Maybe I'm getting jaded but I'm afraid this follows the usual plot lines, written like a summer action thriller movie. Hallinan writes well, but the bad guys are pure evil, and the good guys are invincible. There is lots of excitement but little mystery.

In the epilogue, the author refers the reader to the book "The Phoenix Program" by Douglas Valentine as a factual account. Critical reviews question that and refer to the more reliable "Stalking the Vietcong: Inside Operation Phoenix" by Stuart Herrington, which sounds like it may be worth reading.

The narration is excellent (5-stars), which helps. I've only read two in the Poke Rafferty series, but I think I've got all there is to get. ( )

I think Hallinan is a good writer but this wasn't that good of a book. The story went into doldrums where passing out bribes and laying low filled the pages before the eventual "high noon" with the bad guys. But I did finish it. ( )

I like Poke Rafferty a lot but what keeps me coming back is Hallinan's talent for telling a story much larger than the whodunit. In his Acknowledgement section he said that it was a hard book to write. I believe it because it was a tough one to read. It's a good page turning read but the larger story is a sad one. ( )

loved this book , really different and believable , will go & read the others in the series now , never heard of this author before though. ( )

"The Fear Artist" is the fifth in Tim Hallinan's Poke Rafferty series about an American ex-pat living in Bangkok where adventure finds him. I read the first two books in the series then gave up on it because they were too similar. The third book, "The Queen of Patpong" received an Edgar nomination - I am surprised. I went back to the series because I was looking for a break from my usual crime fiction reading - my mistake. Hallinan is an American who spends his time in California and Asia. Like the others in this series I have read, this book features prostitutes with a heart of gold, lots of criticism of things American particularly in those areas that are so important to a person of high morals and values like Hallinan, er I mean Rafferty. A few examples - the American political process, we "...vote out the president and his gang of robbers and vote in some other idiot and a bigger gang of robbers". And do you know what America smells like? "fabric softener and frying fat, mixed together". That's not even cute, much less perceptive or funny. Finally, a colleague of our hero exclaims that "American pipple all baby". That's Russian for "The American people are all babies". Poke does not respond to this comment. And for me these asides were a drag on the story. What's the story about? Well, there's a bad guy (American, of course, and by the way this story does take place in Bangkok) and apparently he is tied to a My Lai type incident roughly 35 years ago) and he's doing very evil things once again, possibly under contract to - guess who? yes, America. This is a thriller that I found not very thrilling. I doubt I will come back to the series. ( )