Rock of Ages by Timothy Hallinan

Published by ‎ Soho Crime on June 14, 2022

Irwin Dressler is a big deal crime boss, but he’s getting old and younger lions are always looking for a chance to displace the leader. Dressler financed a tour of aging rock bands, a “mega tour of minor talent.” Four “old guys” drawn from the ranks of criminals who infiltrated the music world long ago (“killers, extortionists, leg-breakers, kidnappers, armed robbers, and threat specialists”) are enjoying the fun of touring with the bands, but Dressler thinks they are also skimming profits, if not outright stealing bags of money. He asks Junior Bender to investigate. Junior isn’t in a position to say no to Dressler. Nobody says no to Dressler.

Fans of the series will know that Bender is a divorced burglar who has been trying to keep the truth of his occupation from his teenage daughter. Keeping information from teenage girls is a lost cause, as Bender discovers when he brings Rina to the concert whose promoters he is investigating.

Rock of Ages isn’t a typical Junior Bender novel. Bender commits no burglaries, but he uses his criminal skills in a variety of ways. Early in the novel, a heavy backdrop falls, putting an end to an annoying long drum solo — and the drummer. Bender notes that the ropes holding the backdrop in place had been cut and suspects that the drummer was not the intended victim. For that reason, Rock of Ages has some elements of a whodunit, with Bender playing the role of a detective. Bender spends much of the novel sneaking around (a task that makes use of his burglary skills) to figure out what’s likely to happen to the tour profits and who orchestrated the backdrop’s fall.

Timothy Hallinan establishes a convincing atmosphere with the sights, sounds, and smells of an older theater. This is a relatively nonviolent crime novel, with just enough gunplay and torture to remind the reader that it is a crime novel, but not so much that violence becomes the point of the story. Bender’s uncertainty about the degree to which he should reveal his life to his daughter exemplifies the characterization that is one of Hallinan’s strengths. Populating novels with colorful background characters is another. The aging rock musicians display the different traits that should be expected of rock musicians (vanity, jealousy, addiction). The best collateral character is an aging groupie who instantly bonds with Rina.

Hallinan describes a man as being in “his carnivorous middle-fifties and as thin as an abandoned hope.” Hallinan’s ability to drop a few incredible sentences into his books is one of the reasons I look forward to his novels. While Rock of Ages is not my favorite Junior Bender novel — the plot is secondary to the amusing characters — I appreciated the novel for other reasons, including its memorable images of aging rock bands playing in small venues at the end of their careers.

RECOMMENDED

King Maybe by Timothy Hallinan

Published by Soho Crime on April 12, 2016

Junior Bender has a rogue’s gallery of friends. As usual, some of them want to kill him. Jake Whelan, in particular, is upset that the Klee he purchased from Junior turned out to be forged. Junior stole the Klee in good faith, but he has to put Whelan on hold while he steals a rare stamp from a persuasive debt collector named Slugger. Junior is stealing the stamp for friend Stinky (actually, they’re only friends when Stinky isn’t trying to have Junior killed), but the theft adds Slugger to the list of people who would like to have Junior terminated.

The latest entry in Timothy Hallinan’s series of Junior Bender novels has a Hollywood theme. Part of the plot involves a movie that Whelan wants to produce. Jeremy Granger, a/k/a King Maybe, holds an exclusive option on the movie and is treating it in a way that displeases Whelan. To get back in Whelan’s good graces, Junior must perform a task that brings him into contact with Granger. That creates a mess from which Junior can only extricate himself by doing a task for Granger. The tangled web Junior weaves puts him into some tight spots, but nobody said that being a professional burglar would be easy.

In addition to Stinky, other familiar characters appear, including Junior’s daughter, who figures into a subplot involving a nasty girl from high school and two fourteen-year-old female cybercriminals Junior met in an earlier novel. Junior’s new girlfriend, Ronnie Bigelow, has a mysterious background and she’s good at banter, which makes her a perfect addition to the series. Ting Ting and his assassin girlfriend also make an appearance. Did I mention that Junior knows a lot of criminals?

The plot threads resolve in clever ways. While the novel is light, there is a darkness in Junior that drives the novel’s ending. In that respect, King Maybe isn’t quite as light as some other novels in the series. Junior proves himself (again) to have a moral center and a sense of justice. Those characteristics drive him to commit acts that might not be considered just or moral in a perfect world, but Junior’s world is far from perfect.

