Product Description

Poke Rafferty was writing offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored when Bangkok stole his heart. Now the American expat is assembling a new family with Rose, the former go-go dancer he wants to marry, and Miaow, the tiny, streetwise urchin he wants to adopt. But trouble in the guise of good intentions comes calling just when everything is beginning to work out. Poke agrees to take in Superman, Miaow's troubled and terrifying friend from the gutter. Then he agrees to help locate a distraught Aussie woman's missing uncle and accepts a generous payment to find a blackmailing thief. No longer gliding carelessly across the surface of a culture he doesn't really understand, suddenly Poke is plodding through dark and unfamiliar terrain—and everything and everyone he loves is in terrible danger.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #58957 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-01
• Released on: 2008-06-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780061257223
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Brutal torture and equally brutal empathy define this excellent, if sometimes familiar, thriller from Hallinan (The Bone Polisher). Poke Rafferty, a travel writer turned detective, intends to settle down in Bangkok with his ex-prostitute girlfriend, Rose, and a young urchin, Miaow, when Miaow brings her troubled friend Superman into the household. While dealing with this intrusion, Rafferty takes on dual sleuthing assignments to help pay for adopting Miaow. The first case involves finding Australian Claus Ulrich, a hardcore bondage aficionado. When Rafferty meets the powerful and rich Madame Wing while investigating Ulrich's disappearance, she offers him $30,000 to find an envelope and the Cambodian man who took it. The only catch? If Rafferty opens the envelope, he'll learn information about Madame Wing that will force her to kill him. Rafferty stumbles through the clues like the foreigner he is, always on the outside looking in. Despite an overly leisurely ending, the rich depictions of Bangkok's seedy side recall John Burdett's visceral mysteries. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The author of the 1990s Simeon Grist series returns with a compelling new protagonist: American travel writer Poke Rafferty, who is out to right some serious wrongs on the predatory streets of Bangkok. While attempting to adopt a homeless girl, rescue a potentially murderous urchin known as Superman, and build a lasting relationship with the former bar girl he loves, Poke is pulled into two brutal mysteries. One involves a notorious Khmer Rouge torturer, the other a series of child-porn photos. As he doggedly plumbs these ghastly depths, Rafferty matures from a play-it-as-it-lays layabout into a man willing to meet his lover's culture more than halfway and find his moral compass at a time when the victims can be as guilty as the murderers are innocent. The fact that the referenced pedophile photo series and Phnom Penh torture house both existed heightens the impact of a narrative that's already deeply felt. If this opens a new series, Hallinan is off to a surefooted start with a supporting cast (including Poke's precocious, pugnacious, almost-daughter Miaow) well worth getting to know. Sennett, Frank

Review
"A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART is a haunting novel that takes place way out on the fringe of the moral landscape. It's fast, bold, disturbing and beautifully written. Hallinan is terrific." -- -- T. Jefferson Parker

"Definitely worth a visit. Will keep you on the edge of your seat and clamoring for Hallinan’s next book." -- Montgomery Advertiser

"Don't miss your chance to read A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART before it starts winning all its awards. Timothy Hallinan deals in a profoundly serious way with important themes and terrible depravity, yet his touch is so sure, his humor so mordantly pungent, his dialogue so pitch-perfect, and his humanity and intelligence so self-evident that every page shimmers with life and light. Hallinan's is a writer's writer, and this is great stuff!" -- --John Lescroart

"Excellent. The rich depictions of Bangkok’s seedy side recall John Burdett’s visceral mysteries." -- Publishers Weekly

"Hallinan scores big-time with a fast-moving thriller set in Thailand. Vibrant, deftly drawn characters...well-crafted...and ultimately entertaining." -- -- Kirkus Reviews

"Vibrant, deftly drawn characters...well-crafted...and ultimately entertaining." -- Kirkus Reviews

“A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART is a haunting novel that takes place way out on the fringe of the moral landscape. It’s fast, bold, disturbing and beautifully written. Hallinan is terrific." -- — T. Jefferson Parker

“Don’t miss your chance to read A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART before it starts winning all its awards. Timothy Hallinan deals in a profoundly serious way with important themes and terrible depravity, yet his touch is so sure, his humor so mordantly pungent, his dialogue so pitch-perfect, and his humanity and intelligence so self-evident that every page shimmers with life and light. Hallinan’s is a writer’s writer, and this is great stuff!" -- —John Lescroart

“Hallinan scores big-time with a fast-moving thriller set in Thailand. Vibrant, deftly drawn characters...well-crafted...and ultimately entertaining." -- — Kirkus Reviews

