Outrageous Alaska Adventure from John Straley, BLOWN BY THE SAME WIND

The town of Cold Storage, Alaska, is John Straley's best invention: a place where almost any sort of humane criminal activity can and does happen, with a steady twang of Alaskan country music in the background and a slew of strong women enjoying cash-poor life as much as the men around them. The minute you aim for this locale, you give up control of what makes sense -- and ride with a mix of wild characters for the duration. Earlier Cold Storage novels began with The Big Both Ways, then Cold Storage, Alaska, and What Is Time to a Pig? 

It's crime fiction ... sorta. Remember the scene in The Godfather with the horse's head? That could happen in Cold Storage, on the chilly and salty coast. Except it could be a grizzly head. Still attached. And the person who held the door for the bear to come in would still be standing nearby, tipping back a beer (not the "craft" kind).

There was still no road into or out of Cold Storage, but somehow, in 1968, the world had arrived. In March, Lyndon Johnson announced that he had decided not to rub for president. Some said it was because of the Tet Offensive in the first part of the year. Boys from Cold Storage had gone to the war and three of them had died ... All of the boys had fished with their families and were memorialized on a hill off the road to the dump.

But the tale gets into gear with one of the boys who made it home, Glen Andre, with long hair, a tendency to not speak much, and an army jacket "with a bronze star pinned on the front." Because this is, after all, Cold Storage, you should simply nod hello with the rest of the crowd when the Kentucky anti-war monk Thomas Merton also arrives in town ... followed by a couple of obviously nasty criminals, and a probable FBI agent.

Still, even in Cold Storage, if a person wants privacy he can sort of get it, and if Thomas Merton wants to call himself Brother Louis, and teach something about God, that's up to him. The trouble is, he's explaining it to a striking young woman named Venus, who never met a boundary she didn't want to cross. Or a man who wasn't fascinated by her.

[The brother] began to see Venus not as an American teenager, but as a sprite from A Midsummer Night's Dream. On that night he followed Venus and the lights on her helmet up the hill, where at the summit he would try to reveal the mystery of both God's omniscience and His absence as Louis's heart beat like a steam engine in his chest.

By this point, either you devoutly want to read this novel, or you wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot bookmark. If you've embraced Donald Westlake, Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, or the Junior Bender books from Timothy Hallinan, I hope you're already ordering a copy of BLOWN BY THE SAME WIND. You're going to have a lot of fun and an occasional moment of thinking maybe you just figured out something you care about, a lot. 

Published, of course, by the boundary-challenging Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Set a Thief to Catch a Thief, Rock'N Roll Style: ROCK OF AGES from Timothy Hallinan

Hurrah, the new Junior Bender mystery, ROCK OF AGES, is released today! This rollicking crime and caper novel from Timothy Hallinan unfolds one of the goofiest propositions Junior (his real name) Bender has ever received: Aging mobster Irwin Dressler wants the professional Hollywood thief to unravel fraud and murder inside a tour of 1960s-era rock bands.

You might think Junior could just say "not my area" and duck out. But that would reveal that you haven't read enough of Hallinan's addictive Junior Bender series --- because remember reading somewhere that Hollywood's beginnings involved big money from at least one crime syndicate, and that even today where there's movie money, there's graft? Well, Irwin Dressler is the most frightening and capable of all the possible money men on the spot. Just his name is enough to set grown criminals shaking in their shoes. And Junior, although he's on decent terms with the mobster and his staff, can't say no unless he wants to risk his own life and his family. 

Lest you mistake the book title for something, umm, preachy, listen up: The multiple-band tour of drug-worn, alcohol-slurping geriatrics has the name "Rock of Ages" because the investors all had a stake in these bands back in the day, or even dreamed of singing in them. And all the investors on this tour are criminal creeps themselves. With Dressler the creepiest and most powerful.

That is, he WAS the most powerful. But at least one of his co-investors this time thinks Dressler's over the hill, toothless, and that stealing the money from the tour (modestly successful) should be a piece of cake. Junior's job is to make sure that cake thing is just bait in a big nasty trap.

All this would make a rocking caper novel on its own -- but Hallinan's special touch is the family love (with complications) that drives each of his protagonists. In Junior's case, he's finally got some real time with his teen daughter Rina, with ex-wife Kathy skeptical, and Rina herself pushing Junior to finally explain to her how he makes his living and what his adventures (dangers?) are like.

And just as Daddy-Daughter bonding weekend starts, Dressler applies the screws to Junior.

Mind you, he does his best to protect Rina while he's investigating and maneuvering. It should be safe enough for her to sit in the audience, right? Well, maybe not ... but at least one of the groupies, the elderly but very hip Lavender, is willing to sort of babysit or, umm, teen-sit.

So when danger runs rampant and deaths multiply, Junior urges Rina to stay hidden in the popcorn room with Lavender, with the door locked. He'll rap a pre-arranged code on the door when he comes to get them. He's underestimated how smart and sardonic his daughter is. Rina says to him:

"So, umm, you don't think that anyone else in the world might just knock twice, like for 'two bits'? I mean, that's sort of the default, isn't it? I always knock—"

"This is what happens when I get to clever. I'll just say, 'Hey Rina,' okay?"

"Can't you just hang up on him?" Lavender asked in the background. "I'm not going to live forever."

"I love her," Rina said. "Bye, Dad."

She loved her. I'd had my daughter for less than one day and she'd seen an attempted murder, spotted one of the most terrifying crazies since the Spanish Inquisition, and fallen in love with a groupie from the 1960s. This was probably not what [Rina's mom] Kathy had in mind.

Don't get distracted by all the side-splitting caper humor ... there's serious crime going on here, and as a dedicated mystery reader, your task is to see who's responsible and how to get Rina and Junior out of there alive (without Kathy being ready to kill Junior herself). Because Junior isn't exactly finding the key to do it.

Not yet a reader of this series? No sweat, jump into this one for the kicks and giggles, then go grab the earlier titles. Each one has a great twist and marvelous dynamics.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Finale of the Poke Rafferty (Bangkok) Series from Timothy Hallinan, STREET MUSIC

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]


“Despite the classic investigations that Poke leaps into, with violence and threat and red herrings and regret, Poke Rafferty is a person who cares enough to listen, to experience, and to change, even in this final volume of the series.”

