“Hallinan introduces us to a drugged-out, pain-impervious hit man, a
nonagenarian puppet master who rules the LA 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.”

“Splendidly entertaining.”

“The first book in the series, Crashed,
was great fun. The new one, Little
Elvises, is even better.”

“Captures the SoCal milieu perfectly
and impeccably.”

“Think of him as a detective for the delinquent, a fixer for felons.”

“Hallinan’s second Junior Bender mystery sends the LA burglar/PI on a journey into pop music’s supposedly innocuous 1950s past, mixing light and dark humor…The skewed, Runyonesque Southern California setting, epitomized by Junior’s home, the seedy but festively Yule-themed Marge ’n Ed’s North Pole motel, promises much for further outings.” 

“In Hallinan’s Los Angeles, where everyone leans on everyone else, investigator/thief Junior Bender gets leaned on good. Versatile Hallinan provides a wealth of seamy types, past and present, and a
thousand hard-boiled similes for his second-string Philip Marlowe.”

“Every now and then a writer comes along with the imagination and skill
to make the whole thing feel fresh and new again. That’s what veteran crime novelist
Timothy Hallinan has accomplished.”