But what if a best-selling and award-winning novelist decides to write and sell a series on his own? That is another kettle of fish entirely.  Which brings us to Timothy Hallinan‘s Junior Bender series.

I am a huge fan of his Poke Rafferty series and so was interested to see how he handled this new series available only in the electronic format.  The first book, Crashed, was great fun so I was hoping the second would cement that reaction and mean another series to enjoy.

Well, Little Elvises didn’t let me down. It was another enjoyable romp through Los Angeles with a memorable cast of characters, Hallinan’s dry and wry sense of humor, and a twisting plot that leaves you rushing to figure out the mystery at the heart of the story.

Hallinan descirbes the story this way:

[A] Los Angeles thriller-with-a-laugh-track about old-time rock-and-roll, the Philly mob, missing persons, the world’s oldest still-dangerous gangster, and a terrifying if somewhat hapless hit man named Fronts.  And a whole bunch of other stuff.

In Little Elvises everyone’s favorite burglar Junior Bender is caught between a rock and hard place. Police Detective Paulie threatens to frame Junior for a job he didn’t do unless he cooperates and helps get Uncle Vinnie out from under a murder rap. A tabloid reporter was killed and dumped on the walk of fame and the blame is pointing to Vinnie; mostly because he foolishly talked about wanting to have the reporter killed.  Junior usually tries to avoid anything involving murder but Paulie is quite pursuasive.

The case leads Bender to dig into the history of “Little Elvises” – a seemingly never ending stream of Elvis Presley clones seeking to piggyback on the famous crooner’s success. It turns out Vinnie was involved in finding these kids, getting their faces on TV and pushing their albums as far as the screaming girls would carry them (rinse, repeat, profit).

As usual, questions begin to pile up: is Vinnie mobbed up? What exactly was involved in the move from Philly to Hollywood? What happened to one particular Little Elvis that seemingly disappeared into thin air during his brief moment of fame? What is Vinnie doing in LA now that the Little Elvis production line is done?

To make things interesting Junior’s hotel landlady’s daughter is missing and might just be married to a serial killer.  Oh, and the murder victim’s wife is incredibly attractive, not all that distressed about her husband’s murder and a little hazy about her past. Of course, Junior is falling for her which means an interesting conversation with his teenage daughter. Who by the way has started dating.

Hallinan packs a lot of characters into these stories. There are a lot of plot lines and side stories but I think he pulls it off. The characters are part of the scenery. And Hallinan uses the multiple plot lines and stories to  both keep the reader guessing and to set the pace. This is Junior’s life, complex and sometimes even dangerous; full of twists and turns and “tangles” as he calls them. But, as he beings to realize, he likes it that way – it may seem cliche but it makes him feel alive.

For the reader, the result is an entertaining mix of humor, hard-boiled detective story and LA noir.  Junior Bender joins Poke Rafferty and Simeon Grist as Hallinan characters sure to have a cult following.  Add in the fact that this funny suspenseful novel is only three bucks and you have a winning combination.

Hallinan is on my must read list, if for some odd reason he isn’t on yours I recommend you get started. Of course, if you just need an inexpensive but entertaining novel to read on your Kindle or Nook the Junior Bender series is a great choice (but you really should read the Poke Rafferty series as well).

Related articles

• Book Review: Little Elvises by Timothy Hallinan (blogcritics.org)

From Publishers Weekly

Two puzzles tax Faith Fairchild in Agatha-winner Page’s genial 19th mystery featuring the Aleford, Mass., caterer and amateur sleuth (after 2009′s The Body in the Sleigh). When an audit finds more than ,000 missing from the minister’s discretionary fund at Aleford’s First Parish Church, suspicion falls on Faith’s husband, the Rev. Thomas Fairchild, the only person with access to the account. To complicate matters, Ursula Rowe, Faith’s friend Pix Miller’s elderly and ailing mother, asks Faith’s help in dealing with the disquieting letters she’s recently received. Secrets, the kind that fester and can make even strong people ill, reach back to the 1920s. Faith juggles her many roles of wife, mother, businesswoman, and confidant with steadfast assurance as she looks into the missing church funds and provides relief for Ursula. Series fans will relish the descriptions of tempting culinary offerings. Recipes round out the volume.