One of the best loved international crime fiction series ends this season, as Tim Hallinan’s Street Music is the ninth and final book on his Poke Rafferty Thrillers (Soho Press). Catching attention in the fourth book with an Edgar nomination for The Queen of Patpong, Hallinan's Poke Rafferty Thailand novels have won wide acclaim. 

For readers already following the series, Street Music represents a bittersweet farewell to the “little family” than Hallinan has nurtured. First there’s been Poke Rafferty himself, an American writer who settled in Bangkok, won over by its people and sense of community. Poke’s marriage to Rose, a “bar girl” and former “Queen” of the Patpong bars, created the frame for their eventual adoption of a much-battered but creative, caring, and eventually loving daughter, Miaow, a child of the streets.
Street Music opens with the presence of a new member of the family, a baby that’s already been highly controversial earlier in the series. It’s a boy! But Poke’s not finding “natural” fathering impulses; Rose’s ever-present set of women friends crowding him out of the bedroom and onto a lumpy couch has a lot to do with this. But so does the kind of parenting he’s already been doing, growing into protecting and nurturing Miaow. Her street roots have engaged her in peril multiple times, and Poke routinely mobilizes friends, especially one in the Bangkok police force, to help.

What peril approaches Poke and especially Miaow when a mysterious street women begins to follow him and asks him for a huge amount of cash as “protection money” to keep her from destroying the little family? How can Poke handle the resulting chaos without upsetting Rose and bringing risk to the baby as well? It’s rough when you find yourself lying to the people you love best, in order to take care of them.

An Afterword by Hallinan recaps his approach to the series, and the startling effect that setting up a first scene that involved Poke + wife + daughter + groceries = family. “The word family did the trick,” he explains. “I barely knew who these people were but the moment I realized they were a family, I thought that it might be interesting to drop a normal—if intercultural and self-assembled—family, who are trying to preserve relationships along traditional lines, into the world capital of instant gratification”—that is, into Bangkok.

Not only is Poke Rafferty being followed and blackmailed in Street Music—he’s also coming to terms with his understanding of poverty, which doesn’t always lead to crime (although he’d about to find evidence of possible murder). Another former bar girl, Toots, lays it out for him: “Some lady no good. I poor girl too, Poke. Then I lucky too much, marry Leon, but before, when I have no money, I not take. Not good for karma. You know, you are poor and you good, you win. You poor and you bad, poor win.”

This is exactly the kind of moment that makes Hallinan’s crime fiction, especially the Poke Rafferty series, so interesting and unusual: Despite the classic investigations that Poke leaps into, with violence and threat and red herrings and regret, Poke Rafferty is a person who cares enough to listen, to experience, and to change, even in this final volume of the series.

What does Poke learn about Miaow’s original parent(s), after all this time raising her? How will he come to grips with being the father of a baby boy, and the husband of a woman who’s just experienced her own major transition? Which friends will lead him into more danger to his family, and which will help him walk through it and survive?

Street Music is very readable without the earlier books in the series. But it’s a richer read when placed in their context. Read the others before it or after; chances are, once you’ve entered Poke Rafferty’s community, you too will experience some of his reasons to change.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.  

Engrossing New Caper Mystery from Timothy Hallinan, NIGHTTOWN

I had the BEST time reading the newest mystery from Timothy Hallinan. NIGHTTOWN hit the store shelves yesterday and already has a slew of stunning reviews, including a starred one from Publisher's Weekly. So this write-up arrives a bit late to the party (yours truly had a pressing five-day commitment to a family wedding and couldn't quite write everything on time), and I feel free to just talk about how much fun I had with this latest caper.

Let me explain the premise of the Junior Bender series, one of two that Hallinan writes: Junior (his real name -- and this is NOT a YA series, he's a loving and mature adult) acquired an awesome mentor into house burglary in his youth, has strong boundaries around what he will and won't do, and pretty much exclusively robs the rich when they're not home. (This is the seventh in the series -- check out earlier titles here.) Focused in Southern California, his targets are often multimillionaires with major film connections. Come to think of it, his allies in crime often have those connections, too. Or better. For example, there's his astonishing fence, Stinky Tetweiler, who's referred Junior into his latest commission, which actually isn't working out too well, so ...

I just kept kicking the front door, yelling and jamming my thumb against the bell. It was after 2 a.m. and I was making a lot of noise for a sedate, upper-middle-money neighborhood full of TV series supporting actors, second-tier studio executives, and record producers who hadn't had a hit since Big Hair, but that was the point. Stinky had a couple million bucks' worth of reasons not to want any of his neighbors to get alarmed and call the cops. At any given time the house had three or four rooms full of extremely expensive objects from all over the world, improbably jumbled together as though Sotheby's had held a garage sale.

The trouble is, the assignment stinks -- literally, of the baby powder used to cover human odors in a mansion where the owner recently died -- and the most worrying part of it is the amount of money at stake: so much money for Junior to burgle a single item from the house that he's sure there are layers of risk involved (not least of them the cops). But he's stuck with the job because he and his beloved need to fund an effort to kidnap back her daughter from a mob boss, so money really is essential. Hence the need for more resources on the job than Stinky suggested Junior would need, including "a short-tempered hit woman, a hippie throwback who hadn't signed on to the peace and love part of the lifestyle. Her parents, bless them, had named her Eaglet. I was thinking I might have a use for Eaglet when the door opened."

In fact, Junior does recruit Eaglet, as well as a tech team that readers of earlier titles in the series will recognize happily. And some of the funniest passages in this laugh-enough-to-annoy-your-spouse book involve Eaglet and that team of life-confused teenagers.

Are you a fan of Donald Westlake's caper books, or the first series from Bethany Maines with its side-splitting moments among makeup experts who ride on the wild side? Here's what you've been waiting for: exquisitely plotted action and twists, with conversation and commentary so dryly funny that those pee-proof panties advertised on TV should be sold with the book in some regions. (Tim? Is that possible?)

You need at least three copies: one for yourself (shelve with caper books, or with California crime fiction, or with "best of the year"), and two for the people in your life who get most tense as the holiday season approaches. Because they need this book to put it all back into perspective. For Junior Bender, if your reason for crime is both loving and well-executed, then what's the problem? Oh yeah, those risks and dangers already mentioned. Sigh. I can make a guess at the sequel (and can hardly wait).

