The Queen of Patpong
A Poke Rafferty Mystery by Timothy Hallinan
Review: Travel writer Poke Rafferty's life is turned upside down when a man from his wife's past shows up unexpectedly, threatening his family, in The Queen of Patpong, the fourth mystery in this series by Timothy Hallinan.
As Poke, Rose, and their daughter Miaow are enjoying a meal in a restaurant, two men approach their table. Rose, frightened but also disturbed by their presence, takes a steak knife and stabs one who had introduced himself as Howard Horner in the hand. "This is how you say hi?" he asks, clearly nonplussed. Poke, furious but unsure what to do, turns to Rose after they leave, demanding to know who Horner is. "Someone I thought I'd killed," she replies. Poke later learns that Rose met Horner when she was a young woman dancing at the bars in Patpong, the "red light" district of Bangkok. He had promised to marry her but on a boating trip, she discovers his true self, and manages to turn the tables, shooting him in the process. He disappears beneath the water and Rose escapes, believing he's out of her life forever. Except he isn't, now returning to claim what he thought was once his … and his alone.
The Queen of Patpong is somewhat disappointing as a novel of suspense (or thriller) in that it isn't more than it is. The primary plot here has an interesting, compelling storyline, one that probably deserves to be told, but it isn't all that substantial and feels more like a subplot, that the overall book would have been more dynamic, more thrilling if you will, had there been a separate conflict between Poke and Howard Horner driving the action. Indeed, about half the book — the second of its three parts — is backstory, a historical perspective of Rose's journey from her small Thai village to the big city, written more along the lines of a research project than a work of fiction. To be sure, the characters and setting are strongly drawn, the narrative crisply delivered, the dialogue true — hallmarks of a really well-written novel. Still, despite the passion the author clearly feels about this topic, not all that much happens in The Queen of Patpong; calling it a "thriller" is stretching the term far beyond its generally accepted definition.
Acknowledgment: HarperCollins provided an ARC of The Queen of Patpong for this review.
Review Copyright © 2010 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author …
Breathing Water
William Morrow (Hardcover), August 2009
ISBN-13: 9780061672231; ISBN-10: 0061672238
Location(s) referenced in The Queen of Patpong: Bangkok, Thailand
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The Queen of Patpong by Timothy Hallinan
Publisher: William Morrow
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-06-167226-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-167226-2
Publication Date: September 2010
List Price: $24.99
Synopsis (from the publisher): For American travel writer Poke Rafferty, life finally seems to hold some semblance of stability. He and his longtime 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 Rafferty'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 obtain. 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 Thailand's most powerful and dangerous elements, Rafferty 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 Rafferty 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.