“The Second Son” lacks the concentrated energy of its pred­ecessors, which are both set in Hoffner’s native country. As a sweaty German ex-cop in Zaragoza, he doesn’t have the same allure that he mustered during his heyday in Berlin. Yet Rabb still steers him into some sharp scenes and snappy dialogue. “You shoot well with your left hand,” Hoffner tells an anarchist who has managed to kill the two Nazis who’d been torturing him. “Close range,” the anarchist answers. “Not that difficult.”

People don’t really talk this way, but Rabb makes you wish they did. He also captures the seedy appeal of some of the ­places where Hoffner conducts his investigations: “The bar was down in the Raval section of town, near the water and the docks, a good place for pimps and drunks and journalists. . . . Now, at 4 in the afternoon, it was primarily journalists.” Although its prose occasionally ventures into Danielle Steel territory (at one point, Hoffner, staring at Mila, “let himself believe in all things possible”), the narrative never flags. It proves that first-rate detectives are like good lovers and good novelists: keenly observant, intuitive and tough as nails.

Love the line: “People don’t really talk this way, but Rabb makes you wish they did.”  And of the course the final sentence is classic.

Cover of Known to Evil (A Leonid McGill Mystery)

Known to Evil: A Leonid McGill Mystery by Walter Mosley

From Booklist

Leonid McGill, Mosley’s newest hero (The Long Fall, 2009), is haunted by the bad things he used to do to people—or so he keeps telling us. At first, the plot seems to support that claim: as McGill works his case, tracking a young woman for a powerful fixer, he is also consumed with helping a former victim, rescuing his son’s girlfriend from her pimp, and remaining respectful in his loveless marriage. But those plotlines are decoys because the supporting characters aren’t fully developed. Each exists to demonstrate something about McGill—his remorse, violence, loyalty—and then is quickly whisked offstage. Mosley has written some classic crime novels, and he has a devoted following, but the strikingly different setting of this series doesn’t hide a glaring flaw: from start to finish, McGill and his supporting cast don’t change. This is a very interior, solipsistic crime novel, and McGill’s first-person narration may feel oppressive to some readers. Others may wonder how such a self-centered sleuth could possibly become a good judge of other people’s characters. In marked contrast to Mosley’s threadbare L.A. settings, McGill’s world is lush and wealthy. But it’s also cartoonish in its absolutes: McGill knows no fear but constructs spy-worthy escape hatches. He has an extensive network of criminals and stone-cold killers. He’s short and ugly, but women throw themselves at him. All writing requires some degree of world-building, but the world Mosley has built here shows the marks of its invention.

Here is the official blurb:

Crashed, the first book in the new series from the author of the Simeon Grist Mysteries and the Poke Rafferty Bangkok Thrillers, introduces Junior Bender, a top-of-the-line burglar who also works as a private eye – for crooks. When a crook gets ripped off by a crook, Junior is the guy who gets hired. In his first outing, Crashed, Junior finds himself on the wrong side of his own already paper-thin moral code, being forced to prevent sabotage against a multi-million dollar porn film starring exactly the kind of person he’d normally want to protect.

At the age of 23, Thistle Downing is broke, strung-out, semi-suicidal, and on the verge of obscurity. But between the ages of eight and fifteen, she was the biggest television star in the world, a brilliant natural comedian until her talent slowly began to desert her. Now desperate, she’s facing the ultimate humiliation . . . and she’s so wasted she doesn’t even know that someone’s been trying to kill her. And in between her and all that, there’s no one – except Junior.

Crashed turned out to be a fun fast paced mystery with the typical Hallinan humor and style. A lead character who while outside the law and normal cultural mores has his own strong sense of right and wrong – and a fierce determination to go his own way.

The first chapter is hillarious and really pulls you into the story. From that point on there are regular twists and turns. Just when you think you have a handle on things something changes. By the end you are reading frantically trying to see how Junior pulls it all off.