Oh yes, one more compelling reason to read NIGHTTOWN: I swear it's based in part on the Winchester Mansion. What, you don't know about that? Read up about it here. You'll be glad.

From Soho Press, a fine host of today's crime fiction in all its diversity and richness.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Vibrant New Poke Rafferty Bangkok Thriller from Timothy Hallinan, FOOLS' RIVER

There are a lot of great reasons to grab the new Bangkok-set thriller by Tim Hallinan. Readers of his Poke Rafferty series actually "need" this book ASAP, because the little family that Poke Rafferty loves and protects in corrupt and dangerous Bangkok has bonded to readers' hearts. How is Poke's pregnant wife doing? And the couple's brilliant bu wounded adopted-street-child daughter Miaow? What about Miaow's friends, whom we've also become attached to, seeing them through the half-incredulous amazement that Poke feels as he comes to appreciate, love, and yes, try to rescue them?

But if you're a stranger to this series, here are some other reasons: A chance to "see" Bangkok in its heartbreaking complexity (instead o of laughing at the pain the way John Burdett's books do). A willingness to meet and care about complex characters in the midst of very human and very dangerous stresses. Eagerness to see how a skilled author who can blend suspense and attachment on a single palette will craft the necessary (and terrifying) twists of a page-turner.

Poke's attention is mostly on his pregnant wife right now -- the couple hadn't expected to add a child to the already complicated and tender household they've formed. So it takes sserious persuasion from Miaow to have him look into the disappearance of the dad of Miaow's almost-boyfriend Edward. Once Poke tunes in to the crisis, he's quick to see a pattern -- one that means Edward's dad has a very short life ahead of him, if indeed he's still alive somewhere in the crowded city.

Don't worry about the title, FOOLS' RIVER. It's almost irrelevant, part of a different layer of suspense. Attention belongs most of all with Poke in his urgent search for the totally immoral scam artists and killers who have Edward's dad. And with the power of a 48-hour deadline, Hallinan packs the action and danger, page after page.

Don't try to do anything else. This is what a truly fine thriller is for: to let you, force you, to ignore the rest of your life and accept that all the love that needs saving, all the life that matters, is in the next chapter. Yes, the book really just covers 48 hours -- so hang in there for the next in the series. [Too bad the author and publisher, Soho, can only produce one per year ... but this year at least, there's an extra helping of Hallinan's Bangkok adventures in a compact and haunting tale included in Soho's holiday special, The Usual Santas, about two Bangkok street kids with a significant set of discoveries at the holiday season. I can't get it out of my thoughts ... or do I men, heart?]

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Story Collections to Savor, John Sandford, Soho Crime, D. P. Lyle

There's something about the on-rushing holiday season that makes a good collection of short stories especially welcome -- a way to grab some entertainment in a small pocket of time, a chance to savor the compact and intense writing of an already favorite author or sample an unfamiliar one, and at its best, a way to place the heavy demands of the American end-of-year culture back into perspective.

So I'm delighted to have three interesting collections to describe. I hope you'll take advantage of the season and dip in.

First -- because the editor is among the top crime fiction authors of our time, and because his introduction is so significant -- consider THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2017, edited by the inimitable John Sandford. Author of some 40 novels, best known for his "Prey" series (it started with Rules of Prey about 1989), Sandford also has a gift few authors can boast: He can write compellingly ABOUT writing. Here, from his introduction, are some guidelines for the ideal short story:

The story must be tight and well written; a novel can take a few fumbles without much damage, but a short story really suffers from them.

The opening must be catchy and quick and set a mood -- the story should be rolling with the first line. No space here for the dark and stormy night. ... [He quotes from a story by C. J. Box.]

Scene-setting should be integral to the story, part of the fabric rather than long blocks of exposition. The scene-setting ideally should contribute to the mood and texture of the story. [This, he illustrates with a PI -- that is, private investigator -- story from Charles John Harper.]

Now, we get to character. The physical description of the characters is critical, and what the reader sees in this physical description should tell us much about the character's personality. There's a reason for that: it creates an immediate image in the reader's mind, so that laborious explication isn't necessary [Fedora, double-breasted suit, smoking Lucky Stroke Green? Or an excerpt from Dan Bevacqua's story of a thin man with an orange beard and a tattoo over each eyebrow.]

And finally: there has to be some resolution. You can't just end a short story; you have to wind it up. 

Sandford's picks for the collection -- drawn from a larger pool provided by Otto Penzler -- also include stories by Jeffrey Deaver, Brendan DuBois, Loren Estleman, Craig Johnson, William Kent Krueger, and Joyce Carol Oates, among others. They are all over the map (and timeline), and they demonstrate the many delicious flavors of suspense, risk, complexity, and satisfaction that a mystery story can best serve up. Yumm.

Should you happen to be frustrated by today's phrases that carefully edge around the religious roots of year-end festivals, here's balm for your wounds: THE USUAL SANTAS, a bluntly Christmas-focused collection from the always inspiring Soho Crime unit of Soho Press, with an introduction by British crime fiction leader Peter Lovesey. Lovesey's intro chants gleefully the wide range of mystery types included here: from cyber criminals to Sherlock Holmes, and from dark noir to tender kindness to deep mysteries of life and death (including a ghost story).

If you're already savoring some of the Soho Crime authors, this collection is like a dessert buffet. Recognize any of these names? Helene Tursten, Mick Herron, Martin Limón, Timothy Hallinan, Teresa Dovalpage, Mette Ivie Harrison, Colin Cotterill, Ed Lin, Stuart Neville, Ted Goldberg, Henry Chang, James R. Benn, Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis, Sujita Massey, Gary Corby, Cara Black, Stephanie Barron, and of course Lovesey himself ... I was drooling just from the Contents page, mentally rehearsing the locations from Thailand to Chinatown, England and Ireland, Utah, Scandinavia ... and timelines that include Ancient Greece as well as World War II.

I haven't yet reviewed Sujita Massey -- her first Soho Crime book comes out soon though, so I will -- and I was briefly stumped by Teresa Dovalpage, a Cuban writer whose first Soho book wasn't crime fiction. But in 2018 the press brings out her first mystery, featuring the characters introduced here, a great chance to taste the work ahead of time.

