaminsky hits the sweet spot with a compellingly readable book that's powered by a likeable protagonist and Kaminsky's knowledge of film history. It's not great literature. But the pages turn and you look for the Easter eggs to keep popping up. And that is not a bad thing.And dead munchkins.
—Tim Schneider
