Herbie's Game

May 19, 2014
Junior Bender takes on his most personal case yet in Hallinan’s rollicking fourth mystery featuring the master safe—and joke—cracker (after 2013’s The Fame Thief). When Wattles, a notorious crook based in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley, realizes that he’s missing a very important piece of paper, a list of all the “disconnects,” or shady men, he hired to pull off a job, he asks Bender to retrieve the document. Bender’s first stop, however, ends in tragedy: when he calls on his mentor and father figure, Herbie Mott, he finds that Herbie has been tortured and killed. Herbie taught Bender everything he knows about stealing, but Bender is in for a shock when unsavory details of Herbie’s life come to light, with all-too-real consequences for the wisecracking thief and those close to him. Hallinan injects what could be a stale revenge tale with his signature dry wit, making Bender a laconic antihero to admire. Agent: Bob Mecoy, Bob Mecoy Literary.

June 15, 2014
When a crook is burgled, it's not a good day for anybody.Usually, Wattles [no first name] the contractor is the one breaking the law. He's perfected a system of murder for hire that involves something like six degrees of separation between the trigger man and himself. So when someone breaks into his house and steals his list of "disconnects"-people who call people who call people who shoot people-he's both surprised and annoyed. But not too annoyed to summon Junior Bender (Little Elvises, 2013, etc.) and offer him $10,000 for the safe return of the list. Junior has an even more compelling reason for being interested in the case. It's clear from the burglar's methods that he was none other than Herbie Mott, the master thief who taught Junior everything he knew. By the time he catches up with Herbie, however, it's too late to ask him anything about the theft, because he's suffered a fatal heart attack right in the middle of being tortured by experts. It's clear that the other disconnects are in danger, though it'll be equally clear to fans of the series that Junior won't care nearly as much about what happens to any of them. And a good thing, too, because Herbie may have given Junior a bum steer from beyond the grave. Ruben Ghorbani, the knee-breaker Herbie assumed would kill him if anybody did, may have found Jesus. That would leave the field wide open, and since practically everybody Junior runs into is a criminal of one sort or another, this job could take quite a while.As usual, Hallinan devotes such loving attention to a host of minor characters, all framed by Junior's deadpan narrative, that the whodunit is the least important ingredient in this shaggy, overstuffed caper.

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Starred review from June 1, 2014

Professional burglar Junior Bender has taken a case seeking an incriminating cheat sheet that sequentially names the criminals (like a chain letter) involved in a murder for hire. Troublingly, Junior's mentor and father figure, Herbie Mott, seems to be a part of this chain and he has died violently. Junior is devastated by his loss, but he must race to figure out where the list is hidden while making sure his nearest and dearest are safe. Disliking the new information he's learning about Herbie, Junior has a bit of a life crisis out in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley. Thus it takes a while for Junior to connect his dots, but most assuredly he does so with verve and style. And he grows up a little, too. VERDICT Devoted fans of Hallinan's rollicking L.A.-based series will grab up number four (after The Fame Thief). While the author excels at comedic prose and intricate plotting, this entry is more reflective than earlier titles. Although victims fall left and right, Hallinan somehow keeps it light.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2014
Hallinan's fifth Junior Bender mystery will once again bring smiles to the faces of all who love comic crime and crook-heroes. This time, though, there may be a tear or two as well, what with Junior confronting the realization that his mentor in the thieving arts, Herbie Mott, may not have been the stand-up crook Junior assumed he was. When not actively stealing something, Junior moonlights as an unofficial PI, solving crimes for criminals who can't go to the police. But after Herbie is killed in a particularly gruesome fashion, Junior is working strictly pro bono. Herbie's isn't the only body, either, as someone is eliminating all the people linked in a chain connecting a hit man to the broker who organized the hit. Junior needs plenty of help to sort it all out, and he gets it from unlikely sources, including two 14-year-old computer wizards. (When Junior notes that he wasn't expecting Campfire Girls as colleagues, one of them responds, I could outthink you with my frontal lobe running Windows Vista. ) A whirligig of a caper delivered with plenty of melancholy-tinged laughsJunior, drop by anytime. The valuables will be in plain sight.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)