The Fear Artist - A Poke Rafferty Thriller

Zusatztext 84044183 Informationen zum Autor Timothy Hallinan Klappentext "Edgar-finalist Hallinan's heartrending, unforgettable fifth Poke Rafferty thriller" (Publishers Weekly starred review) set in Thailand comes to Soho Crime An accidental collision on a Bangkok sidewalk goes very wrong when the man who ran into Rafferty dies in his arms, but not before saying three words: Helen Eckersley. Cheyenne. Seconds later, the police arrive, denying that the man was shot. That night, Rafferty is interrogated by Thai secret agents who demand to know what the dead man said, but Rafferty can't remember. When he's finally released, Rafferty arrives home to find that his apartment has been ransacked. In the days that follow, he realizes he's under surveillance. The second time men in uniform show up at his door, he manages to escape the building and begins a new life as a fugitive. As he learns more about his situation, it becomes apparent that he's been caught on the margins of the war on terror, and that his opponent is a virtuoso artist whose medium is fear.Part One: In The Dark The Rules by Which I Live   Two two-gallon cans of paint weigh about five times as much as he’d thought they would.   Feeling as burdened as a prospector’s donkey, the wire handles of the cans cutting into his palms, he manages to pull open the door of the shop unaided. The door immediately swings shut on his chest, so he pushes it with his knee and edges through it sideways, left side first. One hundred percent of his attention is focused on not letting the door close on the can in his right hand.   Which means that when he steps onto the wet sidewalk with his back to the road, he’s too preoccupied to hear the people running. So he’s unprepared when the crowd suddenly floods past, going at top speed, and the very large man strikes him from behind.   Rafferty pitches forward at a diagonal and bounces off a couple of running men on the way down. He instinctively throws his hands in front of him to break his fall, then tries to yank them back again when he registers the dangling paint cans. He fails on all counts, landing on his elbows with bone-chipping force and allowing the cans to hit the pavement hard enough to burst open in two eruptions of color, Apricot Cream (Rose’s choice) and a sort of rotted eggplant called Urban Decay, which Miaow picked for her room.   The man who ran into him has come down on top of him, all the way to the pavement. Rafferty is trying to struggle out from under, his hands slipping on the apricot pavement, when he hears three sounds, like the crack of a bat in a stadium, and the man shudders as though he’s been shocked, then shudders again and rolls off Rafferty and into the paint, on his side.   His blue eyes, wide with surprise, look at Rafferty as though Rafferty is the most important question he’s ever been asked and he doesn’t know the answer. Rafferty pulls his head back for a better look, and the man opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a ragged tatter of air.   He’s a once-tough sixty-five or so, the planes of his face softened by the passage of years, wearing a T-shirt and a photographer’s vest over cargo shorts, both soaked from the rain. The chunky garments emphasize the thirty or thirty-five extra pounds that suggest he might be American or German. His fair, wet hair, vaguely military and brush-cut, all of an inch long, is in retreat from a high, balding forehead. For some reason what draws Rafferty’s attention, as people continue to run past, is that the skin on the top of the man’s head is crimson from sunburn. It’s been raining for days, but the man is sunburned.   Rafferty glances up the sloping road, sees that the running crowd is thinning, and says to the staring man, “I’ve got to get up. Are you okay?”   As he pulls himself to a sitting position, the wide eyes follow him and the mouth opens and closes noiselessly ...

Product details

• Authors: Timothy Hallinan, Hallinan Timothy
• Publisher: Soho Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 18.06.2013
• EAN: 9781616952556
• ISBN: 978-1-61695-255-6
• No. of pages: 368
• Dimensions: 127 mm x 191 mm x 23 mm
• Series: A Poke Rafferty Novel; A Poke Rafferty Novel
• Subject: Fiction > Suspense