Herbie's Game

A Junior Bender Mystery, Book 4

By: Timothy Hallinan

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

It's everyday business when Wattles, the San Fernando Valley's top "executive crook", sets up a hit. He establishes a chain of criminals to pass along the instructions and the money, thereby ensuring that the hitter doesn't know who hired him. Then one day Wattles finds his office safe open and a single item missing: the piece of paper listing the crooks in the chain. When people associated with the chain begin to pop up dead, the only person Wattles can turn to for help is Junior Bender, professional burglar and begrudging private eye for crooks.

But Junior already knows exactly who took Wattles' list; the signature is obvious. It was Herbie Mott, Junior's burglar mentor and second father - but when Junior seeks him out to discuss the matter, he finds him very unpleasantly murdered. Junior follows the links in the chain back toward the killer, and as he does, he learns disturbing things about Herbie's hidden past. Just how much of the life he's lived for the past 20 years has been of his own making, and how much of it was actually Herbie's game?

©2014 Timothy Hallinan (P)2014 Blackstone Audiobooks

anything read by Peter Betkrot

is a joy to read. It makes up for the authors gratuitous political comments.

Good comic mystery-Junior as "detective."

I enjoyed this, my first in the Junior Bender series. Although the protagonist is a seasoned burglar, here he is more like a private detective, trying to find out who killed his mentor Herbie and why. Junior's peculiar life is full of kinky people, which adds to the fun. It's not a memorable story but it's a lot of fun.

Peter Berkrot added to the enjoyment by attaching a unique, appropriate voice to each character. He even did a good job with women's voices.

not the ex

Only issue I had was how the ex wife is treated with so much disrespect.

Junior keeps on truckin

This Junior Bender series listening is fun. Sort of a comedic crime thriller, the author evidently knows a lot about old Los Angeles as he brings to life some of how LA must have been in days past. It's not that the thrillers are that thrilling but the author has a nice, hip writing style that makes them interesting and fun.

In this book the 4th in the series, Junior's mentor into the criminal life, Herbie, is found dead. To find the killer, Junior has to unravel a hit chain of people that were paid to pass along the hit money to protect the person ordering the hit. You might imagine there at lots of characters, many of them bad people, along the way to solving the crime.

“Audible 20 Review Sweepstakes Entry”

Above entertaining

The Junior Bender books are always fun, well-written, easy reads, but they are always more than just that. Full of interesting history & characters, fabulous noir atmosphere, wit, and (most thankfully) good grammar.