Don't expect me to say my favorites; there is still time to re-read the collection in the holiday mode, and I will probably change my mind at least twice more. Every one of these stories is worth multiple readings. I might have to give several copies as gifts!

Last in this group is a collection that's not intended to be mystery/crime fiction, but happens to be edited by -- with a story by -- an expert teacher in the field, D. P. Lyle. The books is called IT'S ALL IN THE STORY -- CALIFORNIA and is an "anthology of short fiction" from the Southern California Writers Association. The level of work is uneven, but it's interesting to see the wide range of approaches among this gathering of Golden State scribblers. It's not a pick for crime fiction readers (unless you are a "completist" in terms of Lyle). But if you have a Golden State itch, this will provide a good scratch, with appearances by William Randolph Hearst and by San Francisco's Russian immigrants, as well as mention of San Jan Capistrano. And of course the gold rush!

Wishing you many moments to read in the upcoming months. It will surely add some spice -- and suspense! -- to the season's special treats.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

It Gets Tougher as the Holidays Get Closer -- But FIELDS WHERE THEY LAY (Tim Hallinan) Might Change That Feeling

Depending on how you measure yourself against what sort of stick, chances are you're either juggling holiday lists at this point, hoping you can do it all -- or you're just starting to write a few, or pretending you don't need a list. "We've got love; we don't need no stinking holiday lists," as the old dark crime film quote could be twisted.

Whichever category you're in, you can take it like a tightrope walker and just look straight to the other side, colored lights and candles and all ... or you can look down from that tightrope ("face reality") and assert that there's not a chance that you'll make it through the holidays without disappointing someone. Most likely, yourself. And the people you love, which is even worse. Ouch.

And that is why, in 12-step groups, the main teaching about any holiday, even the Big Ones, is: It's just another 24 hours. You make it through, the same way, trying to take the next right step.

Cut (as they say in Hollywood) to the latest Junior Bender crime novel from Timothy Hallinan. FIELDS WHERE THEY LAY is number six in this series and in spite of the protagonist's name, this is emphatically not a mystery for kids. "Junior" is Junior Bender's real first name, and he's an adult with a broken marriage, a disillusioned ex-wife and daughter, and a lover who refuses to even tell him where she's come from, although in the last book (King Maybe) Junior bared one of his own deepest secrets to her. The setting is Hollywood (the city, not the film sets), now, and the time, very importantly, is the run-up to Christmas. Junior is a professional thief, with some very questionable connections from recent efforts. When he asks long-time buddy Louie the Lost to come drive him to an important meeting, they connect at a car repair shop ,with Junior bringing the coffee and pie. Junior's complaint about the greased-up place doesn't get him far.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. So? What's the emergency?" Louie swept aside some sparkly Christmas cards, heavily accented with black fingerprints, to make room on Pete's desk for the pumpkin pie. ...

"So," I said, "I've got to talk to a guy named Tip Poindexter."

Louie was sliding his feet experimentally across the grease on the floor. "Tell you what," he said without looking up. "Here's my best suggestion. Go get your passport. Go get all your passports. Then go to Pakistan with a lot of plane changes and double-backs and new names along the way. And stay there."

That gives you some idea how bad it could be to work for Tip Poindexter. Unfortunately, Junior doesn't have much choice. Poindexter is actually a violent and sadistic Russian mob type (call him Vlad, say) who knows where Junior's family lives. And for Junior, having his ex-wife and daughter tortured and killed (or even worse, kept alive) by a Russian mob-type sadist would be considerably worse than not getting them the right Christmas gift, wouldn't it?

Yes, Christmas is indeed part of the problem. What Junior needs to solve -- very very quickly -- is why the theft statistics have escalated sharply at a festively bedecked shopping mall outside Hollywood that the mobster and his "friends" own. Maybe it's a good thing he's got this challenging problem, because his girlfriend shows signs of being about to vanish (forever? or until the holidays are past, at least) and he still hasn't bought gifts for anyone. He has some very good reasons to hate Christmas. Reasons that are big enough where even a 12-step group isn't going to provide an attitude adjustment.

So why would you want to read this book? You already probably know (crime fiction being what it is) that someone's going to get killed. You know Junior's going to screw some things up, and his chances of making Christmas work out get more slim with every fresh crisis.

And yet ... there's a refugee making a new life with a leather shop. A Jewish man named Shlomo wrapped in red velvet and fur as the second Santa in the mall, and dispensing old-fashioned (time-tested) wisdom. There are Junior's allies: not just Louie the Lost, but also two amazing tech wizards in teenage girl form named Anime and Lilli, who've helped before, and some decent folks among the ripped-off merchants at the mall. And there's the desperation that the approach to the biggest holiday season of the year can bring: Somehow,  Junior knows he's got just one chance to make things right.

Don't you want to see whether he can do it? With a little help from his friends, of course. Or, again with the crime fiction part of your reading brain, don't you want to see which part is so far out of his control that Junior loses someone or some love forever??

Hold it right there. With friends like Junior's, and with his recent discovery that he can love and be loved, there's a lot of reason for hope, after all. Keep reading.

Oh, that's right -- you don't have the book yet. Well, that's the easy part to fix. It came out a couple of weeks ago, from Soho Press, so it's even still in the first edition. When you pick up your copy, clear the decks (you can catch up on your lists later, and you'll feel better about them if you give yourself the experience of FIELDS WHERE THEY LAY first). Here's one more example of the gems in here: When Junior takes his teenage geek assistant Anime to meet Shlomo, the Jewish Santa, here's the conversation:

Shlomo gave her all his attention. "Have you been good?"

"Oh," she said. She fidgeted. "Um, not very."

"She's been fine," I said. "Better than fine."

"I can see that in her eyes," Shlomo said. "What are you going to give for Christmas?"

Anime's eyes widened. "Give? Oh, right, thank you for asking."

See what I mean?

Even if you hate the holidays with reasons just as good as Junior's -- or especially if you do -- this book is still the best gift you can give to yourself. And if you've already found hope and joy and a sense that you're not obligated to complete all those lists and that the people you love really do love you back ... well, maybe you'll recognize something in here, too.

Best of all: The finale. It provides the best promise that the author of a highly entertaining and intriguing series of mysteries can offer. And I bet you know exactly what that means.

