Timothy Hallinan
Timothy Hallinan is an American author born in 1945 who has built a distinguished career writing crime fiction set in Southeast Asia and Los Angeles. After working in the television industry as a writer and producer, Hallinan began publishing crime novels that drew on his extensive travels and his deep affection for the cultures of Thailand and the American city where he has long been based. His dual careers in television and fiction writing have given him an exceptional sense of narrative structure and a gift for dialogue that enlivens every page of his fiction.
Hallinan is best known for two series running in parallel. The Poke Rafferty series, beginning with A Nail Through the Heart (2007), features an American travel writer living in Bangkok with his Thai wife and their adopted street child. The books use Bangkok’s teeming, contradictory urban landscape as the setting for mysteries that explore themes of family, belonging, and the hidden worlds beneath the city’s surface. The series has been praised for its warm characterization, its vivid sense of Bangkok’s geography and culture, and its emotionally engaging portrayal of a makeshift family navigating a complex world.
His second series features Junior Bender, a Los Angeles burglar who moonlights as a private investigator for the criminal underworld — cases where his clients cannot call the police. The Junior Bender series, beginning with Crashed (2012), is a more explicitly comic enterprise, featuring a witty, self-aware protagonist navigating the absurdities of LA’s criminal ecosystem. The books have been praised for their sharp humor, their inventive plotting, and the warmth underlying their dark comedy.
Hallinan has also written a standalone historical thriller series set in 1960s Bangkok. Across all his work, he demonstrates an exceptional ability to evoke place and to find the humor and humanity within dangerous situations. He has been recognized with multiple award nominations, including the Edgar Award, and is regarded as one of the most versatile and accomplished American crime writers working today.
