Tim Hallinan

I'm reading Tim Hallinan's first Poke Rafferty novel A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART, so I thought I'd do some research about the author. He has such a quirky sense of humour, which just comes through in the phrases he uses and the way the central character Poke Rafferty talks about himself, that he almost comes across as an Australian writer. His style certainly reminds me a lot of Kel Robertson. But Tim was born in California.

Some people will know of Tim as the author of Simon Grist series
http://www.ncteamericancollection.org/litmap/hallinan_tim_ca.htm
including
EVERYTHING BUT THE SQUEAL (1990)
INCINERATOR (1992)
THE MAN WITH NO TIME (1993)
THE BONE POLISHER (1995)

So I'm not going to tell you much aboutA NAIL THROUGH THE HEART here, except to say it is set in Bangkok where Poke appears to have been living for some time, and there is an Australian connection in the book.

In his writer's section Tim has this to say

A long time ago, something funny happened to me.

I thought I was a writer. I thought I was a writer because I had begun three novels over the course of a few years, noodling on each of them every time inspiration struck, which wasn’t often. (More about inspiration later.) But still, I thought of myself as a writer – all I had to do was finish one of those books.

And then my house burned down. Naturally, I had backups of all my unfinished novels, and naturally, they were all in the house. I had a life-changing revelation: If I had finished those books, they'd probably exist somewhere – in print, or at a publisher, or in a box in the garage. And then I had a second revelation: whatever I was, I wasn't a novelist, because I hadn't finished a novel.

So I made some notes on the book I remembered best, flew to Thailand, and wrote the whole thing in seven weeks. And it got me an agent, and then a three-book contract, which led to another three-book contract, etc. In other words, finishing the book turned me into a writer.

The end result of that journey was A NAIL IN THE HEART and now the second book in the series THE FOURTH WATCHER is about to be published. More later when hopefully I've finished ANTTH.

See for yourself: http://www.timothyhallinan.com/