• Timothy Hallinan’s riveting Polk Rafferty series are the latest in a line of authors, including John Burdett, Alexander McCall Smith, Daniel Silva, and Alan Furst, whose popular thrillers are set in exotic locales.

For American expat travel-writer Poke Rafferty, a late-night poker game delivers an unexpected prize: the chance to write the biography of “Pan” Wattana, a controversial, vulgar, self-made billionaire with a shady past and far-reaching political ambitions. The win seems at first like a stroke of luck—but here, as in so many places in colorful, seductive Bangkok, the allure of appearances masks something much darker. Within 12 hours of folding his cards, Poke and his family—his fiancée Rose, and their adopted daughter Miaow—have become pawns in a political struggle among some of Thailand’s richest, most powerful, and most ruthless people.

The trouble multiplies when Superman, Miaow’s missing young street friend, reappears. He needs Poke’s help to protect an impoverished young girl trapped in a baby-selling ring. Trying to save them and his family, Poke finds himself at the collision point of powerful forces—forces that have shaped (and distorted) Thai life for decades. 

Set in the Thailand of today’s headlines—a nation where the future looks suddenly precarious—this is the story of a deadly game in which the stakes are enormous and life is literally cheap. The most compelling Poke Rafferty thriller yet, Breathing Water is a journey that takes the reader beyond the illusion of order and stability, into a world where a wrong turn can lead to chaos, and where love and courage may not be enough to hold back the darkness.