Read on! And ... happy holidays. It may only be 24 hours on the Big Day ahead, but that gives 24 chances to fill each one with something worth appreciating. It's the holiday spirit, after all.

What am I going to give for Christmas (Hannukah)? Hmm. I might need some more copies of this book.

PS: Tim's website isn't up-to-date. I think it's forgivable, considering he's busy writing good books. Check out the Soho Crime site instead. And ...  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Superb Hollywood Crime Caper, in KING MAYBE, Junior Bender

To me, there's only one king of the caper novel in crime fiction: the late, great Donald Westlake. Sure, Dave Zeltserman tied up the modern "noir" caper a few years ago. Rory Flynn's carving out Boston space for his, if not quite so cheerfully. And there are regional gems like Carl Hiassen's Florida titles and the Texas ones by Kinky Friedman.

But Westlake's gift was a combination of exquisite timing (the kind a good comedian has to have) and a willingness to show that criminals can be ordinary dumb bunnies like the guy next door. Beyond that aspect of his caper novels, Westlake also revealed, in a short early series of his under the pen name Tucker Coe, that he understood heartbreak, male style, and could write it with precision and a sharp blade of a pen (or typewriter key). Even though he ended that series before his career soared, the revelation insisted on slipping into his hard-working and often-failing criminals in the rest of his work.

Timothy Hallinan hasn't used the same sort of sleight of hand. His Bangkok series featuring Poke Rafferty rose steadily into a portrait of how a "family of choice" can form and be nurtured; the biggest risks Poke takes, he takes for the sake of the people he cares about.

So when Hallinan segued into the Junior Bender series (which despite the character's name is emphatically NOT "young adult"), he took that emotional dynamic directly into the life of his exquisitely skilled, art-expert, house burglar in Hollywood, Junior Bender. Bender is in many ways clueless about how relationships work -- but he chooses phenomenal women who, if he can manage to let them, not only put up with his gaffes but also teach him how to treat a smart, wise, savvy woman ... like his ex-wife, his teenage daughter, and his current girlfriend, who's so careful not to fully trust him that he's not even sure he knows her real name.

Good thing Junior stumbled into those liaisons, because the heist he's attempting at the opening of KING MAYBE (Junior Bender #5, from Soho Crime) goes wrong so fast and so hard that he'd be a bloody battered corpse, were it not for the rapid response of his ladyfriend (and getaway driver) Ronnie. And it's only Ronnie who can keep calm enough to sort out what's pushing the disasters into place, as Junior holds an incredibly valuable postage stamp in his hands while at least three people try to kill him. Even Stinky, who hired him:

Stinky ... settled his weight farther back in the seat, which made the car dip. "As you should know from recent experience, Junior, when I want to kill you, I'll hire someone to shoot you."

"Like that other man just did," Ronnie said.

Stinky said, "What other man?"

I said, "Never mind."

"And you thought," Ronnie said serenely to Stinky, "that they caught Junior in the act, as people say, and he told them you sent him, and they said, 'Well, all right, then, thanks, here you go,' and gave him the stamp as a reward and came after you."

"Well," Stinky said, "when you put it that  way -- "

"I said the exact same thing," I told him. "When she reacted to my theory. Word for word."

... "Both of you," she said. "You're hopeless."

Hallinan braids a very believable sort of triple betrayal into the plot, while at the same time leaving it to Junior and his two tech-genius teen crime associates (who aren't supposed to be doing that any more) to figure out how to salvage his own daughter's dating life and upcoming birthday party.

I laughed my way through this enjoyable adventure, and if only crime could be this rewarding (in the long run), I might have suggested it to a few other people looking for themselves, like Junior has been. But then again, Junior Bender's Hollywood career is just fiction. ... I think!

Thanks, Tim Hallinan, for great entertainment and the best of twists and conclusions. And PS -- I wish Donald Westlake could be reading your books now.

Risk, Danger, and Love, in THE HOT COUNTRIES, Timothy Hallinan, Thailand

The seventh Poke Rafferty Bangkok thriller is out -- and it's a fantastic wrap-up to this part of the series. THE HOT COUNTRIES tackles crime in one of the world's most notorious cities for crime, but from the point of view of a travel writer who's fallen hopelessly and forever in love ... with Bangkok, with his wife Rose (who knows the sex trade from the inside), and with his firmly adopted daughter Miaow. The trouble is, love may have put its rose-colored lenses in front of some other parts of Poke's life, where it's not a wise idea to feel mushy and warm about what's going on.

The action opens with a moody and sweet scene at the Expat Bar, a local men's hangout where Poke's wandered more often than usual lately, escaping the surge of British TV watching that Rose and Miaow (or Mia, in her new teen persona) are indulging in. The oldtimers at the bar have made him welcome for years. So in Poke's mellow evening, there's no reason to worry about the presence of a new fellow in the line-up at the bar, Arthur Varney. At least, not until Poke realizes that Varney is the mover-and-shaker behind some very threatening messages coming his way, messages that threaten his family (and by the way, Rose is pregnant) and also his friends. Especially at risk is Treasure, a street waif who's seen horrendous abuse and is recovering very slowly after Poke's managed to settle her into a group home for kids who share her past experience. And the threat is being delivered via messages to Poke himself.

Treasure says, "I'm frightened."

"I know," Poke says. "But we're not just going to keep you away from him. We're going after him, and when we find him, you'll never have to think about him again."

A rash promise.

Here's where that highly technical term "part of a series" come into play. Yes, this is number 7 in Timothy Hallinan's Bangkok series, but it's also the third -- and completing title -- of a set of the Rafferty books that focus on how and whether Treasure can actually be saved from both the horrors of her past life and the overwhelming power and wealth of her abuser(s). As he did with number 6 (For the Dead), Hallinan is playing Poke Rafferty's almost naive drive to save the people he cares about, against the sweaty tropical weight of a culture that's almost given up on its vulnerable members.

Although Poke is highly motivated to fight the criminals battering his life, he's truly an "amateur sleuth" in the sense of the genre definition: no martial arts skills, no amazing weapons, not even a trained sniper on his side. But there are those old men from the Expat Bar ... a police officer who's a friend, even if a disgraced one ... and some women and "ladyboys" who recognize that Poke himself is worth saving.

