The Queen of Patpong, by Timothy Hallinan, $24.99
This fourth of the author’s Poke Rafferty books about an American travel writer living in Bangkok is the most moving yet in an exceptional series. It’s the story of Rose, the resilient former bar girl whom Poke has married and with whom he has adopted a former street child, Miaow.
The three of them are having a quiet dinner out one night when they’re accosted by a thoroughly evil figure from Rose’s past, a man she thought she had killed in her former life, and from then on, the book is all hers.
As a teenager, Rose was about to be sold into a life of prostitution by her own father (a not uncommon practice in impoverished Thai villages) when she was recruited to work as a dancer in the Patpong red-light district of Bangkok. It turns out to be a life where she has few choices and not much of a future, but she does have the friendship and camaraderie of other young women who, like her, have been coerced into the sex trade. She also has the misfortune to meet up with a psychopathic killer.
How she escapes from him, with Poke’s help, of course, makes for a nail-bitingly suspenseful story, but it’s the author’s sensitive portrayal of the bar-girl culture of Bangkok (based on interviews with more than 30 former bar girls) that makes the book — that and a delightful subplot involving Miaow’s portrayal of Ariel in a production of “The Tempest” at her school.
Like its predecessors, “The Queen of Patpong” is a thriller with a heart, as well as a haunting and insightful portrait of a strong and courageous woman who manages to escape her destiny and help others to do the same.
Royal Blood, by Rhys Bowen, $24.95
We admit it — we’re hooked on this artfully frivolous series in which a very minor royal, Lady Georgianna Rannoch, valiantly tries to live on her own in 1930s London rather than in her brother Binky’s gloomy castle in the Scottish Highlands.
Near penniless, she even makes do without a maid, although this presents a problem when she’s directed by the queen herself to represent the royal family at a gala wedding in rural Transylvania.
She manages to latch on to Queenie, a true diamond in the rough who tends to call Georgie “Miss” instead of “Your Ladyship” and laces her conversation with Cockney slang. But she’s a game girl, who puts up with foreign travel, food, and people without complaining, and Georgie grows oddly fond of her during their visit.
Also on hand is her boyfriend, Darcy, and perhaps the occasional vampire — after all, the castle is the ancestral home of Vlad the Impaler — and of course there’s a murder and a snowstorm that cuts the castle off from the outside world. And underlying all the fun are some knowing insights into class divisions in England between the wars and the changing role of women in society.
Rag and Bone, by James R. Benn, $25
Billy Boyle is back, and this time the brash kid from Southie is asked by his Uncle Ike to look into the murder of a Soviet diplomat who has been executed in a manner chillingly reminiscent of the slaughter of 20,000 Polish officers at Katyn Forest. Now a second lieutenant, Billy still has the instincts of the Irish cop that he was back in Boston, and he navigates a world of spies, gangsters and army brass with his usual aplomb.
What makes this series unique among other thrillers set during World War II is Billy himself. Picture a young Van Johnson in uniform, cocky, dogged, loyal, just an ordinary GI who is often out of his element, but determined to soldier on as best he can. This time Billy is in 1943 London, right in the thick of things, when German bombs start raining down on the city. He seeks shelter in the Underground, where entire families have set up more or less permanent housekeeping.
Those scenes, and others depicting the nightly blackouts, bombed-out buildings, and thick toxic fogs that made getting around the city nearly impossible, are particularly effective as seen through Billy’s wondering eyes. And the complicated relationship between the Soviets, the Poles, and the Western Allies affects him directly, as his best friend is a Polish army officer in exile who has nothing more hopeful to look forward to than the eventual liberation of his country from the Nazis by the Soviets — from one totalitarian regime to another.
Tom and Enid Schantz are freelancers who write regularly about new mysteries.
