Dancing in the Dark

Dancing in the Dark is a novel by Stuart M. Kaminsky, published in 1996 by Mysterious Press, with Fred Astaire among its characters. The Open Library record files it under detective and mystery stories and historical fiction, and its investigator is the fictional Toby Peters. The catalog classes it as a novel, so a reader who wants an account of Astaire’s life should turn to the biographies.

The other 14 Astaire books in the catalog run from his own memoir, Steps in Time (1959), to Joseph Epstein’s biography of 2008. Eleven of them are classed as biographies, and Stanley Green’s Starring Fred Astaire (1973) is classed as film history. The only other novel is George Baxt’s The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers murder case (1997, St. Martin’s Press), which makes Kaminsky’s the earlier of the two by a year.

For fans

The Open Library description

The Open Library description places the story by its war news: Japanese bombs on Guadalcanal, Montgomery facing Rommel in Tunisia, and a Social Security proposal from FDR. It calls Peters L.A.'s “sleuth to the stars” and sets his fee at $25 a day plus expenses. His assignment is to persuade two people to leave Fred Astaire alone. One is Luna Martin, a “vainglorious gun moll” who dances with “the grace of an armadillo.” The other is Arthur Forbes, also known as Fingers Intaglia, a semiretired gangster who once stood high in Detroit’s Purple Gang and now deals in Los Angeles real estate. In this account, Forbes is the one who wants Astaire to teach Luna.

The 2012 publisher’s description

The description Open Road Media issued with its 2012 edition tells the setup differently. There, Luna herself demands the lessons, and the gangster is called a well-known Los Angeles figure nicknamed “Fingers” for his habit of cutting them off. Astaire hires Peters to stand in as a dance teacher and assume the lessons. Luna’s throat is then cut, and the grieving gangster orders Peters to find the killer or die. The same description has Astaire working the streets alongside Peters, whom it portrays as rumpled and middle-aged.

The Publishers Weekly line

Open Road’s description quotes Publishers Weekly, which calls the author an “Edgar winner” and says he “effortlessly choreographs Hollywood history” along with “dirty doings.” The description gives no date for that notice.

The editions

Open Library lists the Mysterious Press edition of 1996 at 228 pages. Google Books lists the Open Road Media edition, dated February 28, 2012, at 232 pages. Neither description says how much of the plot draws on Astaire’s actual life.