The Toby Press: Books

Alphabetical by Author . Recently Released . Toby Crime . Toby Hebrew Classics
Jewish & Israeli . The Republic of Letters

Blood Alley by Tom Coffey New York in the 1940s was a wide-open town. In the city of Swing Street, Frank Costello, and the Stork Club, everything was for sale, including its people. Into this arena steps Patrick Grimes, a World War II veteran who works the graveyard shift for The New York Examiner, one of the city’s brassiest tabloids. Late one night, Grimes learns that a watchman has found the body of a young woman in a squalid section of tenements and breweries by the East River, and races over to investigate. The victim turns out to be Amanda Price, the eldest daughter of one of Manhattan’s wealthiest men. Grimes can’t help but wonder what would draw such a woman to that part of town... Publication date: May 2008 More Info...
The Last Cantata by Philippe Delelis In 1747, at the command of Frederick the Great, Bach composes his last cantata. But there is an error in the score, one which is studied by a young woman from the Paris Conservatory many years later. An error? Or a secret, which leads to the murder of friends and teachers...and Mozart. Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-31-1 Pages: 352 8˝"x6˝" US$ 15.95 More Info...
A Paragon of Virtue by Christian von Ditfurth NOne by one, over a period of several years, the wife and children of prominent Hamburg citizen Maximilian Holler are being slain. The police are stumped. Are the murders connected? Why would someone want to destroy the family of a muchrespected businessman and philanthropist? Is there a serial killer on the loose? Is Holler as blameless a victim as he seems? Trying to help an old friend-become-policeman discover who and what is at the root of these crimes, history professor Josef Stachelmann becomes embroiled in a tragic and shocking case that has roots stretching far back into the past, all the way to the Nazi regime that is his own area of expertise... Publication date: March 2008 More Info...
Scholarium by Claudia Gross An overcast, rainy night in Cologne. A neighborhood is wrenched suddenly from its sleep by piercing screams. As residents rush down to the street, they catch only the merest glimpse of a figure in a billowing cloak hastening from the scene. The master cloth-maker is about to set off in hot pursuit when he finds on the ground a book, a pair of sleeves, shoes, a shirt and hose; and the body of Frederico Casall, a Master of the Seven Liberal Arts and an impassioned champion of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas... Hardcover: ISBN: 1-59264-056-7 8ľ"x5ľ" US$19.95 Publication date: June 2004 More Info...
The Forwarding Agent by Austen Kark Written by the former head of the BBC World Service, we meet Ben, an ex-marine newly set up in the forwarding business - forwarding people, not packages. An accidental bystander at a terrorist attack, he and his family are hunted at home in Cyprus and throughout the Middle East. Austen Kark was a master storyteller, and no one knew the beauty and tensions of the region better. Nominated for the 2000 SAGITTARIUS PRIZE Hardcover: ISBN: 1-902881-02-8 Pages: 224 8ľ"x6ľ" US$ 19.95 More Info...
Autumn of the Phantoms by Yasmina Khadra Brahim Llob, the policeman-writer, is summoned by the chief of Algerian police and is fired for having published Morituri, the book which the Algerian establishment considered dishonorable and full of lies. Following a trip back to his hometown where he becomes a victim of an attack by a GIA commando, Llob goes back to Algiers... Hardcover: ISBN: 159264 Pages: c.220 US$12.95 UK£7.99 Publication date: February 2006 More Info...
Double Blank by Yasmina Khadra Ben Ouda, a senior ranking diplomat is found savagely murdered. Is this yet another victim of the never ending Islamic fundamentalist violence plaguing Algiers? Inspector Llob has doubts: Ben Ouda had too many friends, too many far fetched theories… Against the background of a city in turmoil, Inspector Llob navigates the Algiers underworld and its rich elite. He resists the pressure of politicians, fundamentalists and crooks, in his pursuit of the truth... Paperback: ISBN: 1-59264-119-9, Pages: c.250, 8ľ"x5ľ" US$12.95 Publication date: March 2005 More Info...
