Will o'the Glen on Books

I have been a fan of Timothy Hallinan’s Junior Bender mysteries from the beginning, starting the ride with #1 in the series, Crashed . The sharp wit, crackling dialog, and quirky cast of unique characters drew me in from the first page of that first book, and I have eagerly awaited each new installment since. When the eighth Junior Bender’s novel hit my doorstep I dropped the book I was currently reading like a hot rock and dove back into Timothy Hallinan’s L.A.—and was hit with a couple of surprises right off the bat. Without throwing spoilers into the mix, or at least not too much, after the end of Nighttown I expected that the next Junior Bender adventure would involve L.A.’s favorite burglar-cum-P.I.-to-the-underworld in the task of wresting his girlfriend Ronnie’s son from his New Jersey-mobster father. To my surprise (#1)—followed by the realization that Timothy Hallinan certainly knows his characters and the direction that their stories are going to take them better than I do—i