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Great “QUEEN” Review from Mystery Scene Magazine

October 8th, 2010

From the current issue:

Patpong, Bangkok’s most notorious district, is where Thailand’s infamous sex trade thrives. Poor girls from rural villages are lured there to become “bar girls” working solely to satisfy men’s sexual desires. Rose, one of those girls, is able to break free of the life when she marries Poke Rafferty, an American travel writer. With their adopted daughter Miaow they live a relatively quiet life, until one night a man from Rose’s past appears and shatters this existence by threatening to kill them all. It is up to Poke to stop him.

Hallinan writes action scenes as good as, if not better than, any thriller writer in the business today, and the beginning and ending of this exciting book belong to Poke. But it is the middle section, the heart, which grabs us and keeps us engrossed. Rose tells her story from the time she was a teenager in a poor village, through her “recruitment” as a bar girl, to her rise as the “Queen of Patpong,” where she meets Howard, a farong (foreigner). Rather than the hero she believes him to be, Howard is a serial killer who gets his kicks by murdering the girls he pursues. How Rose fights him off and escapes death is one of the most exciting, page turning episodes of this fast-paced book.

This is the fourth Poke Rafferty thriller and probably the best. Descriptions of the bar girls’ lives are beautifully and sympathetically done; depictions of village life is authentic yet depressing; action sequences are fast-paced and realistic; and the final face-off against Howard is edge-of-your-seat exciting. All in all, one hell of a fine book.




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8 Responses to “Great “QUEEN” Review from Mystery Scene Magazine”


  1. Beth Says:
    October 8th, 2010 at 4:40 pm

Every word is true. May I copy and paste?

  1. Timothy Hallinan Says:
    October 8th, 2010 at 7:15 pm

Thank you, and absolutely. You can carve it in stone and drop it on the New York Times, who didn’t see fit to review the book.

I love the last line.



  1. Beth Says:
    October 8th, 2010 at 7:49 pm

If THE QUEEN OF PATPONG makes it to the silver screen, that last scene with Howard will have people out of their seats cheering for the good gals.

There is nothing bad that can be said about the book. Every good review is no more than it should have.



  1. fairyhedgehog Says:
    October 9th, 2010 at 1:55 am

I can’t believe it’s better than Fourth Watcher and Breathing Water!

It’s a great review and I’m sure it’s deserved.



  1. Kari Wainwright Says:
    October 9th, 2010 at 6:57 am

I just finished getting caught up on your last three blog entries — sometimes I get behind.

First of all, congratulations on another great review!

But my main comment is on yesterdays’s blog (my mind keeps wanting to call them columns, as in newspapers of old). I sometimes experience writer’s block, especially mid-book, but never thought writing about just any ol’ thing would actually be of value.

Thanks for my inspiration of the week. I’m not currently bogged down, but if it happens again, I’m going to blog, essay, or simply rant–probably in private–but just to see what the action jolts out of me.

I especially wanted you to know that your comments did somebody a specific good after seeing some rather negative remarks on DorothyL.

As far as I’m concerned, keep blogging. And I really look forward to any fiction you put here as well. I’ve already got all the Bangkok books, although I haven’t finished them yet, and I’ve downloaded to my new Kindle your “older” works.

Now I’ll quit rambling and go check out the captcha for today.


  1. Kari Wainwright Says:
    October 9th, 2010 at 7:18 am

P.S.

Arrrgggghhhhh!

Please don’t take offense about my “just any ol’ thing” comment. I didn’t mean to imply that’s what you write.

Sometimes I wish there were a way to rewrite and polish e-mails and the like.

Now I’ll return to my life and try not to stick my foot (or typing fingers) in my mouth again today.


  1. Laren Bright Says:
    October 9th, 2010 at 7:43 am

Tim — One of the things I found most intriguing about Queen was how different it seemed from all the other books you’ve written. I’m still noodling on why that is and my current thought is that you’ve always said that characters are everything — if you don’t care about the characters then you don’t care about the story.

Usually you tell the characters’ stories as the story unfolds. In Queen, the character’s story is the story.

Interesting.


  1. Timothy Hallinan Says:
    October 9th, 2010 at 3:50 pm

Beth — the funny thing about the last scene in QUEEN is that it was born out of desperation. I originally thought Rose’s story would be about 5000 words and come early in the book, and the final struggle would happen back out on the rocks. But as it worked out, Rose’s struggle with Howard out there took place only about 25,000 words before the book’s ending and there was no way to get them back there that wouldn’t have seemed contrived. Also, the scene of Rose in the water is the longest action scene I ever wrote, and I had pretty well used up the possibilities of the rocks. The final scenes came to me (like all good ideas) in the shower, about two weeks before I wrote them.

FHH — I don’t know whether it’s better, but it’s newer, and we always like the new one best. I sometimes think mothers feel the same way. My mother certainly favored my youngest brother. Would have scarred me for life if I were more sensitive.

Kari — “Just any ol’ thing” is precisely accurate. That’s the challenge: get up, drink a cup of coffee, grab the first half-assed idea that floats by, and see whether I can make anything interesting out of it. Sometimes, by accident, I get an idea that’s inherently interesting, but most of the time it’s a sort of nearsighted alchemy, turning base metals into fool’s gold — looks okay on first reading, but I wouldn’t want it in the Library of Congress. And there isn’t a person among us who wouldn’t give an inch of height to rewrite at least ONE e-mail.

Laren, that’s very perceptive, especially for a guy who only reads me for the reCaptchas. You’re exactly right: I followed Rose and the others through that whole section of the book. I didn’t plot it at all.


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