A Nail Through the Heart by Timothy Hallinan

Publisher: Wm. Morrow
ISBN: 978-0-06-125580-9
Genre: Thriller

If you like the Orient as a setting for adventure, mystery and thrills, you will enjoy A Nail Through the Heart and the family that travel writer, Poke Rafferty is trying to create with people that society pretends doesn't exist. Except for Poke, most of the people he knows in Bangkok struggle to survive by selling their bodies, anyone from near babies to girls working in bars or on the streets where a booming sex trade lures men who can pay for anything they want.

Poke is asked by a visiting woman to find her uncle who seems to have disappeared. Because he wants to build favors as credits with a police friend, he takes on the job. His investigation leads him to the home of a wealthy recluse who is greatly feared and into the darker side of human nature. The recluse hires him to retrieve stolen property. He must accept this job or else.

Talented author Timothy Hallinan introduces the reader to a subject little known or understood in a land where children and people are for sale for the pleasure of foreigners. Into this world the seeker of pleasure should beware of whom they trust.

I'm pleased to recommend this well-told tale with its deep understanding of human nature. This is the type of story that opens one's eyes to the need for laws in the world to protect the vulnerable while weaving several plots together to hold the reader's attention from beginning to end. Like me, you'll be looking for other books by this imaginative author. Enjoy. I sure did.

Anne K. Edwards