Set in Bangkok, the series highlights the city, using it as both a rich, dynamic backdrop as well as a character all its own. Hallinan discovered the city by accident, during a tour of Japan with an American symphony orchestra. In need of a break, he booked a trip to the nearest place in Southeast Asia that didn't require a visa. "A week later, I was in Bangkok, and I fell in love with it at first sight, just as Poke does." At first Bangkok was a strange mix of the unexpected and unsurprising, a vast maze of mystery and delight. Tim describes his early forays through the city leaving him perpetually lost and perpetually delighted about being lost. Now, years later, Bangkok is more familiar, more comprehensible. And yet, Tim says, "...as a subject, as an environment for fiction, it's inexhaustibly exotic, inexhaustibly fascinating, and still, even in the 21st century, the big city that takes itself least seriously of all the ones I know."

Tim spends half of each year in southeast Asia, writing, researching, drinking in the region. He writes everyday. "I firmly believe that the only time the world of a book truly opens itself to me is when I enter it daily," he says, "and for hours at a time." He works seven days a week, anywhere from three to six hours a day, targeting a minimum word count. "And when I get into trouble, I increase my word count, because the only way I know to get through a problem is to write myself through it." Tim works without outlines, with no sense of where things are going to go or how the story will end. "What comes to me at the beginning of writing a book is a character in a situation that I think is interesting, and I fool around with that on paper, just sort of free-form, and see what emerges." From there, he builds the story in layers, shaping a sense of place, adding characters and laying the foundation for scenes and situations. Tim doesn't plot ahead of time because he believes, "plot is what characters do, and I need to let my characters do it so they can create the plot."

With a previous acclaimed series -- featuring LA private eye Simeon Grist -- to his credit, Hallinan he says he looks forward to writing about Poke, Rose and Miaow for the rest of his life. He's currently at work on book three, tentatively titled Misdirection. He's excited about seeing the family grow and experience the trials all families face, to experiencing Miaow's teen years and beyond. "I have no idea who he'll be in five or ten years, and I'll feel cheated if I don't get to find out."

About his character, Tim says, "I gave Poke a bunch of the skills he would need to solve crimes and set him loose in a culture he half-understands (at best), and put him to work." The result is a breathtaking read that will open your eyes as much as it races your pulse.

The Fourth Watcher, the second in Tim Hallinan's Poke Rafferty series, will be available June 24, 2008 from William Morrow. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Southeast Asia. He is the author of six Los Angeles detective novels featuring Simeon Grist and the 2007 Poke Rafferty novel, A Nail Through the Heart.

Contributing editor Bill Cameron is an Oregon writer of mystery and suspense. His debut novel, LOST DOG , came out in 2007.