The Four Last Things (Simeon Grist Mystery)

by Timothy Hallinan

  Critical Acclaim for The Four Last Things

  “Terrific, well-crafted, thoroughly satisfying . . . updates Raymond Chandler's vision of life in Los Angeles through Grist's sardonic, often hilarious observations . . . leaves one looking forward to Hallinan's future endeavors.” (Los Angeles Herald-Tribune)

  “It's rare to find a first novel in the mystery genre that boasts a smoothly plotted story, crisp dialogue, and excellent characterizations . . . This exciting tale accomplishes all three . . . The book never falters, sustaining suspense and interest throughout . . . a sure winner.” (Booklist)

  Hallinan has a genuine ability to write effective prose, engaging repartee, sharp and witty characterizations . . . this laudable first effort could become a notable series.” (The Washington Post Book World)

  “Wonderful . . . you gotta love a novel that starts with the hard-drinking private eye sighing about the dame he's been following.” (West Coast Review of Books)

  “Hallinan neatly maximizes his gift for offbeat characters and clever pacing . . . Simeon Grist, the sleuth he created, is in a class by himself.” (Inside Books)

  BUY The Four Last Things on Kindle by clicking here.

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  Everything But the Squeal (Simeon Grist #2)

  Simeon Grist is a private eye and Los Angeles is his city. It's Raymond Chandler country, especially the parts Grist sees – like the dank underbelly that lies between Santa Monica and Hollywood Boulevards, where all the California dreaming is a nightmare. But beggars and private eyes can't be too choosy, and Grist is on a new case – one that leads him down the streets of LA and into the dead, dark places of a killer's heart.

  It starts off on Hollywood Boulevard, a street filled with runaways who quickly lose their innocence and sometimes their lives. Missing is a thirteen-year-old from Kansas, Aimee Sorrell, a/k/a Dorothy Gale, who didn't find Oz over this rainbow. In fact, from the Polaroids her mother got in the mail, Aimee found nothing less than hell – drugs, pornography, and sexual slavery. It is the not-so-pretty pictures, and especially the marks on the girl's body, that convince Grist to take the Sorrell case and to begin his search among the castoffs and criminals of an all-night diner, a 24-hour magnet for the displaced.

  But the trail soon leads him to the city morgue, where the kid on the slab isn't Aimee, but another runaway with the same kind of marks. Grist knows that there's more than a pedophile at work here. There's a child sex-for-sale ring that's proof positive of the human race's downhill slide into immorality and perversion. Grist's problem is finding out who's running the ring – and getting Aimee back before she's the next corpse in a refrigerated drawer.

  His solution is to enlist the aid of another teen, a pretty, middle-class kid named Jessica, who thinks fun is flirting with a coke dealer ten years too old for her. Jessica needs a lesson in reality, but Grist doesn't anticipate that taking her along might jeopardize both their lives. For Grist and Jessica are going to find out what happens to the lost children of America when they go looking for love in all the wrong places.

  Critical Acclaim for Everything But the Squeal

  “Squeal combines high-octane action, baroque violence, humor, and pathos in a self-assured manner that marks Mr. Hallinan as a capable practitioner of the private eye tale. (Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal)

  “. . . a grimly authentic portrait of L.A.'s sordid subculture.” (Robert Wade, The San Diego Union)

  “. . . a chilling portrait of what life holds for kids who lose their innocence too soon, and we couldn't have gotten through it if the author weren't so damned talented.” (Tom and Enid Schantz, The Purloined Letter)

  “There are two ways to explore the Hollywood underground: Drive over the hill and spend a few dangerous days walking Hollywood Boulevard, or read Everything But the Squeal, the second Simeon Grist novel by Timothy Hallinan. . . Grist bears watching: He may turn out to be a modern successor to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe.” (Kate Seago, Los Angeles Daily News)

  “Simeon Grist made his debut in The Four Last Things, and it was a smashing debut, as I reported in this space last August. There is apparently no sophomore jinx in the private eye trade, because Everything But the Squeal is even better than the first one.” (Dick Kleiner, The Desert Sun)

