- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0061672238
- ISBN-13: 978-0061672231
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 499 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #407,845 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hallinan hooks the reader from the first line,
By
This review is from: Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller (Hardcover)
BREATHING WATER is the third book in Timothy Hallinan's Poke Rafferty series set in Bangkok. In the book, Bangkok is as much a character in the story as it is the setting of it. In the first eight pages, the author brings to life the worst sins of Thailand, the sexual exploitation of children as well as the kidnapping of infants for sale to Americans and Europeans, desperate for what they have been denied. In the first eight pages, Hallinan grabs the reader and doesn't let go even when the story ends.
After a rigged poker game goes wrong, Poke Rafferty finds himself committed to writing the biography of Khun Pan, a fabulously rich and powerful self-made man from Issan, the most desperately poor region of Thailand. Poke's wife, Rose, is also from Isaan and to her, Pan is a hero because he has grabbed power from the people who have held it for generations. To others, Pan is an object of hate and fear and the biography has the potential to destroy more than a few lives and luxuries. Pan wants Poke to write a book about his life as he, the subject, sees it. But Poke is threatened immediately by people who want the biography written their way and by people who don't want it written at all. Soon Rose and their daughter, Miaow, are threatened and Poke has to find a way to protect the people he loves. Hallinan writes thrillers and the Bangkok series does not disappoint on that score. Hallinan also writes stories that tell about the best and the worst in human beings and about the human capacity to rise above the experiences that could destroy them. The Bangkok series doesn't disappoint on that score, either. Poke and Arthit, his closest friend and a high-ranking police officer, are decent men who want nothing more in their lives than to love their families and protect their friends from whatever might threaten them. They never fail at the first and, sometimes, the ability to do the second is taken out of their control. Poke is caught between opposing forces who will destroy his family if he doesn't follow their conflicting demands. Arthit tells Poke he is "...wandering around on the riverbed without a map, and breathing water. You just haven't realized it yet." There is a subtle difference between "breathing under water" and "breathing water". People have been breathing under water since they first put a hollow reed in their mouths and let the top rise just above the water line. But breathing water is impossible. When it happens when we forget to keep our mouths closed when we dive, our physical selves go into panic mode, driving us to get to the air so we can save our own lives. Forced into BREATHING WATER, Poke rises above the fear and is driven to save himself so he can save the people he loves and the people who need him.
5.0 out of 5 stars
breathing water,
By
This review is from: Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller (Hardcover)
for anyone with an interest in Asia (and specifically Thailand) and who enjoys thrilling novels, this one is tops; also read the author's (Timothy Hallinan) first 2 novels in the Poke Raffery series - you will not be disapointed
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.8 out of 5 stars (25 customer reviews) 20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another great one from Timothy Hallinan,
By T. Baker - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller (Hardcover)
I've read all of Timothy Hallinan's books, but have been really excited the last few years with his latest series featuring ex-pat and Bangkok resident Poke Rafferty. I've never been there, except through these novels. The third and newest, Breathing Water, is beautifully descriptive and evocative. There have been several Bangkok thrillers available, but none of them can place you in the Thai culture more definitively or more viscerally than Hallinan's.
In Breathing water, he has gone even further to describe Bangkok in all its beauty and ugliness; to explain it people in all their bravery and depravity; and to immerse the reader even more deeply in the taste and look of its food, the feel of its air as a character walks down a street or the sounds of its day to day activity. As an armchair reader, I was literally there. Just as he did in the first two Bangkok novels, Hallinan weaves his plots like a tapestry artist. In Breathing water, the Byzantine and corrupt nature of Thai politics and the evil of the child-brokerage business wind together to make a can't-put-down thriller in which the hero, Poke Rafferty, races to save not only himself, but his beloved wife and daughter. And, as the plots unfold and snake around one another, Hallinan expertly shows that, once again, Poke is a guy who can do what needs to be done and that the Thais do have hope of a better world where the "haves" are not always in control and where the many street children of Bangkok, though adrift and constatly in danger, are empowered and strong and triumphant. To me, all of this is filtered through Hallinan's great love for the Thai people and his belief in their goodness and strength. These are exciting, thrilling, yet moving novels. I think everyone should pick up the whole set (A Nail Through the Heart, The Fourth Watcher, Breathing Water) and take a trip to Thailand. It's certainly been my pleasure to do so. In fact, now that I think about it, I might just do it again. The novels are all so layered and rich, they deserve a second read. 8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
He's Done It Again,
By Eric Stone - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller (Hardcover)
This is yet another of the truly great books by Tim Hallinan. It's about so many different things - Bangkok, human relationships, families, politics, economics, among others - yet it weaves all those elements together seamlessly in service to an exciting story that keeps you reading at a torrid pace. I've spent a lot of time in Bangkok over the years and there is no other writer working who conveys as deep a sense and understanding of the place as Hallinan. He's also just plain got a way with words. He strings together sentences and phrases that regularly astonish and delight me. I'm looking forward to many more books to come.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Five Stars for Number Three,
By Suzanna Aguayo "Suzanna Aguayo" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller (Hardcover)
Tim Hallinan's "Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller," the third of the Poke Rafferty series, delivers another generous helping of complex holographic characters that range from deadly crooks, cops, and babies, to lost souls who inhabit a ghost world seen and understood only by the most compassionate young woman Hallinan has created to date. Hallinan crafts an upside down Bangkok where the powerful ostentatious and criminally rich are outwitted and overpowered by Poke and his band of least likely to succeed allies. Throughout this taut thriller Hallinan deftly weaves in a level of sensitivity and care just where it's needed. This book is a great read. I didn't want it to end and I look forward to the next one!
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