JUNIOR BENDER UNTANGLES ONE OF THE WEIRDEST MYSTERIES IN TINSELTOWN LA burglar Junior Bender has (unfortunately) developed a reputation as a competent private investigator for crooks. The unfortunate part about this is that regardless of whether he solves the crime or not, someone dangerous is going to be unhappy with him, either his suspect or his employer. Now Junior is being bullied into … Now Junior is being bullied into proving aging music industry mogul Vinnie DiGaudio is innocent of the murder of a nasty tabloid journalist he’d threatened to kill a couple times. It doesn’t help that the dead journalist’s widow is one pretty lady, and she’s trying to get Junior to mix pleasure with business. Just as the investigation is spiraling out of control, Junior’s hard-drinking landlady begs him to solve the disappearance of her daughter, who got involved with a very questionable character. And, worst news of all, both Junior’s ex-wife and his thirteen-year-old daughter, Rina, seem to have new boyfriends. What a mess.
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Fictional burglars who end up starring in their own novels have to be multi-talented. The ones whose stories I’ve read generally have to be detectives, guidance counselors, therapists, AA buddies, and diplomats. In fact, they rarely have time to ply their primary trade when they’re driving a story; The Hot Rock notwithstanding, publishers seem to think that readers won’t put up with a plot that consists entirely of the lead character stealing things all the time.
So it goes in Little Elvises, Junior Bender’s second outing in the series named for him. Junior’s a burglar in Los Angeles, at least when he’s not onstage. This time around, a crooked cop coerces him into trying to clear the cop’s uncle of murdering a low-rent tabloid freelancer who left behind a long line of people who might want to delete him permanently. At the same time, the manager of the cheap motel Junior lives in (he moves from motel to motel to make himself hard to find, though everyone manages to find him anyway) wants Junior to track down her missing daughter, who may be consorting with a psychopath.
Junior’s good at what he does — both burgling and detecting — knows the ecosystem in which he lives, and is generally far more competent at life and work than, say, your typical Scandinoir protagonist. He’s quick with a bon mot, describes people and places in a clear if sometimes offbeat way, and doesn’t ruminate at unseemly length. In this episode, we see more of his ex-wife and teen daughter than we did before, in ways that add to the plot rather than distracting from it. You won’t mind following him around — at least you’d best not, because he’s telling the story and he’s on every page.
The various plotlines develop organically and follow their own internal logic. Junior has to apply actual brainpower (his own or other people’s) rather than magic or coincidence to sort them out, a bonus.
The members of Junior’s repertory company continue their Runyonesque personas from the first book without much noticeable development. The new supporting characters fall into varying types, some more successfully than others. The crooked cop comes off like a refugee from a 1970s Serpico knockoff, while the dead writer’s inexplicably hot widow is mostly a collection of quirk. On the other hand, an old-school political/criminal fixer is suitably menacing without becoming a supervillain. All of them are wiseacres to one extent or another, which leads to some funny lines at the expense of tonal consistency or real-world grounding; you’ll have to decide if this is a feature or a bug. This is what happened to the fifth star in case you’re keeping track.
Little Elvises is a comedy of criminal manners wrapped in the skin of a dark-side detective story. If you’re looking for wry rather than wacky or grit rather than lip gloss, this may be the ticket for you. Don’t take any of it too seriously — the characters don’t — and you may have some quick, kicky fun.
I love Junior Bender