The Fala Factor (1984)

Eleanor Roosevelt comes to Toby for help. The President's dog was dognapped and she needs to keep it quiet, outside official channels. No problem: Toby Peters is on the case.

With his friends Gunther, the little person polyglot and roommate at Toby's boarding house, Jeremy, the ex-wrestler and current landlord and poet, and Shelley, the office mate, bad dentist and general pain in the ass, Toby sets off to fight an almost equally-odd cast of ne'er-do-wells.

Along the way, he gets shot at, more than once, bitten, pounded, bruised and generally insulted (not to mentioned getting his ass handed to him in handball by his regular competition, a man in his late 60s), and nearly run over. Then there's his brother, now getting a promotion from lieutenant to captain of police, while not losing one iota of his angry, violent temper. Said temper almost inevitably directed at Toby, who egg's his brother on.

Basically, your average experience, for Toby Peters. Oh, yeah, there's also a couple encounters with Buster Keaton, to liven things up a bit more.

Fun, as always. Kaminsky was a gem of a writer and this one of my favourite series to read. ( )

A fun, hard-boiled mystery where Toby Peters takes on an investigation to find President Roosevelt's dog, Fala. Mrs Roosevelt is convinced the pooch has been replaced with an imposter and that a shady vet has taken off with Fala to unnerve the president. Kaminsky has a flair for creating entertaining characters including some from real-life. As well as Eleanor Roosevelt, this tale has some fine action by Buster Keaton. My favourite personality has to be his hard-of-hearing landlady. The 1942 tough-guy language is hilarious, although Kaminsky has an odd penchant for the word "emotionlessly" that stopped me in my tracks each time he used it. ( )