A Man With No Time: A Simeon Grist Mystery [Hardcover]

Timothy Hallinan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1993

When two young children become the targets of a Chinatown kidnapping, hip, forty-something private eye Simeon Grist is forced to explore the hidden world of the Asian underground in the United States. 20,000 first printing. $15,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The trail of two missing Chinese children shouldn't lead to a slave market, and Simeon Grist should still be languishing somewhere in academia, not sleuthing his way through Los Angeles. Blunt wit and copious running gags have fueled this first-rate series ( Skin Deep , etc.), whose latest entry features a mostly Asian cast, including Grist's former lover Eleanor, whose brother's two children have been abducted. Horace, the father, promptly vanishes into Chinatown after them, and a beloved uncle gradually emerges as the chief suspect. The kids turn up later, but Horace is still AWOL. Simeon then stumbles into the world of Charlie Wah, who struggles with his English but more than masters the art of killing. Before long, Grist has saved a young Vietnamese boy (then gotten him blind drunk), enlisted a few other unsavory deadbeats and set forth to free a ship full of slaves, with one of the chief slavemasters looking more and more like Eleanor's aunt. The author's relentless quest for wit means that no opportunity for a smart-ass one-liner is ever willingly squandered, and some latitude is definitely required from the more single-minded clue-hunters, as well as from the squeamish, who may find Grist's first grisly encounter with Wah unnecessarily brutal. A not quite up-to-par addition to the Grist canon.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Hard-boiled Simeon Grist (Incinerator, etc.) now rushes in to help longtime love Eleanor Chan when her niece and nephew are kidnapped for what seem (to Grist) inscrutable Chinese reasons--but clearly the Chan family knows something and clearly it involves Uncle Lo, also missing. As Grist searches for the kids, he bumps into two separate illegal alien stories: one concerning Uncle Lo and aged Esther Summerson, a retired missionary; the other concerning work slaves indentured to the likes of sadist Charlie Wah. The kids are returned, but Grist has to find their dad, Horace, who's gone in search of Uncle Lo, thereby putting both himself and Grist in the path of various Chinese protection societies and Vietnamese thugs and Thai prostitutes. To break up the various slave rings, Grist puts together a black gang and, with split-second derring-do, waylays payoffs to the Chinese, liberates the slaves, and overcomes a spot of torture meant to cripple him. Memorable for a baby-faced Vietnamese assassin, a dateless teenager, a gruesome double murder, and Hallinan's droll depiction of the Asian communities warring in California. If you can handle the rough stuff: a lippy, fast-paced read. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (July 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688103448
• ISBN-13: 978-0688103446
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,078,298 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

2011 Edgar Nominee Timothy Hallinan has written ten published novels, all thrillers, all critically praised.

In the 1990s he wrote six mysteries featuring the erudite private eye Simeon Grist, beginning with "The Four Last Things," which made several Ten Best lists, including that of The Drood Review. The other books in the series were widely and well reviewed, and several of them were optioned for motion pictures. The series is now regarded as a cult favorite.

In 2007, the first of his Poke Rafferty Bangkok thrillers, "A Nail Through the Heart", was published to unanimously enthusiastic reviews. "Hallinan scores big-time," said Kirkus Reviews, which went on to call the book "dark, often funny, and ultimately enthralling." "Nail" was a Booksense Pick of the Month and was named one of the top mysteries of the year by The Japan Times and several major online review sites.

Rafferty's Bangkok adventures continued with "The Fourth Watcher" (2008) and "Breathing Water" (2009), both of which also appeared on "year's best" lists. New York Times bestselling author John Lescroart said about the 2010 book, "The Queen of Patpong," "You won't read a better thriller this year," and Ken Bruen said, "John Burdett writes about Bangkok. Tim Hallinan is Bangkok. I adore this book."

Hallinan has written full-time since 2006. Since 1982 he has divided his time between Los Angeles and Southeast Asia, the setting for his Poke Rafferty novels.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Loyalty to a fault, October 4, 2010

By 

E. Crowley (QUINCY, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Man With No Time: A Simeon Grist Mystery (Hardcover)

Simeon Grist is a man with so many degrees from institutes of higher learning that he can't decide on a career path. So he becomes a private investigator. Simeon is in love with Eleanor Chan and that means Simeon has to love her family, all of them, including Uncle Lo. Uncle Lo saved the family, carrying Eleanor out of China when she was two years-old. Uncle Lo's position in the family is fixed: whatever Lo wants the Chan family will jump to do. They are delighted when, unexpectedly, Lo arrives in Los Angeles. They don't ask the reason for his sudden trip. It has been a long time since they have seen him and it would be rude to question him about anything.

The family gathers at a restaurant for a meal in Lo's honor but at the last minute Lo decides not to come. Instead, he volunteers to stay at home with the four year-old twins, the children of Eleanor's brother, Horace, and his wife, Pansy. Pansy is happy and grateful to Uncle Lo that she has sometime without the children, at least until they arrive home and discover that Uncle Lo and the twins have disappeared. The apartment has been ransacked. On the door to the twins' room is a note: THEYRE OKAY. DON'T DO NOTHING. The hall closet door has been damaged: "I opened it and saw a surprisingly large and very dead Chinese man. He had a small mustache and wide empty eyes. He was no one I knew." Simeon closes the door fast.

The family and Simeon haven't absorbed this disaster when two new elements attack from the kitchen. Two young Asian men, little more than children, push their way into the apartment, each holding a gun that doesn't belong in the hands of kids. They are looking for Uncle Lo. Simeon manages to tie them up but they claim they are following orders and don't know who wants him. Did they accept Uncle Lo too quickly?

Then the story takes off. There are crooked lawyers, members of a Chinese gang, the leader of which wears custom-made silk suits in the colors of "Lifesavers", a woman missionary, a female boat captain, Dexter Smif, a friend of Simeon's, and his friends, the Doody brothers, all of whom are very large and very willing to help Simeon get back at the people who took, and then returned, the twins. There is some money laundering, and there is a great deal of money, and there is human trafficking in people who will be slaves when they get to the United States.

There is also a lot of brutality. Parts of the book are very dark because so many people have so little care for other human beings.

And there is laugh out-loud funny dialogue and scene descriptions. In the Poke Rafferty series, I have found that Tim Hallinan writes prose like poetry. In THE MAN WITH NO TIME, Hallinan writes prose as if it were dialogue and scene directions from a Marx Brothers movie.

I don't know what it says about my sense of humor, but I laughed every time I came across, "Hello, Lo", written into the dialogue. I won't spoil anyone's enjoyment by giving any hints about Horton Doody's appearance.

I read THE MAN WITH NO TIME when it was published in 1993. I remembered that it was funny; I had forgotten just how funny. If a reader thinks SHOOTERS AND CHASERS is funny, they'll think the same of THE MAN WITH NO TIME.