The people who come through for Poke do so because he's earned their loyalty. Most of all, this time, the heroes include his own daughter, who's been through a lot herself. Astute readers will notice Miaow's steady progress toward taking responsibility for resisting evil and asserting her own amazing future -- so the book's ending is especially satisfying, as well as surprising in the best of ways.

I do hope this isn't the "final" Poke Rafferty book, because this stretch of intense and suspenseful thrillers set in a wickedly complex and dangerous Thai city has given me a really good ride! Keep them rolling, Tim Hallinan and Soho Crime ... please.

[PS - if you're a reader who stays WAY away from thrillers that include sexual abuse, you have my sympathy ... and my assurance that even though that's a major crime in the Poke Rafferty series, it's portrayed as a justice issue, not as porn. Safe to read these, truly.]

FOR THE DEAD: Timothy Hallinan's 6th Poke Rafferty "Thriller"

As the mysteries world has gone global, it's also broadened in types of plots and subgenres. The newest book from Timothy Hallinan, FOR THE DEAD, is the sixth one featuring Poke Rafferty, an American living in Bangkok, probably forever by now. And certainly for good. I'd call it a traditional action-suspense crime novel, where groups of criminals struggle fiercely to silence people who are taking a stand against them. Poke, in his roles as dad and husband and writer-with-a-mission, steps up over and over, through increasing exhaustion, to figure out the source of maximum corruption in Bangkok's city government and police.

Soho Crime uses the cover to call the book a "thriller," and this time, I think the term isn't a good fit. To me, "thriller" usually means that feel you get on a really, really big roller-coaster -- the OMG of "I'm going to die here!" (even though there's a rational whisper of "not really, or this company couldn't keep selling tickets) and the racing plunge downhill that tortures your stomach and prevents you from putting the book down. I also think thrillers in general offer terror.

In FOR THE DEAD, the focus is on Poke and Rose's adopted daughter Miaow, once a street waif and now a successful schoolgirl going through those normal mood shifts of adolescence (body changes! a heavy crush! a play to try out for, and if the audition fails, so will her life!). To protect her one real friend Andrew from trouble over losing a cellphone, Miaow digs into her street smarts and helps him buy a used, probably stolen, replacement phone.

But the images on the phone turn out to relate to a pair of recent murders, and suddenly Miaow and Andrew are targets of the killing team.

At the same time, Poke is entering a family crisis -- I won't say what kind, because it's a wonderful surprise when it appears -- and a damaged young girl he'd known during her years of abuse comes back into his life with major needs for assistance and his attention. Last but not least, Miaow and Poke's wife Rose are having portentous dreams. You can feel the river of heat and history that wraps around Bangkok and and through Poke's struggles.

"My daughter," Rafferty says, "is not boneheaded enough to play amateur detective."

Arthit says, "Boneheaded?"

"I do not play amateur detective." [Rafferty] realizes he has leaned forward and uses his feet to push the chair back a few inches. "Or if I do, it's because I have to because the professional detetcives are either not disposed to help or are, umm, constrained --"

"That's a nice way to put it. Constrained, as opposed to corrupt or scared of running up against someone bigger than they are who might sympathize with -- or be on the payroll of -- the other side."

"It's hard to be a cop here," Rafferty says. "An honest one, anyway."

The two men look at each other across a few years of shared history, and the moment makes Rafferty ache.

There is indeed a "ticking clock" for the plot: The people who team up with Poke can't shelter him and his threatened family for long, and the criminals know where they are, where they've been, and way too much about Poke's own vulnerabilities. Things have to resolve within 48 hours or so ... including what to do about the dangerous street waif, Treasure.

But far more important -- and, I think, the reason the Poke Rafferty mysteries are so compelling -- is the struggle for Poke to figure out what he's doing in terms of the people he loves, and especially, how to loosen his protective grasp of his daughter Miaow far enough to let her grow up. Like the rest of us, he wrestles with that major issue while also coping with his own life, including his friendships and alliances in Bangkok.

I think FOR THE DEAD is way more than a thriller -- it's international crime fiction, and it's heartache. And the author, in an Afterword, promises us more of the same, at least until Miaow grows up. Assuming, that is, that Poke can keep enough criminals and hot-blooded classmates away so that she has the chance.

Timothy Hallinan's Junior Bender Series: A Thief Who Solves Crimes

I ran across Timothy Hallinan's mysteries in his Poke Rafferty series, set in Thailand -- a series that includes all the best of international crime fiction, from exotic setting to eccentric characters to humor and affection. And it's a great series to collect, read, and enjoy.

But if I could take only one Hallinan series to a desert island, it's the Junior Bender series that I'd pack.

In this era of "everybody is writing some YA if they can," the series name and covers spark some confusion -- this is NOT a series for "young adults." "Junior" happens to be the name (and his real first name, thanks to his long-gone father) of Bender himself, initiated into the world of elegantly committed theft at the age of 17, by legendary southern California burglar Herbie Mott. Bender's immaculately conceived crimes involve careful scoping of a high-end Los Angeles-area home, meticulous timing (never staying too long inside), and following Herbie's advice: Never take something away that the owner can't afford, emotionally, to give up.

As an expert thief of fine items, Junior Bender also cultivates knowledge of the art world and its values, and of course a very specialized set of fences where he's known for bringing top material and being a savvy negotiator.

But Junior's career has two peculiar quirks to it. First, he has an ex-wife and a teenage daughter, both of whom he loves and respects, and he takes care to not embarrass them with his work. And second, he's burdened with a second career: Private investigator on behalf of crooks in his area.

It's in some ways an accidental second career. His friends need his help, is what it boils down to. But when Irwin Dressler, most powerful and wealthy criminal leader in California, takes an interest in Junior's (nonexistent) business plan, this "help out the criminals" line threatens to take over Junior's life, no matter his own disagreement with the notion. Dressler is not one of those people you can safely say "no" to. "

"Junior, I'm disappointed in you."

If Dressler had said that to me the first time I'd been hauled up to his Bel Air estate for a command appearance, I'd have dropped to my knees and begged for a painless death. He is, after all, the Dark Lord in the flesh. But now I'd survived him once ...