Morituri by Yasmina Khadra This remarkable roman policier introduces us to the formidable and yet very human detective-writer, Superintendent Llob and his devoted lieutenant Lino. It follows Llob in his search for the missing daughter of Ghoul Malek, one of the top power brokers in Algiers. In his search, Llob must traverse the fear-filled streets of Algiers, from the dens of the drug pushers to those of the cruel and fanatical Islamic fundamentalists. Paperback: ISBN: 1-59264-035-4 Pages: 175 8˝"x5˝" US$ 12.95 More Info...
Breznitz by Haim Lapid A lovesick, introspective detective investigates the murder of an unidentified corpse found in the woods near Jerusalem. An Arab suspect is captured and confesses, but Breznitz is not convinced he's the killer... Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-15-X Pages: 244 8˝"x6˝" US$ 15.95 More Info...
The Crime of Writing by Haim Lapid This is an intelligent, sensitive and tense novel about the intimate triangle of man, woman and child, exploring sexual identity and the relationship between life and literature. A young woman meets an elderly Englishman, George Brown, while she is visiting London. After his death, she receives his written confession. Her husband, a novelist, decides to publish it... Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-62-1 8˝"x5˝" US$ 12.95 More Info...
Emma H. by II Magdalen Emma H. was an enigma; a beautiful rich girl with the world at her feet, she had been a devout Catholic whose beauty seduced all classes and types of men. Flirting first with communism, then with fascism, she had been shot as a collaborator in a summary execution in Belgium in 1945, at the tender age of nineteen. Nearly forty years later, Henning Forsell is invited to Belgium by Emma’s aunt, who wants the truth about her niece’s execution, carried out almost a year after all such retributive acts had ended. She knows that four men were involved, she knows who three of them were, but what she wants to know is why... Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-67-2 8˝"x5˝" US$ 12.95 More Info...
Lennie & Vance & Benji by II Magdalen II Magdalen's third novel is loosely based on a true case of homosexual rape in a small Arkansas town. Not for the squeamish, the book touches on some deep and troubling issues: the nature of childhood sexuality, adolescent 'innocence', violence and voyeurism. Brief, provocative, troubling. Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-46-X Pages: 190 8˝"x5˝" US$ 12.95 More Info...
The Scent of Blood by Raymond Miller Dr. Andrew Carpenter is a pediatric cardiologist and researcher, whose most promising work involves using embryonic stem cells to repair heart damage in infants. He’s been receiving threatening messages from the ‘Party of God’, a fundamentalist group militantly opposed to such ‘Godless labors’—and now he’s dead, killed in a hit-and-run on the streets of Manhattan. His devastated wife is sure it was murder, but the police think it was an accident... Paperback: ISBN 10: 1-59264-184-9 ISBN 13: 978-1-59264-167-3 Pages: c.250 US$14.95 UK£9.99 CANADA $19.95 Publication date: May 2007 More Info...
The Cybeline Conspiracy by Albert Noyer Surgeon Getorius Asterius, his wife Arcadia, the eunuch archpriest of a pagan fertility cult, the female head of a heretical Arian church, and an ambitious senator in league with a Chinese merchant: these are the prime movers in this mystery set in Ravenna, Italy, in A.D. 440. When Getorius is summoned to examine the castrated body of a youth found by Thecla in her Arian church, who is the sobbing "Vestal Virgin" nearby? Why is the senator smuggling counterfeit Western coins to the Eastern Empire, and contraband Chinese products back to Ravenna? Paperbackr: ISBN: 1-59264-033-8, Pages: c.400, 8ľ"x5ľ" US$14.95 Publication date: May 2005 More Info...
The Secundus Papyrus by Albert Noyer A Gothic Empress, a doctor and his trainee wife, an ambitious senator, a pious abbot...these are the prime movers in this gripping mystery set in 5th century Italy. When Getorius is invited to the palace and visits the newly built Mausoleum, he discovers an ancient papyrus with explosive contents that would have huge and devastating repercussions on the Empire if it were made public... Paperback: ISBN: 1-59264-034-6 Pages: 300 8˝"x5˝" US$ 14.95 More Info...
The Ballad of the Low Lifes by Enrico Remmert Meet Vittorio and Milo, two young grifters living by their wits in modern Turin, getting by on petty scams and swindles. The two young men have kept an idea in a back drawer for years, the Big C - the Big Con. They're sure it will make them rich, but so far they haven't been able to get it off the ground. Enter Milo's uncle Grissino, a con-man with years of experience... Hardcover: ISBN: 1-59264-054-0 Pages: c.250 8ľ"x5ľ" US$19.95 Publication date: June 2004 More Info...