  “Get a copy of Everything But the Squeal, but be prepared to shut off the phone or fax machine; you won't want to brook any interruptions once you start it.” (Tom Hatten, KNX Radio, Los Angeles)

  “Everything But the Squeal is a riveting page-turner . . . the Simeon Grist books are something special.” (Jim Huang, The Drood Review)

  “. . . exciting and original . . . above all, a story with moral as well as mortal consequences. . . . They say that the second book in a suspense series is always the hardest to pull off, because a writer tends to use up all of his or her tricks bringing the characters to life. Hallinan, who seems to have a natural supply of imagination, is a remarkable exception.” (Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune)

  BUY Everything But The Squeal on Kindle by clicking here.

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  The Poke Rafferty Series

  A Nail Through the Heart (Poke Rafferty #1)

  The first of Timothy Hallinan's Bangkok thrillers introduces Bangkok-based Poke Rafferty, who went to Thailand to write a book and stayed to fall in love -- with the country and with the people, especially two of them. Now he's quit writing offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored, and instead is trying to assemble 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 another displaced child, 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’s plodding through dark and unfamiliar terrain--and everything and everyone he loves is in terrible danger. Hallinan's first Bangkok thriller won raves both here and in Asia.

  Critical Acclaim for A Nail Through the Heart

  “I *highly* recommend A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART, and anything else Hallinan has written.” - Charlaine Harris, Best-selling author of “True Blood.”

  From Publisher's 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)

  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

  Booksense.com (monthly pick): "This one of the best novels I have read in years, and it will be a true, long-lasting favorite."

  New York Times Bestselling author John Lescroart: "Don’t miss your chance to read A Nail Through the Heart before it starts winning all its awards….Every page shimmers with life and light. This is great stuff!”

  New York Times bestselling author T. Jefferson Parker: “A haunting novel…fast, bold, disturbing, and beautifully written. Hallinan is terrific.”

  www.reviewingtheevidence.com: :. . . a beautiful yet terrifying book that illustrates the humanity and hatred that people show to each other. This novel is well worth reading."

  Barnes & Noble.com: " To say that this is a must read or a page turner, would be a grave injustice. For these catch phrases are used far too often to be attached to a novel such as this. I highly recommend this novel and anxiously await the second in the series! Happy Reading!"

  BUY A Nail Through the Heart on Kindle by clicking here.

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  The Fourth Watcher (Poke Rafferty #2)

  Travel writer Poke Rafferty is ready to let go of his "Looking for Trouble" series of travel books and settle down in Bangkok with his fiancee, Rose, and his newly adopted daughter, Miaow. But trouble isn't ready to let go of Poke. Enter the one person Poke least wants to see in the entire world -- a person whose emotional hold over Poke is absolute. And with him comes a box of rubies, a wad of fraudulent identity papers and -- in pursuit of those things -- one of the most dangerous gangsters in China.

  Add to that Rose's innocent involvement in a North Korean counterfeiting operation and an off-the-tracks agent of the American Secret Service who's dying to put Poke behind bars, and Poke and his family find themselves in a complicated and potentially deadly situation. Getting them all out alive will take every skill Poke has.

  Critical Acclaim for The Fourth Watcher

  *From Publisher's Weekly:

  STARRED REVIEW. In Hallinan's stellar sequel to A Nail Through the Heart, travel writer and sometime detective Poke Rafferty is researching the dangerous side of Bangkok for a book when he, his ex-prostitute girlfriend, Rose, and their adopted daughter, Miaow, run afoul of a U.S. Secret Service agent who accuses Rose of passing counterfeit money. The Secret Service is concerned, Poke learns, that the North Koreans have been flooding the world with billions of dollars of fake currency. Poke is then abducted by the beautiful Ming Li, who takes him to his despised father, Frank, who abandoned Poke and his mother many years before. When Frank's mortal enemy, Colonel Chu, turns up, it's clear that things are going to hell very quickly, and Poke and his beloved family are not going to escape unscathed. Smooth prose, appealing characters and a twisting action-filled plot make this thriller a standout. (July)

  “This new breed of character for a series is a welcome addition to the thriller fiction set in Asia.” (Japan Times, 2008 Best of Asia Books )

