Love Junior Bender and his creator Tim Hallinan.

Junior knows better. Don't steal and take more money than the object is worth. That's asking for trouble. And trouble ALWAYS finds Junior.. Hallinan is almost gleeful when he writes a Junior Bender story which is evidenced in the storytelling itself. Full of wit and humor as well as tension, readers will love getting to know Junior or reacquainting themselves with him.

A fun and delightful read that I absolutely recommend.

Timothy Hallinan writes just the kind of books that SOUND really exciting and somewhat quirky. Nighttown, the latest (#7) in the Junior Bender series, came my way thanks to Soho Press and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. As it turned out, I tried several times to get into it, but it just wasn’t for me…but my husband LOVED it, so I am sharing what he thought of it!

Junior Bender is a burglar living in Los Angeles and his girlfriend, Ronnie, has a problem: she and her ex have a two year old, and Ronnie wants to hire a kidnapper to take her kid back from the ex. Their shared problem is that they needs cash to hire a kidnapper, then suddenly some woman in an orange wig offers Junior fifty thousand dollars (with twenty-five up front) to break into a house where an elderly recluse has recently died and steal a doll. The job sounds too good to be true, plus it breaks one of Junior’s cardinal rules: never take a job that sounds like you are being offered too much money for that particular job. But Junior moves ahead anyway.

He figures there must be something hidden in the doll, and he has a hunch that the job is risky. Then a friends is murdered, which seriously annoys him, and he decides he will do whatever it takes to find out who the orange wig lady is and why she wants the doll badly enough to leave a string of corpses in her wake.

It actually sounds good, again, so I may try it –maybe I was just not in the right frame of mind when I tried it before (it happens!!). In any case, I’m passing along four stars for this latest in the Junior Bender series.

I knew before I even finished the first chapter of this book that I wanted to read all the other Junior Bender books. Hallinan's Bender is witty, and the dialogue goes down smooth. Even though this is a book in a series, I didn't feel terribly lost while I read the book. I will definitely recommend buying this book at my library.

3.5
Nighttown is a fun book that hooks readers in from the start. The tone is light and playful, and easy to read.