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A Junior Bender Mystery
It's three days until Christmas and Junior Bender, Hollywood's fasttalking fixer for the felonious, is up to his ears in shopping mall Santas, Russian mobsters, desperate holiday shoppers, and ('tis the season) murder.
The halls are decked, the deck is stacked, and here comes that jolly old elf. Junior Bender, divorced father of one and burglar extraordinaire, finds himself stuck inside the Edgerton Mall, and not just as a last-minute shopper (though he is that too). Edgerton isn't exactly the epicenter of holiday cheer, despite its two Santas, canned Christmas music, chintzy bows, and festive lights. The mall is a fossil of an industry in decline; many of its stores are closed, and to make matters worse, there is a rampant shoplifting problem.
The murderous Russian mobster who owns the place has decided it takes a thief to catch a thief and hires Junior - under threat - to solve the shoplifting problem for him. But Junior's surveillance operation doesn't go well: as Christmas Eve approaches, two people are dead and it's obvious that shoplifting is the least of the mall's problems. To prevent further deaths, possibly including his own, Junior must confront his dread of Christmas - both present and past.
"Starred Review. A plum pudding stuffed with cynical disillusionment, organized and disorganized crime, two Santas, a seasonal miracle, and an ending that earns every bit of its uplift." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. "Everything readers could want." - Library Journal
"Burglar Junior Bender may just be our favorite literary P.I." - Entertainment Weekly
This information about Fields Where They Lay was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Munyin Choy
Timothy Hallinan has been nominated for the Edgar, Nero, Shamus, Macavity and Silver Dagger awards. He is the author of nineteen widely praised books, including For the Dead, The Hot Countries, Crashed, Little Elvises, The Fame Thief, King Maybe, and Herbie's Game, which won the Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery. After years of working in the television and music industries, he now writes full-time. Hallinan divides his time between Los Angeles and Southeast Asia, the setting for his Poke Rafferty novels.
Link to Timothy Hallinan's Website
Name Pronunciation
Timothy Hallinan: HAL-in-ann. First syllable pronounced like the name "Hal."
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