That's the start of the third in the series, THE FAME THIEF. And Irwin Dressler's point is, Junior is the only person in this line of work -- he has a solo franchise: "That whole thing you go going? Solving crimes for crooks? And living through it?" Dressler is sure Junior should capitalize on this monopoly, and expand.

Of course, it's inevitable that Dressler himself has a task he wants Junior to tackle: restoring the reputation of a once-glamourous Hollywood actress who lost her own career in a sting operation during decades ago. Why is Dressler so concerned about Dolores La Marr? Don't ask. By the time you realize Dressler's motive, it's way too late for Junior to get out of this complicated situation where it seems like a lot of people want to kill him. Such a "nice burglar boy" -- how come he's in so much trouble (again)?

Soho Crime cast aside all current publishing expectations, to pull all four of the books in this series into the market within a mere 18 months -- so when you finish devouring the fun and cleverness of THE FAME THIEF, you can backtrack to Crashed  and Little Elvises. Or just jet straight ahead to book 4, which hit the shelves a couple of weeks ago: HERBIE'S GAME.

You know how John Le Carré captured the longing of British spies to respect themselves and have a country worth being loyal to? (It's okay, not everyone's mystery reading ranges into espionage ... mine does, though.) How Tony Hillerman wove his Western Indian detectives in a blanket of hungry friendships, loyalties, and spiritual search? Or Michael Connelly put onto the pages the detective whose roots involve self-sacrifice but who can't bend enough to stay on good terms with his employer? How about Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache, who insists that there's goodness worth honoring and fighting for, even as his own police force and his retreat in the almost perfect village of Three Pines are repeatedly undermined by the forces of evil, in ways we recognize from our own efforts to make something good from our lives?

Heavens, don't assume from that long paragraph that Hallinan is writing "literary stuff." He's definitely not -- his mysteries focus on crime capers in the spirit of Donald Westlake and even Janet Evanovich (although there's more love than lust in Hallinan's books, actually).

But here's the startling part. HERBIE'S GAME, the fourth (and for the moment final) in the Junior Bender series, takes the best darned path I've read in years into struggling with what our fathers want for us, how we sometimes lose the connection with them on the surface, how we almost never lose the important ties to them, and why it's all worthwhile in the long run.

Of course, it's not his dad that Junior's having to exhume and explore here -- it's Herbie Mott, the man to brought him into his life of crime, nurtured his skills, taught him his values, and who ... oddly ... seems to have done that with a number of other fatherless young men. He taught Junior to be like Robin Hood. Sort of. Showed him why it's important to wear booties while burglarizing ("they have that DNA now"). And helped him to deal with his own past:

"Let me tell you something. ... Don't think you know everything about your father. You loved him at one point, I can tell, because you wouldn't be so angry now if you hadn't. Well, the father you hate now is the same person as the one you loved. Just don't -- put people in boxes like that. You have know idea whether you really know someone."

Turns out, Herbie himself is one of the people that Junior didn't know as well as he thought he did. And suddenly, Junior Bender is tangled up with a team of professional killers for hire, female and male, as he struggles to discover what Herbie's final scheme had been, and how it got the master of the trade murdered. There's some time pressure, too: If Junior can't solve this really quickly, it seems likely he'll either be killed himself or end up in jail. Or both.

I know I'll be re-reading the series. But most of all, HERBIE'S GAME is the book I'll be going back to. It's a great ride as crime fiction, as entertaining capers in Los Angeles, as insight into professional theft (I am definitely upgrading the house locks!). And it's one level more. Thanks, Tim Hallinan (and Soho Crime). Good one.

Entertaining Mystery: LITTLE ELVISES by Timothy Hallinan (Soho Crime)

Making a list, or better yet, a stack, for summer reading? If you enjoy a mystery that's layered with complex clues and twists, and at the same time makes you chuckle out loud, I can recommend the three-book series by Timothy Hallinan (yes, the same Timothy Hallinan who writes the Poke Rafferty mysteries): the Junior Bender mysteries, Crashed, Little Elvises, and The Fame Thief.

We already reviewed Crashed here, with the recommendation that it was good enough to pre-order (yes!). So here's a bit about Little Elvises. Junior Bender, a clever career thief with a reputation to maintain,  often works for hire, so to speak -- someone wants a particular high-end item, like a fine painting, and Junior targets, removes, and markets the item in a smooth sequence. His tricks for entering unoccupied homes are diverse and well timed. He isn't wild about his career choice when it comes to trying to get back into his daughter's good graces, not to mention his ex-wife's ... but he takes pride in his skills.

So as this volume of his exploits opens in Southern California, Hollywood area, it's partcularly galliing to Bender that a police officer is creating a case against him for a theft he didn't do, and wouldn't have -- because there was a gun involved. Junior Bender doesn't use guns. Everyone knows.

What everyone doesn't know, though, its that DiGaudio, who is putting the screws onto Bender in a police station cell, has relatives who are ... shall we say, mobbed up? Well, DiGaudio won't say that. But Junior Bender is getting the message: DiGaudio wants Bender's skills for a job to salvage some reputations. Bender's even being pushed about his 13-year-old daughter and what she'll think of him if DiGaudio tags him with a much nastier crime than he'd ever actually commit.

Interestingly, Bender's daughter already knows something about what the complications are -- that is, what "little Elvises" are. She's written a paper for school on "the way American pop culture imitates itself, the way it stamps out little tin copies of anything original that makes money. The example she chose was all the little Elvises from Philly who were churned to the surface in the wake of Elvis Presley."

Hallinan's deft plotting soon tangles Bender into the saddest and most dangerous parts of the studio music scene, as well as -- could it be? -- mob connections from multiple locations. And all this, while Bender's daughter is getting involved in the actual detection, because, of course, she's so much better than her dad at all the Internet stuff that suddenly turns out to be necessary knowledge for him to survive DiGaudio's quickly closing net. If that's even possible.

Well, you know it must be possible -- I've already said there's a third book. The Fame Thief comes out at the beginning of July, just in time for vacation reading. But play fair: Read the first two books first, if you can! If you enjoy the best of Lawrence Block or the capers that Donald Westlake wrote (or, not to be gendered about it, Bethany Maines!); get a kick out of Los Angeles crime fiction like Raymond Chandler's; and appreciate a well-played hand of characters whose mistakes feel very, very believable, even though they're criminals and you're not (I hope!) ... then this is a series you'll enjoy.

