A Nail Through the Heart : A Novel of Bangkok

Travel 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. An expat detective in Bangkok discovers the dark truths beneath the surface of his chosen home in this “fast, bold, and beautifully written” thriller (T. Jefferson Parker).Travel writer Poke Rafferty was good at looking for trouble—so good that he made a little money writing a few offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored. But that was before Bangkok stole his heart. Now the expat American is happily playing family with Rose, the former go-go dancer he wants to marry, and with Miaow, the wary street child he wants to adopt. But settling down won't be as easy as it seems...First, Poke takes in Miaow's friend, a troubled and terrifying street urchin named Superman. Then he agrees to help an Aussie woman find her missing uncle—and accepts an old woman's generous payment to find a blackmailing thief. Soon, these three seemingly disparate events begin to overlap, pulling Poke into dark, unfamiliar terrain. Poke soon comes to realize that he's been gliding across the surface of a culture he really doesn't understand—and that what he doesn't know is about to hurt him and everyone he loves. Finding himself embracing domestic life in Bangkok in spite of his love for adventurous travel, writer Poke Rafferty has his world thrown into turmoil by a troubled homeless youth, a distraught woman's missing uncle, and a blackmailing thief