TheHot Countries can be
characterized as the story of the Expat Bar, one of Poke's hangouts
populated by an odd assortment of former spies and military
adventurers who've settled in Bangkok, each for their own reasons.
This assorted group of men, each of whom has his own story,
congregates for long days and nights of reminiscing, bragging, lying,
drinking and lonliness. Poke drops into the Expat Bar from
time-to-time to hear their stories and sometimes seek their insights
into his own experiences living in Bangkok. In a sense, each man
represents the ends which could possibly be Poke if he were to lose
his own way as they have lost theirs. The book achieves a new tone, a
variation in color, pace, and tone, which approaches the elegeic as
it examines the lost lives of these men living in the past looking
forward to not much.
Poke
is primarily focused, as The
Hot Countries opens, with
his adopted daughter Miaow's upcoming performance as Julie in the
play “New Town,” a thinly disguised version of Thornton Wilder's
great play “Our Town,” whose tone, also, serves as an elegy for a
world that sadly no longer exists except in our imaginations, much as
life in the Expat Bar focuses on the past, too. The story of the
production of the play stands in counterpoint to the drama growing
out of events as they develop in the Expat Bar, where a mysterious,
sinister character has appeared, expressing particular interest in
Poke. It appears the this addition to the cast, Varney, desperately
is seeking Treasure, the daughter of Murphy, the villain of The
Fear Artist. Unlike other
entries in the Poke Rafferty series, this book requires (or at least
is vastly enhanced by) a knowledge of the events of the previous two
books, especially The Fear Artist,
in order to fully understand the horror that Varney's appearance and
interest in Treasure evokes. Meanwhile, the story of the scarred
lives and diminished capacity of the inhabitants of the Expat bar is
examined and highlighted, creating an interesting picture, while
diminishing the sense of heart-stopping drive often found in Hallinan
novels. This characteristic emerges less as a problem for the novel
than a change in tone demanded by the nature of the Expat Bar and its
inhabitants. Poke engages these dissolute men to assist him in
identifying, finding, and defeating Varney.
Tim Hallinan's
writing, whether located in Bangkok, as in the Poke Rafferty series,
or in Los Angeles, as it is in the Junior Bender series, is
characterized by a palpable sense of place and the power of the
family for good or ill. He writes lingering descriptive passages
setting scenes with a strong sensual appeal, capturing the sights,
sounds, and even the smells of often not so pleasant settings. His
description of Boo (the former street kid now helping Father Bill
(yet to be extensively profiled) as he leads Treasure, Miaow, and
Challee through a dark, tight escape route to a hidee hole provides a
touch of palpable fear and horror. Similarly, his trip inside the
muddled mind of Expat Bar inhabitant, Wallace, as he seeks to
reconstruct the long lost Yah, the love of his life, and Ernie, a
former companion, now dead, captures loss and confusion with
agonizing craft. Hallinan lingers, takes the time, to build his
environment, enhancing the effectiveness of the tales. Meanwhile,
there appear to be plenty of other ongoing characters to continue
fueling his portrait of Bangkok and Poke Rafferty's eventful life
there.
Hallinan currently
belongs in a cohort of writers whose work expands his output beyond
genre. His novels approach the quality of former genre writers like
Dennis Lahane and George Pelecanos, each of whom began writing simple
detective fiction which has expanded into serious novels. At present,
Hallinan is creating two vastly interesting characters. I look
forward to the next step, where he takes on a bigger subject in a
single novel form to create a fine novel. In a thoughtful, and
generous, note to me, Tim Hallinan described his first trip to
Bankok, when, largely by accident, he discovered himself lodged in
the midst of the city's famous sex trade district, only learn of the
the basic honesty and generosity of many who earned their living
there. Poke emerged as a way to tell the story of the city while
capturing Hallinan's core issues of family, horror at child
exploitation and public corruption, within a culture of beautiful,
complex people. He has lived a portion of his life there since the
early 1980's.
Timothy Hallinan
Timothy Hallinan's
writing is characterized by an almost filmic quality of visual and
other sensory stimulation. His writing depends on careful character
building and seemingly authentic settings and situations. A reader
may happily sink into the environment of Bangkok, with its take out
food, it's foul weather, heat, humidity, and lurid lusciousness each
time a Hallinan book is opened. This quality apparently grows from
his early professional experiences in advertising, public relations,
with major artists in the film industry. Eventually, he chose to
write novels rather than scripts, a great gift to readers.
The
Hot Countries by Timothy
Hallinan ( Soho Press, 2015, 336 pages, $26.95/14.82) follows travel
writer Poke Rafferty's inter-related domestic and problem solving
life as he seeks to eliminate the harm that might come to the child
Treasure as a result of the destruction of Haskell Murphy in The
Fear Artist. With left over
material, including lots of cash, from the previous book, Hallinan
feels the need to finish the story while developing the characters
who inhabit the Expat Bar. The story goes into some dark places,
literally and figurative, including the often confused mind of
Wallace, one of its denizens. The tale takes its time before pulling
together a series of loose strands into a satisfying and engrossing
conclusion. Poke Rafferty still has plenty left in him to keep
pulling Hallinan readers back to Bangkok as they also anticipate the
next appearance of Junior Bender in Los Angeles. The book was
supplied to me by the publisher as an electronic galley through
Edelweiss, Above the
Treeline. I read it on my Kindle
app.
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