The other thing that makes it fun is all the side characters and their interaction with Junior and the plot. Just as Hallinan takes you on a tour of Bangkok and Thailand with his Poke Rafferty series, he uses Junior to paint a picture of a certain side of LA and Hollywood.

You get to know Junior and the background to his chosen career path which sets up the series moving forward. But you also get an interesting portrait of a child TV start caught up fame and success; and like so many in real life she wasn’t able to handle it.

And of course there are numerous side characters and bit players with quirky personalities and unique voices.  All this adds to the quirky tone and feel to this hard to label romp. It is sort of Hollywood noir with a twist.

Not having read the earlier Simeon Grist Mysteries I am not sure how this new series compares. But fans of Poke will enjoy Junionr and vice a versa I would think.

I look forward to seeing how this new series plays out.

Related articles

• The Queen of Patpong by Timothy Hallinan (collectedmiscellany.com)

Basic plot:

It is 1940, and American Tom McCord, a 23-year-old aspiring doctoral candidate, is in England researching the historical evidence for the legendary King Arthur. There he meets perky and intuitive Laura Hartman, a fellow American staying with her aunt in Oxford, and the two of them team up for an even more ambitious and dangerous quest.

Aided by the Inklings-that illustrious circle of scholars and writers made famous by its two most prolific members, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien-Tom and Laura begin to suspect that the fabled Spear of Destiny, the lance that pierced the side of Christ on the cross, is hidden somewhere in England.

There are basically three threads: the relationship of the two main characters Tom and Laura; the mystery surrounding Laura’s dreams and the Spear of Destiny; and the intellectual/spiritual conversations with the Inklings and its impact on Tom’s worldview.

While the unique structure, and the underlying mystery, had the potential for an entertaining story I found the combination fell flat. There was no sense of danger, no suspense or surprises, just conversation and a plodding plot. Those with a strong interest in Lewis, Tolkien or the Inklings might enjoy the book just for those aspects but it wasn’t enough for me.

More below.

The story starts out with an encounter meant to introduce both the sense of mystery and the tension but the tension is of a rather mild form and the mystery plays out far too easily. Instead what you really have is a conversational novel where the characters conversations tell the story rather than the action (for the most part). As you might imagine this takes a great deal of skill to pull off and Downing doesn’t quite make it work.

Image via Wikipedia

While underlying mystery of the Spear of Destiny is potentially a great hook, the romance is far too obvious and the story is just too thin. Those interested in the Inklings (and sympathetic to their philosophical perspective) might find the conversations interesting but there is little else to make this story standout.

Laura’s dreams, for example, contain no real suspense as they just keep stumbling on the exact places – no wrong turns and no real sense that anything of importance will happen should they make a wrong choice. In fact there is no real action until the very end of the book – and even then it is wrapped up neatly.

And the relationship between Laura and Tom is cookie cutter. Two young people overcome their different backgrounds and personalities to find a budding romance. And again, Downing doesn’t make the threat of them not getting along risk anything real. It is just a minor hurdle that inevitably will be overcome.

And Tom magically moves from being uninterested in spiritual things to a growing interest and faith after nothing more than a few conversations and a session of thinking alone by the river. No risk, no real struggle for the reader to feel.

In the end, this felt like a book built out of conversations and places that the author enjoyed and found fascinating but not put together in a way to grab the readers attention and hold it.

If you share the author’s perspective – which I do for the most part – it is a quick and easy read.  But I felt like Downing just tried too hard to make a novel out of scattered conversations and a thin (but admittedly clever) plot device.

Booklist Review

Griffin’s Matt Royal novels may be the closest approximation we have today to John D. MacDonald in his pulp-fiction prime. Griffin’s characters are as stark as a man in a trench coat under a street light. They all have backstories that give them depth, and they possess that lovable quality of players in radio-era dramas with which MacDonald infused the characters in his Travis McGee series. In Griffin’s latest, the slightly over-the-top action, also characteristic of MacDonald, begins when Royal’s friend is gunned down in broad daylight by a sniper. The assassin, however, is really stalking Royal, who soon enough must contend with Glock-wielding fisherman and a particularly nasty biker gang. All this takes place in or near Sarasota, Florida, MacDonald’s adopted home town. Griffin captures the mood and tone of the McGee novels nicely, as the amiable Royal dispatches his adversaries with ?lan, eager to resume his casually hedonistic lifestyle. Good fun.

