Los Angeles, 1940 (right). War is looming, the film industry is
booming, and people can’t seem to stop killing each other. Private Investigator
Toby Peters (left) receives a call – from someone claiming to be Judy Garland – to get
down to the M.G.M. Studios movie lot (lower left) as soon as possible. He arrives to find an
actor who played a munchkin in The Wizard
of Oz lying in the center of the yellow brick road, dressed in full Munchkinland-soldier’s garb, with a knife sticking out of his chest. Who was
the Munchkin? Why was he on set in costume after the movie had premiered over a year ago? Why was he murdered? Who murdered him? These questions and more are answered by the sarcastic and observant P.I. Toby Peters
in Murder on the Yellow Brick Road.
Stuart Kaminsky’s dark murder mystery novel, centered in
1940 Los Angeles was not what I expected it to be. Murder on the Yellow Brick Road seemed – to me at least – to be
marketed to younger adolescents, (see the cover of the book, left), but contained rather
mature material for readers of that age. Murder was obviously going to be
present in the book, but very strong language, sexual encounters (although not
explicit) and sexually deviant content were also included, and actually were
essential to the plot of the novel. With these themes, the book seemed to move from an adolescent audience almost to an upper high school or adult audience, but given its subject matter and length, these audiences might pass over it in a bookstore.
One technique I did enjoy, though, was Kaminsky’s ability to
weave this fictional account with well known names of the time, including Judy
Garland (middle right), Clark Gable (bottom right), and Raymond Chandler (bottom left); this added to the novel’s sense of
authenticity. The story was pretty solid, although it seemed to wander at
times, and overall it was an “OK” read. (6.5/10)
Murder on the Yellow
Brick Road by Stuart Kaminsky. Published in 2000 by ibooks inc. in New York,
New York.
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