Heaven's Witness by Joseph Telushkin and Allen Estrin In a dilemma that would have stumped Freud, budding psychoanalyst Dr. Jordan Geller is forced to confront the question: Can the same person be murdered twice? Once, Geller, a rationalist to his core, would have found the question absurd. But then Robin Norris, a beautiful actress desperate to overcome a problem with her singing voice, steps into his office, and his life. Geller hypnotizes her, and Robin quickly assumes the identity of Beverly Casper, a talented teenager who, thirty-two years earlier, had vanished into thin air, never to be seen or heard from again... Hardcover: ISBN: 1-59264-091-5, Pages: c.200, 8ľ"x5ľ" US$19.95 Publication date: September 2004 More Info...
An Eye for an Eye by Joseph Telushkin Ron Martin strangles his girlfriend when she tries to break up with him; convinced by the blackening of the girl's reputation, a jury lets him off with the lightest sentence permitted by law. Outraged, the girl's father, Gerald Braun, explodes, and kills the boy. While many condemn the man for his act of vengeance, his rabbi Daniel Winter does not, defending his actions in court and appealing that he be released on bail... Paperback: ISBN: 1592641091 Pages: c.192 US$9.95 UK£6.99 Publication date: February 2006 More Info...
The Final Analysis of Dr Stark by Joseph Telushkin The Psychiatrist Noah Stark had a roster of patients that read like a Who's Who of LA's most powerful and respected citizens. Not at all the sort of people who seemed likely to smash their shrink's head to a pulp in a mad frenzy. But one of them did. Rabbi Daniel Winter is used to looking after the souls of those in his congregation - not discovering their dead bodies... Paperback: ISBN: 1-59264-108-3 Pages: 200 8ľ"x5ľ" US$9.95 UK£6.99 Publication date: September 2005 More Info...
The Unorthodox Murder of Rabbi Wahl by Joseph Telushkin Murder isn’t unusual in LA. But when feminist Rabbi Myrna Wahl is found dead after appearing on a controversial radio talk show, together with a radical nun and female minister, radio host Rabbi Daniel Winter finds himself the prime suspect. He’ll only survive if he can develop the secular talent for detection — all the harder since he seems to be falling in love with the lady cop assigned to the case! Paperback: ISBN: 1-59264-107-5, Pages: c.200, US$9.95 Publication date: February 2005 More Info...
Long in the Tooth by David Turrill Tin’s brother Satchel was a phenomenal baseball talent on the verge of his major league debut when he took his fiancée to meet his brother. He couldn’t have known what would happen; that Tin and Wendy would fall in love and break his heart. Faced with such a betrayal, he simply disappears. Despite this rift, Tin and Wendy spend several blissful years together—until one day Wendy is murdered, bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat. Satchel is the prime suspect... Hardcover: ISBN: 1592641660 Pages: c.400 US$24.95 UK£14.99 Publication date: September 2006 More Info...
A Rock and a Hard Place by Darryl Wimberley Barrett Raines is a black detective in Deacon Beach, a sweltering enclave in northwestern Florida. Seven years after Ramona Walker, the town’s eternal Homecoming Queen, helped push Barrett onto the all-white force despite bigoted opposition, Raines has made a place for himself—to all appearances he is accepted. But affections can be fickle, as Barrett discovers when Ramona is brutally raped and murdered, and his despised brother, Delton, becomes chief suspect for the crime. It’s a no-win situation for Barrett... Publication date: May 2008 More Info...
Dead Man's Bay by Darryl Wimberley Barrett Raines is about to learn more about life on the dark side of Florida than he ever could have imagined. His life is falling apart at the seams: His wife has left him, taking their twin sons, and he is confined to desk duty because of failing performance. When Barrett and his partner Cricket are finally assigned to a new case involving a brutally murdered man and possible illegal activities, they gladly accept it even though it looks like it will be a dead end. They could not have been more wrong. The case leads Barrett to Dead Man’s Bay... Publication date: May 2008 More Info...
