Timothy Hallinan A Nail Through the Heart

A Nail Through the Heart

Morrow, Jun 2007, $24.95

ISBN: 9780061255809

Poke Rafferty is a unique travel writer whose Looking for Trouble series is popular amongst those who enjoy the offbeat flaunting of the law in their tourism. However, in Bangkok Poke recently met and feel in love with former b-girl prostitute Rose and wants to make her his wife. He plans to settle in the city and to prove to Rose he is earnest, he brings eight years old street kid Miaow into his home; he did not know that bringing the little girl he soon cherishes means also having "Superman" enter his life.

Needing money for his new family especially the legal and under the table cost of adopting Miaow, Poke accepts investigative assignments thinking his work as a travel writer would help him adapt. He is hired to find the missing Australian Claus Ulrich who frequents BDSM locales. Poke is an expert on how to find them, visit them, and get out with most of your skin. Soon afterward wealthy Madame Wing gives him a $30,000 fee to recover an envelope from a Cambodian who stole it; she warns him that he is not to open the envelope because if is he does she must kill him. Soon his two cases and his personal life intertwine as nothing goes right for Poke the foreigner on the seediest side of Bangkok.

This is an exhilarating Thailand private investigative thriller starring a protagonist who believes laws are to be broken just don't get caught. The cases are fun to follow as Poke fumbles about the city in spite of his travel knowledge as he is an amateur sleuth in every sense of the word except he is being paid. Fans will enjoy his endeavors as he takes readers on quite a tour that few will ever want to see except from their armchair.

Harriet Klausner