Mystery writer Hallinan scores big-time with a fast-moving thriller set in Thailand. Poke Rafferty, the improbable product of a Filipino-Irish union, writes articles and niche travel books that provide him enough to live, if not well, at least better than the average Joe in Bangkok. The American expat wants to marry bar-girl-turned-businesswoman Rose, and he wants to adopt Miaow, the eight-yearold urchin he’s rescued from the streets. Then Poke’s old friend, a police officer named Arthit, sends him a young woman searching for her recently disappeared uncle. As Poke digs deeper into the uncle’s past, he finds evil that strikes a bit too close for comfort. Matters get even more complicated when he crosses paths with Madame Wing, a terrifying old woman who hires Poke to investigate a theft that has left at least one man dead, and with Miaow’s friend Superman, a scary street kid. They’re only two of the vibrant, deftly drawn characters who throng Hallinan’s exotic but believable landscape. His hero has both a gun and a conscience, as well as enough wit to do the math and come up with the right answer. Poke struggles with age-old questions of right and wrong in a very personal way as the well-crafted narrative moves quickly and convincingly toward a satisfying conclusion that almost guarantees a sequel. Dark, often funny and ultimately enthralling. -- Kirkus Reviews

Customer Reviews

A COMPELLING STORY

If you like a novel in an exotic setting with an affable, affecting, imperfect hero, spend some hours with A Nail Trhough the Heart. Author Hallinan has divided his time between California and southeast Asia for the past 20 years, thus his descriptions of Bangkok are vividly drawn, alive with authentic sights and sounds. His knowledge of the Thai people and respect for their culture ring throughout, which invites the reader to share his affection for this land.

As Hallinan has said there is a saying in Thailand, "gilding the Buddha's back." Temples throughout Thailand have large statues of Buddha covered in gold leaf. Purchased in small squares by believers, this gold leaf is pressed on the statue until it appears to be entirely covered in gold. If you look at the back of the statue, you will see that the back of it is as richly ornamented as the front. Gilding the Buddha's back means doing good in private, where it will not be noticed. Isn't that a moving thought? And, after relating this saying and its provenance Hallinan said that in treating Thai culture carefully in his book he hoped that he had in some small way gilded the Buddha's back. He has, indeed.

Our imperfect hero is Poke Rafferty, a travel writer, who has gone to Bangkok to write. He's penned a series of travel related pieces titled Looking for Trouble. Bangkok is where trouble finds him in the form of Rose, a former go-go girl with whom he falls in love, Miaow, an eight-year-old orphan who lived on the streets, and her friend, a rather frightening skinny street boy with the unlikely nickname of Superman. We learn how harsh life on the streets can be on the young.

It is Poke's hope to marry Rose and adopt Miaow. Problem is that Poke hasn't mastered the art of saying no. So, when a policeman seeks his help in finding a woman's uncle he agrees. This chase leads to a meeting with MadameWing who offers a substantial amount of money if he will help her find someone who stole from her. The money is too tempting - it would enable Poke to help Rose with her business and adopt Miaow.

However, all is not as it seems as Poke finds himself caught in a web of deceit.

Hallinan is an astute author drawing readers in with brilliantly crafted descriptions of places and personalities. As he describes a person's physical appearance, one is also given a glimpse of his or her emotional state. Although he describes Bangkok with respect, he doesn't diminish its darker side. Thus, A Nail Through the Heart is not always an easy read; it is a compelling one.

- Gail Cooke

Heart-Wrenchingly Beautiful
I have read every novel this author has written and loved them all, but with "A Nail Through the Heart," a Bangkok tale, Timothy Hallinan has hit a new level in his writing that is simply heart-wrenchingly beautiful. With a somber and poetic use of wit, metaphor and simile, this first story in Hallinan's new Poke Rafferty series is a doozy. All the characters are so clear. All of them have such depth. And thus, long after the book is finished, they still live in my head. And further, because the prose describing Bangkok is so sharp and detailed, I feel as though I was actually there, experiencing all its beauty and its degradation; all its humanity and its juggernaut evil; and all its fatalism and its hope. This is a great story about people and far-away places and how they survive, while still trying to do the right thing.

A Writer's Writer
Timothy Hallinan's "A Nail Through the Heart" is a powerfully written novel set in Bangkok, a city of both beauty and degradation, where the senses are assaulted by the blare of vehicle horns, the traffic, the rush of people, the smells, the heat of the day and the neon of the night. Here the face of evil is both banal and horrific, encompassing individual depravity and the inhumanity of the Khmer Rouge regime. It is a story concerned with love and evil that ultimately asks if love can be a redemptive force, even in the face of great evil. A remarkable novel and impossible to put down, it is disturbing, challenging and beautifully plotted and written. The horrors of the past, the realities of the present and the promises of the future are seamlessly interwoven. Hallinan is a writer's writer.