Advanced Praise for The Fame Thief
"The Fame Thief has everything I've come to expect in a Hallinan novel: indelible, complex characters, fantastic plot, and moments of hold-your-breath suspense."
-Charlaine Harris, author of the New York Times bestselling Sookie Stackhouse series
"In Hallinan's satisfying third Junior Bender novel (after Little Elvises), the L.A. burglar/PI continues to excavate show business's forgotten past, investigating in this installment the also-rans of postwar Hollywood."
-Publishers Weekly
"Could not stop laughing. Hallinan is sharp as a blade, has a wicked eye for human nature and keeps the reader guessing and rooting for Junior Bender all the way."
-Helen Simonson, New York Times bestselling author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
"Hallinan's natural storytelling skills will hold readers rapt through his Shakespeare-quoting, five-act tale as they relish his attention to Los Angeles cultural details and ability to weave two time periods together so effectively."
-Library Journal (Starred Review)
"The tangled plot ... produce[s] some surprises along the way, but the real draw here remains the fasttalking, quick-thinking Junior, a slightly seedier but equally entertaining version of Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr. If comic crime is your thing, you need to know Junior Bender."
-Booklist
Praise for the Junior Bender Series
"A modern-day successor to Raymond Chandler."
-Los Angeles Daily News
"Hallinan introduces us to a drugged-out, pain-impervious hit man, a nonagenarian puppet master who rules the L.A. underworld, a tabloid reporter who uses his job as a cover to blackmail the rich and the famous, and a host of other characters as dangerously outrageous as the murderous crew obsessed with obtaining the black bird in Hammett's 1930 masterpiece."
-Associated Press
"If Carl Hiaasen and Donald Westlake had a literary love child, he would be Timothy Hallinan. The Edgar nominee's laugh-out-loud new crime series featuring Hollywood burglar-turned-private eye Junior Bender has breakout written all over it... A must-read."
-Julia Spencer-Fleming, New York Times bestselling author of One Was a Soldier
"Junior Bender is today's Los Angeles as Raymond Chandler might have written it. Tim is a master at tossing out the kind of hard-boiled lines that I wish I thought of first."
-Bruce DeSilva, Macavity & Edgar Award-winning author of Rogue Island
"Loved loved loved Crashed. Great narrative voice, complex plot, 3-D characters. Hallinan's deft comic tone and colorful characters have earned him comparisons to Donald Westlake and Carl Hiassen. Check it out now."
-Nancy Pearl
"Bender's quick wit and smart mouth make him a boon companion on this oddball adventure."
-New York Times Book Review
"The story is well designed and well told, and the dialogue sparkles. In a genre perhaps slightly overstuffed with crook-heroes, the book is like a breath of fresh air."
-Booklist
"Junior Bender isn't a gumshoe, but the cadence of his voice and his observations harken back to other great detectives who were expert at landing a crucial, devastating remark, as well as using their fists or a pistol."
-Derek Hill, Mystery Scene
"Rich with invention, and brimming with classic wit. I can't recommend it highly enough."
-Shadoe Stevens, Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
"Think of him as a detective for the delinquent, a fixer for felons."
-Carole E. Barrowman, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel |
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