Kaleidoscope by Darryl Wimberley Jack Romaine's addiction to speakeasies and cards has landed him in a tight spot - one which he can't use his good looks to get out of. With debts to dangerous men piling up, he becomes an unwilling recruit for a Cincinnati gangster needing an expendable tool to recover his stolen cash and railroad bonds. Unfortunately, Jack is not the only man on the trail of the stolen money - he is in competition with a sadistic killer who relishes the carnage he leaves in his wake. The trail leads south to Kaleidoscope; a 'beddy' for freaks during the months when carnival is out-of-season... Publication date: September 2008 More Info...
Strawman's Hammock by Darryl Wimberley Barrett Raines is offered an opportunity to run for Lafayette County sheriff against Lou Sessions. Backing Raines is Linton Loyd, a powerful businessman and Sessions’ enemy. Barrett doesn’t understand why a rich white man would want to back him, an African-American, but it’s an appealing opportunity… until Loyd’s son becomes a suspect in the death of a Hispanic migrant female who was found shackled to the walls of a hut in a swamp called Strawman’s Hammock... Publication date: May 2008 More Info...
Pepperfish Keys by Darryl Wimberley Special agent Barrett "Bear" Raines has some slippery fish to fry in Wimberly's cleverly constructed fourth procedural, which hinges on the gruesome murder of Beth Ann Stanton, daughter of Florida senator Baxter Stanton. Raines, "a black cop in a white town"—that of Deacon Beach, just north of the Pepperfish Keys—is still smarting from his recent failure to tie the senator's wealth to dirty money. Eddy DeLeon, Beth Ann's boyfriend and a local criminal, becomes a key suspect after his tryst with Beth Ann on the day of the murder comes to light. When Sharon Fowler, an ambitious local TV reporter, offers to help Bear nail DeLeon, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent agrees despite his misgivings... Publication date: May 2008 More Info...
Into Thin Air by Thomas Zigal Sheriff Kurt Muller, aging hippie, single father, and son of one of Aspen’s founders, finds himself confronted by more than the usual tensions between the chic international celebrity jet set and the local community fighting the resort’s enormous growth. A man is dead, his washed-out body found in the Roaring Fork with a bullet hole behind one ear. A woman is missing, her handbag still hidden under Kurt Muller’s Jeep seat... Paperback: ISBN: 1592641598 Pages: c.250 US$9.95 UK£6.99 Publication date: February 2006 More Info...
Hardrock Stiff by Thomas Zigal Ned Carr is a miner, an irascible old coot who has held on to acres of prime real estate in the middle of Aspen’s ski slopes. Carr feuds with everyone, including the ski company and eco-warriors who want to shut down his mines. Sheriff Kurt Muller is the only person with a soft spot for Carr. Following up a suspicious call, Muller rushes to Carr’s mine—in time to witness the shaft explosion that kills him... Hardcover: ISBN 10: 1592641814 ISBN 13: 9781592641819 Pages: c.365 US$24.95 UK£14.99 CAN$32.95 Publication date: April 2007 More Info...
Pariah by Tom Zigal In Aspen, ex-hippies drive Volvos, ski bums cut million-dollar deals, and Sheriff Kurt Muller is the law: a single father with a checkered past and the notion that right and wrong still matter. But one evening, against his better judgment, Muller spends the night comforting an old flame, a reclusive heiress named Nicole Bauer who’s convinced her ex-lover, the 60s blues idol Rocky Rhodes, is threatening to kill her. Kurt doesn’t believe her story, for good reason: twenty years earlier, Rocky’s body was found on the grounds of the Bauer mansion, and Nicole was charged with his murder. But the next morning, Nicole is found dead, and Kurt is a prime suspect... Publication date: April 2008 More Info...
The White League by Thomas Zigal Blackmail, a secret organization hiding within the elite society of New Orleans, a white supremacist running for governor of Louisiana; these are the key ingredients in this fine Southern crawfish boil of a novel about guilt, privilege and racism in one of America's most exotic cities. Coffee magnate Paul Blanchard's comfortable world is turned upside down when his old fraternity brother, Mark Morvant, threatens to expose the secret that Paul has been harboring for twenty years unless he bankrolls Morvant's bid for governor. More importantly, Morvant also demands that Paul secure the financial and political backing of a clandestine organization called The White League... Hardcover: ISBN: 1-59264-115-6, Pages: c.250, 8ľ"x5ľ" US$19.95 Publication date: February 2005 More Info...