One quick mention: For some reason, the ribbon of text on the cover saying "A Junior Bender Mystery" has made a few people this this features a teen detective and belongs on the "young adult" shelf. Banish the thought! Gently raunchy, always amusing, and a page-turner that will keep you going even when the summer sun's heating up, Little Elvises is a heck of a lot of fun. For grown-ups.

Timothy Hallinan, CRASHED: So Good, It's Worth Pre-Ordering

We had a moment of confusion here at Kingdom Books the other evening, as I made ecstatic sounds on the couch while reading CRASHED, the new book from Timothy Hallinan (of Poke Rafferty fame) and told Dave he was going to love it -- and he looked up in puzzlement from his iPad grazing in the armchair across the room and said, "But isn't it a young adult book?"

No, it's not -- emphatically not, since much of the plot turns on the making of a Hollywood "adult movie"! Turns out the reason Dave thought it was for the teen crowd was the name of the book's burglar-protagonist, Junior Bender. The cover design subtitles the book "A Junior Bender Mystery" and Dave, reading it as a tad old-fashioned, assumed "Junior" must be a kid detective.

That said, this is one of those books you long for, wait for, and find once or twice a year -- with an innovative plot (one of those fictional situations where the reader like me says "OMG, of course there had to be a mystery based on this"), an action-packed pace (lots of short chapters, seven or eight pages; if this bugs you, steer clear -- I was surprised at how quickly I adapted, though, and loved the wry chapter titles); and best of all, a burglar protagonist (stand back, Lawrence Block and the late Donald E. Westlake) whose occasional bunglings don't take away from his overall skills and smarts, and whose people-wisdom and inner tenderness drive the action and the solution.

Gotta love it.

Short summary: Junior Bender is a pro burglar, and accepts contract work for others. While attempting (successfully) to steal a Paul Klee painting, he lingers too long and gets trapped by very nasty Rottweiler guard dogs. Through a clever twist of plot, this results in Bender becoming the advocate for a child-actor-grown-up who's about to earn her way into her next round of drug use by acting in a porn flick, under organized crime pressure.

Here's a taste of the writing, from the moment when Bender's buddy Louie (the Lost) shows him an old TV show where the child actor performed (Bender is not a TV watcher himself, despite hiding out in crummy motel rooms where the TV is the "second largest" item of furniture):

She came in, but walking as though she was heading into a ninety-mile an hour wind. It seemed to take every muscle in her body to travel four steps. I could almost see her hair blowing behind her.

"How does she do that?" I asked.

"She did that or better every week," Louise said, without taking his eyes from the screen, "for eight years."

... "What happened?"

Louise got up and went to the window, using one finger to part the curtain. "They're still out there." He turned back to me. "She grew up, I guess. And no show lasts forever ... She was worth it. She'd been working since she was little, carrying the thole thing, and she probably got fed up." He looked with some longing at the dark screen. "She was something, though."

I've already decided I'll re-read this book at least once a year for the rest of my reading life, for the sake of trying to figure out how Hallinan packs so much human hope into a crime novel packed with violent episodes, betrayal, crashes, and more. I hope mobs of people pre-order this book (due out Nov. 13), whether at bookstores or online. Hallinan's Poke Rafferty series was/is terrific -- and this is even better.

Oh yeah, it's going to have a sequel. Two! The second book, Little Elvises, will come out in January, and the third, The Fame Thief, in June 2013. (Who knows why?) (NOTE: Paul Oliver at Soho tells why, in the first comment that follows this post -- do read onward!) One more quick item of very good news: Hallinan gives credit to Soho Crime editor Juliet Grames for helping bring out the best of CRASHED. Grames is rapidly creating a room (much more than a shelf!) of some of today's best crime fiction. Count on more to come.

Poke Rafferty #5: THE FEAR ARTIST by Timothy Hallinan

Ever since he introduced Poke Rafferty in 2007, Timothy Hallinan has been winning fans for his alter ego, a travel writer in Bangkok. In 2010, the fourth in the suspense series, The Queen of Patpong, raked in an Edgar Award nomination. And now we have the fifth -- and maybe the best yet -- THE FEAR ARTIST.

Things start out simply enough: A man being chased falls on top of him, on the sidewalk, and is shot and killed as he collapses. Rafferty hears three words from the dying man, and is abruptly surrounded by a phalanx of police officers and at least one "spook" -- government spy. Although he gets released from the scene, his troubles have barely started.

It's a good thing his wife Rose and daughter Miaow are out of the city, even though he misses them viscerally. Even his best friend Arthit is out of reach right now, caught up in heartbreak. Rafferty's actually afraid to feel his aloneness -- or not aloneness, if you count the people who seem to be following him,

He feels a bit of the old tingle, the little carbonated fizz of anticipation he'd felt all those years ago, when he first arrived, when Bangkok was just one jaw-dropper after another. When he spoke none of the language, when he might as well have been blind for all the sense the signs made to him. When he felt that the odds were fifty-fifty, each time he went down a new street, that it would be dedicated to holiness -- temple carvers, amulet makers, gold-leaf hammerers -- or hedonism -- bars, restaurants, flamboyant neon signifying the fall-off edge of his middle-class map of life.

Except now the fifty-fifty seems to apply to him: On the one hand, he might be safe until the next block, even though he's being followed. On the other, he might be shot himself or, at least as chilling, tossed into jail as an American spy. And the idea of his family being threatened makes him even more vulnerable -- and more determined to get to the bottom of the stranger's death and its ramifications.

Soon Rafferty is leaning on Arthit after all, and on a Russian, and to his utter astonishment, on a family member he didn't realize could or would walk back into his life. Even the weather becomes threatening -- and what Rafferty learns only increases the danger he's in, moment by moment.

Soho Crime released this one yesterday, so if you're headed into summer vacation -- or trying to distract yourself from not being there! -- it's time to get a copy. You won't need to read the preceding four books -- A Nail Through the Heart, The Fourth Watcher, Breathing Water, and The Queen of Patpong -- but you'll probably want to. Why not? This is what summer is made for.

PS - Do visit Hallinan's website. Lots to enjoy: http://www.timothyhallinan.com/poke.html