  “Hallinan offers a taut story line enhanced by an insider’s look at Thai culture. This book features an unlikely but likeable hero and provides readers with an informed glimpse into a world they are not likely to experience otherwise.” (Kirkus Reviews )

  “A stunning follow-up to A Nail Through the Heart. It’s filled with mystery and suspense—as well as a healthy dose of heart—and it’s artfully painted in varying shades of gray. Beautifully written yet satisfyingly seedy, it’s a must-read for mystery enthusiasts and literary types alike.” (Nightsandweekends.com )

  “Call me a sucker for thrillers set in exotic foreign locales. Guilty as charged; please let me serve out my sentence in the Thailand depicted by Timothy Hallinan in his wickedly atmospheric new work, The Fourth Watcher.” (BookPage )

  BUY The Fourth Watcher on Kindle by clicking here.

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  Breathing Water (Poke Rafferty #3)

  When Poke Rafferty wins, in a late-night, alcohol-fueled poker game, the right to write the biography of an eccentric and mysterious Thai billionaire, he has no idea what's in store. Within 24 hours, the lives of his family are threatened if he writes the book, and two hours after that, the lives of his family are threatened if he doesn't write the book. As Poke tries to pick his way through the minefield, it becomes apparent that he's a pawn in a battle between some of the most powerful and unaccountable people in Thailand, and that his only real allies are some of the Kingdom's least powerful inhabitants -- beggars, runaways, and street children. The central question seems to be, can the small bring down the great? Poke's life, as well as those of Rose and Miaow, are riding on the answer.

  Critical Acclaim for Breathing Water

  “Cleverly crafted, masterfully written, characters and dialogue rooted in reality, BREATHING WATER offers fascinating insights into the dark side of crime in another culture. Written with the authority of one who knows life on the hard edge in southeast Asia. Another wonderful read from an author who knows his business.” (Steve Martini, New York Times bestselling author of Shadow of Power and Compelling Evidence)

  “BREATHING WATER is as brilliant a piece of crime fiction as I’ve had the pleasure of reading, from the clean prose of the author to Poke Rafferty’s noir humor, and the richness of the Thai landscape.” (www.gumshoereview.com )

  From Publisher's Weekly: 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. 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.)

  BUY Breathing Water on Kindle by clicking here.

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  The Queen of Patpong (Poke Rafferty # 4 -- pub date August 17, 2010)

  For American travel-writer Poke Rafferty, life finally seems to hold some semblance of stability. He and his long-time love, Rose, have gone through with their much-deferred marriage ceremony, their adopted daughter, Miaow, a former street child, has become a loving--if sometimes difficult--part of the family, and the three of them live in relative comfort thanks to Rose’s housekeeping business and Poke’s writing.

  Then a nightmare figure from Rose’s time as a Patpong dancer barges into their world, shattering the peace they’ve worked so hard to create. His appearance threatens everything they cherish: their love, their home…their very lives. As a foreigner who's seen some of the worst Bangkok has to offer and survived confrontations with the Thailand’s most powerful, most dangerous elements, Poke feels equal to most of the challenges Bangkok can throw at him. But now, his only hope is to discover the whole truth of Rose’s past--a journey down the dark and twisting road that turned a shy, awkward village teenager into the queen of Asia's most lurid red-light street: Patpong Road. And, just when Poke thought life was looking good, reality comes crashing in as he learns that the secrets from Rose’s former life are almost impossible to accept--and even harder to survive.

  The Queen of Patpong is a horrifying, heart-breaking, electrifying story of peril, love, and, ultimately, redemption in modern-day Thailand, and the most ambitio
us, affecting novel yet from thriller master Timothy Hallinan.

  Advance Critical Acclaim for The Queen of Patpong

  *The Queen of Patpong - Booklist Starred Review

  “Life in Bangkok is good for writer Poke Rafferty and his unlikely family. Poke’s new book is selling well, and he’s happily in love with wife Rose, once a Patpong bar girl. Daughter Miaow, just a few years removed from living on the streets, is enrolled in a good private school and becoming a feisty preadolescent. But their contentment is upended by Howard Horner, a dangerous man from Rose’s past.