POKE RAFFERTY doesn't have your typical background for a private eye. He was a travel writer, and in fact, he's still a writer, at least part-time. Plus he's also got to be about the only gumshoe of Filipino-Irish heritage that I can think of.
Now he lives in Bangkok, with his ex-hooker girlfriend Rose and a young street kid Miaow whom they've more-or-less adopted.
There's some sharply observed local colour, and Poke's outsider-looking-in viewpoint doesn't pull any punches -- he puts you facedown right in the seediness. Fans of Christopher Moore's fellow Bangkok ex-pat eye Vinnie Calvino should get a kick out of this one.
Hallinan, a one-time partner in a Los Angeles public relations firm, previously wrote a well-received series about Los Angeles private eye Simeon Grist.
