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The Fear Artist is the fifth Poke Rafferty novel from Timothy Hallinan, with the American travel writer based in Bangkok pulled into a conspiracy that begins when a dying man stumbles into him on the street and whispers an incomplete sentence before being shot. The case unspools through Hallinan's carefully rendered Bangkok geography, with the threat coming from inside the Thai security apparatus and reaching back into the Vietnam War.
Hallinan's strength in The Fear Artist is the absolute commitment to the Bangkok setting. The city geography (the soi-side eateries, the sky-train choices, the specific neighborhoods' political histories) is rendered with the kind of insider attention that comes from a writer who has spent significant time there. The villain, an aging CIA black-operations contractor named Murphy, is one of the most genuinely terrifying antagonists in recent thriller fiction. Fans of John Burdett's Sonchai Jitpleecheep mysteries or Christopher G. Moore's Vincent Calvino novels will recognize the careful Bangkok-thriller tradition Hallinan is contributing to.
Poke's family (his wife Rose and his teenage adopted daughter Miaow) get extensive page time, and the family material is essential to the book's emotional weight.
Five stars. The Fear Artist Timothy Hallinan novel is the strongest Poke Rafferty entry. Recommended for readers of literary thriller fiction set in Asia. Read in series order from A Nail Through the Heart for full payoff.
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