Street Music

March 15, 2020
Hallinan brings the Thailand-based adventures of expatriate travel writer Poke Rafferty (Fools' River, 2017, etc.) to a close with this ninth installment, which, like so many of the first eight, bears its readers back to a heart-rending past. Except for not sleeping more than two hours at a stretch, Rafferty's living his best life as the father of a new baby. The 2-week-old, named both Frank (after Rafferty's long-estranged father) and Arthit (after his old friend on the Bangkok police), is the subject of conversation everywhere Rafferty goes. Yet the plot seems determined to subordinate the baby and his mother, ex-Patpong dancer Rose, to the other members of his family. Rafferty himself is sucked into the disappearance of Vietnam veteran Bob Campeau, a barfly with whom he'd recently traded words and blows. And the hitherto blank-slate early years of his adopted daughter, Miaow, absorbed by her infatuation with her schoolmate Edward, who's to play Freddy Eynsford-Hill opposite her Eliza Doolittle in the school production of Pygmalion, turn out to be at the heart of Rafferty's stalking by Hom, a masseuse-and-more who's been bullied into the job by a shadowy figure she thinks of as the Sour Man. The connection between Hom and the unsuspecting Rafferty is unfolded in a painfully extended flashback that emerges as the heart of the story and, in some ways, of the series as a whole. Even fans accustomed to Hallinan's lurid, compassionate view of Bangkok may have to fight back tears.

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March 23, 2020
Edgar finalist Hallinan’s disappointing ninth and last thriller set in Thailand and featuring expat American writer Poke Rafferty (after 2017’s Fools’ River) finally addresses how Miaow, Poke’s adopted daughter, came to be abandoned and tied to a Bangkok bus bench, where he found her in 2007’s A Nail Through the Heart. But first much is made of Poke’s adjusting to being a biological father and teenage Miaow preparing to portray Eliza Doolittle in a school production of Pygmalion. A subplot about the disappearance of a friend, whose apartment is ominously filled with blood, goes nowhere. Well into the novel, Rafferty encounters Hom, “a filthy, ragged woman... crying her heart out,” who knows about Miaow’s past—and with whom Miaow has a predictable connection. Best are the sections told from Hom’s perspective, in which Hallinan sympathetically presents her desperate attempts to stay alive and her shame about the choices she has made. Atmosphere and character overwhelm the plot. Series fans will best appreciate this one. Agent: Bob Mecoy, Bob Mecoy Literary.

April 15, 2020
When Hallinan set out to write about Poke Rafferty, an American journalist living in Bangkok with his wife, Rose, a former prostitute, and his adopted daughter, Miaow, his goal?he tells us in the afterword to this concluding volume in the acclaimed series?was to drop a traditional family "into the world capital of instant gratification . . . . a friendly campfire in a world of cold neon." That fire has burned brightly through nine novels and never more so than in this powerful finale, which grafts Poke's search for an expat friend onto the story of Miaow's birth mother, Hom, and the opioid addiction that led her to abandon her child. Hom's backstory occupies the novel's middle section, and it's agonizing yet compelling reading?a vivid portrait of both the horrors of opioids and street life in Bangkok, just beyond the cold neon's glow. The focus on Hom doesn't give Hallinan much time to wrap up the expat's plotline, but readers won't care. This is a family story, above all, and the last scenes drive that point home with the perfect blend of sadness and joy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2020

Hallinan's ninth and final "Poke Rafferty" novel (after Fools' River) has Bangkok-based American journalist Poke, his Thai wife, Rose, and their adopted daughter, Miaow, adjusting to a new family member. Rose has just given birth to a son, and Poke's life is in disarray. He's been known for getting into some scrapes and doing a little detective work on the side, but now he faces the responsibilities of being a father and protecting his family. When his good friend vanishes, he tries to locate him and ends up running into his adopted daughter's birth mother. When she is murdered, Poke is a suspect, but then he tries to solve her murder. VERDICT This slow-paced, noir-style mystery can be read as a stand-alone, but newcomers will have a richer experience having read the previous books. Raw and atmospheric, this is a solid finale to the series.--Cynde Suite, Bartow Cty. Lib. Syst., Adairsville, GA

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