A Nail Through the Heart: A Novel of Bangkok
Timothy HallinanTravel writer Poke Rafferty is good at looking for trouble -- so good that he makes a little money writing a few offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored. His Looking for Trouble series is for travelers obsessed with the unusual: how to beat official foreign exchange rates: how to spot fake amber or counterfeit money: how much to bribe a cop; how to identify a transvestite before it's too late; and how to know, within an hour of arriving in a strange city, where to find the best bars, the best food, the best clothes, and the dodgiest entertainment at the best prices. Then Rafferty falls in love with Rose, an ex-Patpong Road bar girl, and he badly wants to be a part of her new life. Both Rose and Bangkok itself have stolen his heart. To complete his new family, Rafferty is in the process of adopting a wary eight-year-old street child -- one of the many casualties of Thailand's poverty -- when trouble comes looking for him.