A Fatal Glass of Beer blends Hollywood comedy with classic noir as down-on-his-luck sleuth Toby Peters is hired to protect the fortune of legendary funnyman W. C. Fields. For decades, Fields has quietly tucked more than a million dollars into banks across small-town America under a collection of outrageous aliases.
When a mysterious figure calling himself Lester O. Hipnoodle steals the bankbooks and begins emptying the accounts, Peters is dragged into a cross-country hunt. From Altoona to Lompoc, he must match wits with a taunting thief who leaves sly clues, takes occasional shots at them, and always seems one step ahead.
Set against the backdrop of World War II, with news of bombings, desert campaigns, and submarine warfare in the airwaves, the story intertwines celebrity cameos, shadowy threats, and the unsettling presence of the Ku Klux Klan. An unknown gunman also stalks their trail, more interested in ending Fields’s and Peters’s lives than in stealing the money.
Fans of comic crime fiction and Hollywood history will enjoy the sharp dialogue, eccentric characters, and spirited road-trip mystery that drives this offbeat investigation.