Junior’s flirtation with darkness notwithstanding, Hallinan’s Junior Bender novels are lighter than his excellent Poke Rafferty novels. But even in his light novels, Hallinan finds a way to pinch my heart. The pinch in King Maybe came when a makeshift funeral took place near the novel’s end. When so many writers concoct overwrought scenes to contrive a reader’s emotional response, I appreciate Hallinan’s ability to write understated scenes that provoke honest emotions by depicting ordinary people who, while in many ways odd, experience the same mixture of sorrow, grief, anger, anxiety, and joy that are familiar to ordinary people everywhere.

Hallinan’s writing style is always sharp, leaving the impression that his prose is effortless when I imagine he labors over every sentence to make sure that each will engage the reader. Creative prose, an entertaining plot, and a satisfying blend of humor and drama make King Maybe another winner for Hallinan fans -- and for all fands of strong crime fiction.

RECOMMENDED

The Hot Countries by Timothy Hallinan

Published by Soho Crime on October 6, 2015

“We all need friends at times. Doesn’t much matter who they are.” That’s just one of the truths spoken in The Hot Countries, the latest and best of the Poke Rafferty novels. Poke’s friends -- people he might have identified as acquaintances rather than friends before this novel -- are the key to this novel’s success.

Timothy Hallinan writes circles around a number of more popular thriller writers who are just phoning it in. I have never been disappointed by a Hallinan novel. Hallinan’s Junior Bender series is fun, but his Poke Rafferty series probes the human character in greater depth.

In The Hot Countries, Hallinan focuses on aging collateral characters who no longer have a purpose in life and seem incapable of searching for one. Hallinan is a master at writing about people living in emotional pain, people in a state of decline, people who have lost themselves. Fortunately, he balances the darkness with humor and with glimpses of human decency.

Arthur Varney shows up in Bangkok looking for Poke Rafferty. Varney wants something from Poke, maybe a couple of things, both relating to people and events found in The Fear Artist and For the Dead. Like all Poke Rafferty novels, however, The Hot Countries can easily be read as a stand-alone.

One of the strongest characters in The Hot Countries (other than Poke) is an old veteran named Wallace who has been destroyed by love more than war. Seeing Varney takes Wallace into his tortured past, giving Hallinan a chance to tell the veteran’s story. A couple of other strong characters are children, particularly Treasure, a girl who has suffered a violent life, some of which was detailed in earlier novels. She’s a kid who is dedicated to survival, but during the course of the novel, circumstances cause Poke to wonder whether he has misjudged her.

Hallinan has a gift for describing Bangkok, from the fat raindrops to the grim tourists and grizzled expats who choke its streets. He also has a strong grasp of Thai people and culture, of bar girls and the foreign customers who never bother to probe beneath the smiling fantasies that occupy a week or two of their lives. Hallinan’s prose is descriptive, fresh, and engaging, but it’s also honest. He describes Poke (a travel writer) as staring at his laptop “as he tried to find his way to a sentence he believed.” I love Hallinan’s novels because, unlike so many current crime writers, Hallinan always writes sentences I can believe.

Astute observations of human nature combine with escalating tension in a novel that is alternately chilling and moving. The ending couldn’t be better. The Hot Countries is exactly what a thriller should be -- a novel about the triumph of the human spirit that features ordinary people in threatening situations who reveal their strengths and flaws as they strive to overcome adversity. It is the best novel I’ve read by Hallinan. He is now permanently enshrined as one of my favorite contemporary crime writers.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Herbie's Game by Timothy Hallinan

Published by Soho Crime on July 15, 2014

There's something endearing about Junior Bender. Yes, he's a burglar, although his secondary career involves solving crimes committed against criminals who, for obvious reasons, don't want to call the police. Yes, he's relatively amoral, although he has a (somewhat flexible) ethical code. Yes, his friends are mostly thieves, con artists, and killers. Yes, he views crime as a reasonable way to make a living. Those minor character defects notwithstanding, Bender is bright and funny and self-aware. He cares about his daughter. His heart is mostly in the right place. He has enormous empathy for people who have lived difficult lives. What's not to like?

When someone steals an important list of names from Wattles' safe -- the kind of list that could get Wattles killed -- he turns to Junior Bender for help, not because Bender is a friend (he recently tried to have Bender killed), but because Bender is one of the few burglars who could have pulled off the job. If Bender didn't do it, he can find the person who did, and Wattles uses both cash and threats to induce Bender's cooperation. Unfortunately for Bender, his first stop brings him to the body of his mentor. It is Herbie's game -- burglary -- that Bender learned to play so well. Herbie's death makes Bender's mission personal, particularly after that mission is expanded by a letter from beyond the grave. But will Bender's investigation cause him to learn more about Herbie Mott than he wanted to know?