Publishers Weekly

Roommates Skip Moore and James Lessor of More or Less Investigations receive PI licenses from the Florida Department of Agriculture (“Don’t ask why…. This is Florida. They just do things a little differently here”) in Bruns’s diverting if predictable fourth mystery to feature the bumbling sleuths (after 2009′s Stuff to Spy For). When Moe Bradley, owner of the Moe Show carnival, hires James to be his new marketing director, he also asks them to find out who’s been sabotaging the rides. A faulty safety bar on one ride has resulted in a 32-year-old woman being thrown to her death. After Kevin Cross, who knows too much about the carny for his own good, turns up shot to death in his trailer, the action, leavened with plenty of laid-back dialogue, picks up steam and concludes on a cool cliffhanger. Skip’s girlfriend, Emily, and their PI pal, Jody Stacy, who supplies the pair with spy toys, add to the fun.

Christian gumshoe Joe LaFlam is wallowing in an existential crisis when the stunning Sissy Smith slinks into his office with a plea for help. Her man Jake Dano has been lured away by another woman and led into the bowels of Spelunkers Global, a secret society bent on world domination with whom Joe previously tangled in the first of the LaFlam mystery series, Bye Bye Bertie. Joe is eager to take the case, knowing that exposing the scum will solidify his professional reputation and reinforce his earthly purpose. He goes undercover underground, where, entrenched as one of them, earthly temptations abound. My Fear Lady, with its intricate plot and insightful humor, is a unique addition to the detective genre, offering readers an absorbing glimpse into the heart of a committed Christian detective.

My mother-in-law bought me the latest in the series, The Queen of Patpong, and I read it in early September. But work and life intervened and I never managed to post a review here. Allow me to rectify that now.

I won’t leave you in suspense. I loved the book as usual. But it wasn’t neccesarily a foregone conclusion. This book is different as a big chunk of the story centers on and is told from the perspective of Rose rather than the central character Poke Rafferty.

As in the earlier books, however, this one places the reader smack in the middle of the heat and intrigue of Bangkok/Thailand. Hallinan offers an exciting plot but also gripping insight into the plight of young women forced to move to the city and act as pawns in the sex trade in a desperate attempt to make money and save their families.

This social drama is seamlessly weaved into the story so that it doesn’t come off as preachy or pedantic but simply reality.

Publishers Weekly capture the power of this perspective and story:

Hallinan’s compassionate fourth Poke Rafferty thriller (after Breathing Water) finds Poke and his live-in girlfriend, Rose, finally married, but a specter from Rose’s past as a dancer on Bangkok’s notorious Patpong Road comes back to haunt her. As a naïve country girl named Kwan, Rose fell for the charms of American Howard Horner, never suspecting that Horner’s true interest in her involved something far darker than romance. Long thought dead, sly predator Horner is back in Bangkok to stalk Rose and all who are dear to her. Hallinan uses the menace Horner represents to springboard into a sympathetic depiction of Rose’s life, revealing without condescension how a simple farm girl decided that the least bad of all the unappealing options open to her was to offer herself to a parade of strangers for money. Rafferty neither idolizes nor demonizes Bangkok’s sex workers, instead casting an empathetic but incisive eye on a class of people often reduced to mere caricature.

I think this is what I appreciate most about this series – it offers a wonderful balance between suspense and literary/social exploration; the blend of entertainment and enlightenment if you will.

Hallinan offer not only the tension and suspense of a thriller but the human insight of a more literary novel. In this type of setting and story it would be very easy to slip into caricature and cardboard cutouts but Hallinan offers humanity in all its depth and complexity instead.

As I have said before, and will say again, if you have not read this series I highly recommend you do so.