โ Scribed by Timothy Hallinan
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
A late-night poker game in Bangkok nets American ex-pat writer Poke Rafferty the "opportunity" to write the biography of Khun Pan, a flamboyant, vulgar, self-made billionaire with a criminal past and far-reaching political ambitions. Within hours, Rafferty, his wife, Rose, their adopted daughter, Miaow, and Poke's best friend, honest Bangkok cop Arthit, have become disposable pawns in a brutal power struggle among some of Thailand's richest, most ruthless citizens. There are those who would go to any length to ensure the book is never written and others equally desperate to have Pan's darkest secrets exposed. Suddenly Rafferty is sinking deeper in a perilous sea of treachery and intrigueโand caught up in the inhuman machinations of an Asian babyselling ringโas he searches frantically for the only chance he may have to get everyone he loves out alive.
In Hallinan's nicely paced third Bangkok thriller to feature writer Poke Rafferty (after The Fourth Water), Poke wins a bet to write the biography of Khun Pan, a major-league bad guy, after a dispute with Pan in a poker game. When local papers run big stories about the deal, a phone caller threatens Poke, his wife and his daughter if he goes ahead with the project. Soon afterward, Poke is forced into a car by gun-wielding men who demand he write the book, but based on interviews with people on a set list. Poke's efforts to keep himself alive amid competing interests move the plot along.ร His sangfroid in the face of serious peril, reminiscent of Cary Grant's in North by Northwest , may strike some readers as out of place in a book that opens with a heartrending scene of a thug instructing a reluctant girl how to become a professional beggar by pinching an infant to make it cry to gain more sympathy. (Sept.)
Copyright ยฉ Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
โThis is a book that can be enjoyed on many levels. The mystery, danger, and intrigue satisfy the lover of mystery and thriller, while the relationships give the story depth. Especially nice is the relationship between Rafferty and Arthit, one of the few honest cops in Bangkok.โ
A Thriller
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES
Timothy Hallinan brings Bangkok , Thailand , to life in all its exotic, seedy, dangerous glory in Breathing Water, his third novel of unrelenting suspense to feature expatriate American travel writer Poke Rafferty. A breathtaking thriller in which innocence and evil, power and poverty collide on neo
The specter of domestic violence haunts this poignant debut, as Effie Greer, a young woman in her 20s, struggles through an agonizing love relationship and its devastating aftermath. After learning of her abusive ex-boyfriend's death from a heroin overdose, waifish Effie returns from three "fugitive
Most experiments were dropped because they failedand some because they worked too well!
**Former Special Forces Officer and *New York Times* bestselling author Brad Taylor delivers a heart-pounding thriller where Pike Logan's search for a Mossad agent and ally puts him on a collision course with a ruthless military coup in Africaand tests his loyalties to the Taskforce.** It was t
Un hombre inicia una investigaciรณn, volviendo atrรกs en el tiempo, en bรบsqueda de las razones que convirtieron a Rafferty, un policรญa ejemplar, en un ser destrozado y hundido. De entre las sombras del pasado surge la figura de una mujer cuya fascinaciรณn llevรณ a un hombre a la ruina y le hizo vivir la