The story takes Bender on an enjoyable journey through the underworld he loves. The misfits he meets include a crooked psychic, a magician who doubles as a pickpocket, a guy with calculus symbols tattooed on his body, several friendly hit women, a couple of teenage girls who are filling their college fund with proceeds derived from hacking, and people with names like Stinky and Burt the Gut. An odd brooch that comes into Bender's illicit possession in the first chapter adds to the story's mystery and, in a particularly funny scene, causes him to get beaten up by a little Filipino named Ting Ting.

Bender does a fair amount of soul searching in this novel -- searching for a soul he's not sure he has, or at least not the right kind of soul, the kind upon which love is not wasted. Looking at Herbie's life (particularly Herbie's parenting) forces Bender to examine his own life (and parenting). What he discovers is not always pretty, but Bender at least has the decency to be troubled by it. That's one reason he's such a likeable character. Another is his belief that "a wall of books makes civilization seem real, despite all the evidence to the contrary." As Bender ponders life (his and others'), he gives the reader some thoughts to chew on, including the reminder that people are always changing, whether we like it or not.

As always, Timothy Hallinan moves the story at a brisk pace without skimping on characterization, develops an interesting plot, and fills the pages with clever prose. The motive for the act that caused Herbie's death (and for murders that follow) is a wildly improbable coincidence, but those have become routine in modern thrillers. That credibility issue notwithstanding, Herbie's Game is a strong entry in a fun series.

RECOMMENDED

Little Elvises by Timothy Hallinan

First published digitally in 2011; published by Soho Crime on January 29, 2013 

According to a paper written by Junior Bender's thirteen-year-old daughter, dozens of Little Elvises were churned up in Philly in the wake of Elvis Presley. Notable for their looks rather than their ability to carry a tune, they each had their six weeks of fame, performed on American Bandstand, and disappeared into the archives of pop history. The man responsible for the rapid ascension of so many one-hit wonders, Vinnie DiGaudio, has been accused of murdering a tabloid journalist named Derek Bigelow. According to Vinnie, somebody else killed Bigelow before Vinnie could get around to it. Vinnie's nephew happens to be a police detective who threatens to arrest Bender for one of the few burglaries Bender didn't commit unless Bender clears Vinnie's name.

Bender is a burglar who occasionally acts like a cop for other criminals who can't go to the cops with their problems -- hence the detective's belief that Bender is perfect for the job. Bender's investigation touches on the shadier side of the music industry, the dismal state of rock-and-roll between 1959 and 1963, the history of organized crime in Philadelphia, the westward migration and changing ethnicity of organized crime, female professional wrestling, and a number of other interesting topics. Along the way, Bender gets talked into searching for the missing daughter of the woman who manages the motel where he currently resides. He also begins a romance of sorts, although he's having trouble letting go of his feelings for his daughter's mother.

Timothy Hallinan always crafts a nifty plot and Little Elvises is no exception. Bender -- like the reader -- wonders how the 1963 disappearance of Bobby Angel, the most talented of Vinnie's Little Elvises, relates to Bigelow's murder. The answer is creative, credible, and entertaining. The secondary plot, involving the missing daughter, is less of a mystery, but it takes a surprising and satisfying twist in the final chapters.

Bender's character evolves in Little Elvises in response to the prominent role his precocious daughter plays. Bender's difficult family life is an strong hook upon which to rest character development as the series progresses. Hallinan's minor characters are truly characters. If they aren't over-the-top, they're at least dancing on the edge. In a traditional thriller, that would be a drawback, but in a novel that depends so much on humor, the outrageous nature of the supporting characters makes them memorable.

Little Elvises has enough action to keep the story flowing but the real fun comes from Bender's interaction with the other characters. While Hallinan doesn't shortchange the novel's dramatic content, Little Elvises has a playful quality that is reflected in Hallinan's prose. Hallinan has a way of phrasing descriptions ("he had a natural curl in his hair, and the bangs flipped up at the ends with a twee effect that made him look like a hitman for the Campfire Girls") and summing up lives ("He'd set foot on the slippery slope, and the first thing he did was steal a pair of skis so he could get down it faster") that I can't help but admire. The Junior Bender series is a fun counterpoint to Hallinan's heavier Poke Rafferty series. Both series deserve a place on the bookshelves of crime fiction fans.

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