"Four of Dressler's old gangster colleagues have put together a national tour of once-popular rock bands they own a piece of: three nights of concerts by guys (and a few gals) who were big shots back in the 1960s and 1970s, and who are now hoping for one more gasp of glory with this nostalgia exhibition. The Rock of Ages tour has proved itself to be anything but a love fest: plenty of the bandmates have been feuding for forty years, and-perhaps unsurprisingly-drugs and bad behavior have created health, wellness, and legal problems for the musicians and managers. Plus there have been two near-fatal accidents that might have been attempted murders. But they're not what Irwin Dressler is concerned about. It's that someone-one of his own colleagues-is using the tour as a front to steal Dressler's money. And that simply cannot be allowed. Now the tour has pulled into LA, and Junior has one weekend to figure out who's to blame-a weekend that begins with his tires being slashed, threatening notes left on his car, and a theatrical backdrop falling on a drummer during the truly terrible first set of the first concert. To make things worse, Junior is saddled for the weekend with his teenage daughter, Rina, who lately has been much, much too interested in how her father earns his living. Can Junior recover Dressler's money, prevent a murder, talk his daughter out of pursuing a life of crime, and somehow survive all that bad music?"-- Provided by publisher
Timothy Hallinan Book order
This author crafts gripping thrillers and mysteries, often delving into the darker aspects of human nature and intricate plots. Their distinctive style features sharp dialogue and unexpected twists that keep readers on the edge of their seats. With settings that span from exotic locales to familiar landscapes, their work is imbued with a unique atmosphere. Readers will find their stories celebrated for their cleverness and ability to immerse them in worlds of intrigue.






- 2022
- 2021
Street Music
- 384 pages
- 14 hours of reading
Eight years ago, Poke Rafferty, an American travel writer, and his Thai wife, Rose, adopted a Bangkok street child named Miaow, forming an unconventional intercultural family. That family has weathered extreme challenges—each of its three members carried the scars of a painful and dangerous history—but has stuck together with tenacity and love (and a little help from some friends). Now that family is in jeopardy: the birth of Poke and Rose’s newborn son has littered their small apartment with emotional land mines, forcing Poke to question his identity as a dad and Miaow to question her identity as a daughter. At the same time, the most cantankerous member of the small gang of Old Bangkok Hands who hang out at the Expat Bar suddenly goes missing under suspicious circumstances. Engaged in the search for the missing American, Poke is caught completely off-guard when someone he thought was gone forever resurfaces—and she has the power to tear the Raffertys apart.
- 2020
The Fourth Watcher
- 336 pages
- 12 hours of reading
Set against the vibrant backdrop of Bangkok, Poke Rafferty's settling down is disrupted by the unexpected return of his estranged father, Frank, who brings chaos with him. Accompanied by a box of rubies and pursued by a dangerous gangster, Frank's arrival triggers a series of threats, including a rogue Secret Service agent targeting Poke's fiancée, Rose. As danger looms from all sides, Poke must rely on his resourcefulness to protect his newfound family and confront the shadows of his past.
- 2019
Breathing Water
- 368 pages
- 13 hours of reading
A late-night poker game thrusts ex-pat writer Poke Rafferty into a dangerous world when he is offered the chance to write the biography of Khun Pan, a controversial billionaire. As Rafferty and his family become entangled in a deadly political power struggle, they face threats from those who want to suppress the book and others eager to reveal Pan's secrets. Amidst a backdrop of treachery and an Asian babyselling ring, Rafferty must navigate perilous waters to protect his loved ones and uncover the truth.
- 2018
Nighttown
- 384 pages
- 14 hours of reading
Los Angeles burglar Junior Bender has a rule about never taking a job that pays too well--in the criminal underworld, if someone is offering you more money than a job is worth, someone is going to end up dead. But he's bending his rule this one time because he and his girlfriend, Ronnie, are in desperate need of cash so they can hire a top-notch kidnapper to snatch Ronnie's two-year-old son back from her evil ex. The whole thing is pretty complicated, and has Junior on edge. The parameters of his too-well-paying job do nothing to calm his nerves. A nameless woman in an orange wig has offered Junior fifty grand--twenty-five up front--to break into the abandoned house of a recently deceased 97-year-old recluse, Daisy Horton, and steal a doll from the woman's collection. Junior knows no doll is worth $50k, so he figures there must be something hidden inside the doll that can get him in a heap of trouble. It takes Junior less time than he would have hoped to realize he's not the only person looking for the doll. When an old friend ends up murdered, Junior decides he will stop at nothing to figure out who the woman in the orange wig is, and why she wants the doll so bad she's leaving a trail of bodies in her wake
- 2017
Fields Where They Lay
- 400 pages
- 14 hours of reading
"Burglar Junior Bender may just be our favorite literary P.I."—Entertainment Weekly 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.
- 2017
Fools' River
- 368 pages
- 13 hours of reading
The two most difficult days in Bangkok writer Poke Rafferty's life begin with an emergency visit from Edward Dell, the almost-boyfriend of his teenage daughter, Maiow. The boy's father, Buddy, a late-middle-aged womanizer who has moved to Bangkok for happy hunting, has disappeared, and money is being siphoned out of his bank and credit card accounts. It soon becomes apparent that Buddy is in the hands of a pair of killers who prey on Bangkok's -sexpats-; when the accounts are empty, he'll be found, like a dozen others, floating facedown in a Bangkok canal with a weighted cast on his unbroken leg. His money is already almost gone. Over forty-eight frantic hours, Poke does everything he can to work the case before it's too late for him to do any good.
- 2016
King Maybe
- 393 pages
- 14 hours of reading
Los Angeles burglar Junior Bender is in the middle of burgling a house when the job goes terribly wrong. After barely escaping, he sets off a chain reaction of blackmail, strong-arming and escalating crime. To pay off his underworld debts, Junior is forced to break into the house of the most powerful man in Hollywood; the shadowy, widely feared studio mogul known as King Maybe. This is the fifth in Timothy Hallinan's Junior Bender Mystery series.
- 2016
Darwin 1942
- 230 pages
- 9 hours of reading
On Wednesday 18 February 1942 the Japanese air force bombed Darwin. Whilst this fact is well known, very few people know exactly what happened. Timothy Hall was the first writer to be given acess to all the official reports of the time and as a result he has been able to reveal exactly what happened on that dreadful day a day which Sir Paul Hasluck (17th Governor-General of Australia) later described as a day of national shame . The sequence of events in Darwin that day certainly did not reflect the military honour that the War Cabinet wanted people to believe. On the contrary, for what really happened was a combination of chaos, panic and, in many cases, cowardice on an unprecented scale. "
- 2016
For The Dead
- 362 pages
- 13 hours of reading
After seven years in Bangkok, American travel writer Poke Rafferty finally feels settled: his family is about to grow larger, and his adopted Thai daughter, Miaow, seems to have settled in at junior high school. All that is endangered when Miaow helps her boyfriend buy a stolen iPhone that contains photographs of two disgraced police officers, both of whom have been murdered. As Miaow's carefully constructed personal life falls apart, Rafferty discovers that the murders are part of a conspiracy that reaches the top rungs of Bangkok law enforcement, and beyond. Miaow's discovery threatens the entire family—and if that's not enough, in order to survive, they may ultimately have to depend on someone who has already betrayed them.