Fools' River — Timothy Hallinan

Timothy Hallinan returns us to the Bangkok of The Queen of Patpong and further lays bare the seediest industry in Thailand.

The two most difficult days in Bangkok writer Poke Rafferty's life begin with an emergency visit from Edward Dell, the almost-boyfriend of Poke's teenage daughter, Miaow. The boy's father, Buddy, a late-middle-aged womanizer who has moved to Bangkok for happy hunting, has disappeared, and money is being siphoned out of his bank and credit card accounts.

It soon becomes apparent that Buddy is in the hands of a pair of killers who prey on Bangkok's “sexpats”; when his accounts are empty, he'll be found, like a dozen others before him, floating facedown in a Bangkok canal with a weighted cast on his unbroken leg. His money is almost gone.

Over forty-eight frantic hours, Poke does everything he can to locate Buddy before it's too late.