I'm surprised to be reading a second series of Bangkok mystery thrillers. I'll see what I think when I get to the end of this one... And I liked it. Less outre than the John Burdett books, more straight ahead plotting and characters. I'll try one of his non Bangkok series next. ( )

Hallinan keeps getting better and better. A phenomenal entry in the Poke Rafferty series. Let's hope we see many more to come. ( )

More believable than previous books in the series. ( )

With the publication of The Hot Countries in October 2015, Timothy Hallinan’s Poke Rafferty series will be seven books long. The Queen of Patpong, which is the fourth Rafferty book, is one that I particularly like because it fills in Rose’s backstory so completely that it is easy to see how she became the strong woman that she is today.

Rose, a former Thai bar girl, by this point in the series is married to Poke and they are living rather comfortably and happily with Miaow, the little homeless girl they plucked off the streets and adopted as their own. As the book begins, Poke, who originally came to Thailand to write travel books, is already aware of much of Rose’s past but even he does not know how truly horrific her story is.

All of that suddenly changes, though, when a man Rose thought (and prayed) was long dead stops by her restaurant table to pay his compliments. Before that conversation ends, Rose has stabbed the man in the hand, Poke has been manhandled and humiliated, and the whole restaurant is in an uproar. But that’s only a taste of what the intruder has in mind for Rose, Poke, and Miaow. He has big plans for the family, and if he succeeds in carrying out those plans none of them will be around to talk about it when he’s all done.

Poke’s search for Horner (Rose’s nemesis) will take him to Patpong Road, the very heart of one of the most wide-open red-light districts in the world. This is a section of Bangkok both he and Rose know well. Rose, like so many young Thai women before her, escaped the dangers of life in her home village by signing on to work in one of the infamous bars in the district. And despite not having a real comprehension of the lifestyle she was signing on for, the statuesque Rose was such an eye catcher that, by the time she left the life, she could legitimately be called “The Queen of Patpong.”

Rose Rafferty’s story is typical of those of the thousands of young Asian women who get trapped in Thailand’s sex trade every year, and make no mistake about it, this industry is both as well organized and as corrupt as any crime syndicate in the world. Timothy Hallinan has done his research, and what he describes here is both fascinating and disturbing. Sadly, because it is sometimes the only means of escape from an even worse fate planned for them by their own families, there is no shortage of young women willing to try their luck on Patpong Road.

The Queen of Patpong, however, is much more than a primer on Thailand’s sex trade. It is also a very fine thriller about three or four characters readers have come to know – and love – over the length of the series. And I have to tell you…the ending of The Queen of Patpong is one of the most satisfying of its type I have experienced in a long, long time. ( )

This book showed up as a recommendation via LT. I was not impressed with the writing, with the huge gaping holes in the story-line and the sensationalist topic that offered no deeper insight into the plight of Thai children being sold into the sex trade industry than a Hollywood Tabloid. Even the author's disclaimer at the end of the book suggesting that MOST mercenaries are nice guys was, in my opinion, just more empty fodder to gain attention for this book. Poke's wife is a product of the sex trade - okay. All of a sudden a man from her past rises up like the devil himself, to terrorize her and the family. Rose repeatedly implies that Horner - the bad mercenary that's after her/them has limitless power and then proceeds to do nothing but stare out windows and smoke. Poke leaves Rose and their daughter alone numerous times while his wife is in extreme danger but as luck would have it, her chain smoking is never interrupted. Big bad Horner and his evil buddy do attack Poke and the daughter but they make short work of scaring Horner away and the buddy is crushed by a bus because he forgot that Thai's drive on the opposite side of the street than Americans. Now, the deep part - Rose/Kwan tells her superficial story of her evil father and how she is sold into the sex industry .... she didn't know how beautiful she was, she saved huge sums of money - where did that go, what's the point? Rose/Kwan just turned off being a prostitute and "love" transformed her into a pouty wife that operates a house cleaning business to further exploit the bar girls that she is able to pluck out of the business without any repercussions from the bar operators/mama-sans, in fact the mama-sans readily take up Rose/Kwan's "noble" cause and - oh, don't let me ruin the ending for anyone. If you loved the film "Pretty Woman" and hoped that a poor Thai version book would come out, then you're in luck. ( )