The Queen of Patpong
Poke Rafferty Thriller, No 4

By Timothy Hallinan

        In the previous 4 books featuring Poke Rafferrty the reader was introduced to Poke an American travel writer, his girlfriend Rose a former dancer in the Bangkok sex trade, and Miaow a young street orphan that they have rescued and adopted.
In “The Queen of Patpong” Poke and Rose have finally married and Miaow has settled into a normal life and is attending a private school. All is well and settled in their life.

The trouble arrives in the form of an American named Howard Horner, a rather sinister ghost from Rose’s past. In order to combat this sinister threat Poke must dig into Rose’s past. A past that is seamy, sordid, and most horrid but a past that has been repeated many, many times in Bangkok.

As a young farm girl, Roses poor family, namely her father, chooses to sell her into sexual slavery. Rose runs away from home and chooses to work the area of Patpong where the sex trade is strong. The American Howard Horner shows up and seems to offer her romance, but what he has in mind is much darker and lurid.

To save his family and lifestyle Poke must dig to the bottom of this and find out why Howard has returned now.

Timothy Halliman has been much lauded by reviewers for his earlier works. This was my first foray into the land of Poke and Bangkok and I must say I see what the hoopla was all about.

“The Queen of Patpong” is a terrific page turner set in a beautiful, but dangerous, foreign land with interesting characters that you can not help but root for. I must now go in search of the previous 3 books.