Junior Bender Books in Order: How to read Timothy Hallinan’s Series?

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Thanks!

A criminal can become a P.I., even if doesn’t really want to…

What is the Junior Bender series about

Written by American thriller writer Timothy Hallinan, author of the Simeon Grist series and the Poke Rafferty series, the Junior Bender series is about a reluctant investigator.

In fact, a divorced father of one and quick-talking burglar extraordinaire, Junior Bender has been blackmailed into starting a new career as a private investigator for crooks in Los Angeles.

Now, he is the man criminals want to solve their “mysteries”.

How to read the Junior Bender Books in Order?

Every book in the Junior Bender series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other.

  1. Crashed – Junior Bender, a burglar with a magic touch, is being blackmailed into taking on a new freelance job. One of LA’s biggest crime bosses is producing a porn movie that someone keeps sabotaging; Junior’s job is to figure out who’s responsible and keep the movie on track. The trouble is, he’s not sure he can go through with the job, blackmail or no blackmail.
  2. Little Elvises – Now Junior is being bullied into proving aging music industry mogul Vinnie DiGaudio is innocent of the murder of a nasty tabloid journalist he’d threatened to kill a couple times. It doesn’t help that the dead journalist’s widow is one pretty lady, and she’s trying to get Junior to mix pleasure with business.
  3. The Fame Thief – There are not many people brave enough to say no to Irwin Dressler, Hollywood’s infamous mob boss-turned-movie king. Dressler wants Junior Bender to solve a “crime” he believes was committed more than seventy years ago, when an old friend of his, once-famous starlet Dolores La Marr, had her career destroyed.

  1. Herbie’s Game – It’s everyday business when Wattles, the San Fernando Valley’s top “executive crook,” sets up a hit. He establishes a chain of criminals to pass along the instructions and the money, ensuring that the hitter doesn’t know who hired him. But when people associated with the chain begin to pop up dead, the only person Wattles can approach to solve his problem is Junior Bender.
  2. King Maybe – Junior Bender is in the middle of stealing one of the world’s rarest stamps from a professional killer when his luck suddenly turns sour. It takes an unexpected assist to get him out alive, but his escape sets off a chain reaction of blackmail, strong-arming, and escalating crime. By the time Junior is forced to commit his third burglary of the week, he’s beginning to wish he’d just let the killer take a crack at him.
  3. Fields Where They Lay – The halls are decked, the deck is stacked, and here comes that jolly old elf. Junior Bender finds himself stuck inside the Edgerton Mall, and not just as a last-minute shopper. The mall is a fossil of an industry in decline; many of its stores are closed, and to make matters worse, there is a rampant shoplifting problem.

  1. Nighttown – Los Angeles burglar Junior Bender has a rule about never taking a job that pays too well: in the criminal underworld, if you’re offered more money than a job is worth, someone is going to end up dead. But he’s bending his rule this one time because he and his girlfriend, Ronnie, are in desperate need of cash to hire a kidnapper to snatch Ronnie’s two-year-old son back from her ex. The whole thing is pretty complicated and has Junior on edge.
  2. Rock of Ages – Four of Dressler’s old gangster colleagues have put together a national tour of once-popular rock bands they own a piece of. The Rock of Ages tour has proved itself to be anything but a love fest: plenty of the bandmates have been feuding for forty years, and drugs and bad behavior have created health, wellness, and legal problems for the musicians and managers. Plus there have been two near-fatal accidents that might have been attempted murders. But they’re not what Irwin Dressler is concerned about. It’s that one of his own colleagues is using the tour as a front to steal Dressler’s money. And that simply cannot be allowed. Now the tour has pulled into LA, and Junior Bender has one weekend to figure out who’s to blame.

If you like our article about the Junior Bender series in order, don’t forget to bookmark it!

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *