Sonchai Jitpleecheep is back! The Royal Thai Police Detective, our wily, sometimes madly bold guide through the author's previous acclaimed Bangkok novels, is this time on the trail of an American conspiracy, and once again-and closer than ever-on the trail of his American father.
Nobody knows Bangkok like Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, and there is no one quite like Sonchai: a police officer who has kept his Buddhist soul intact'more or less'despite the fact that his job shoves him face-to-face with some of the most vile and outrageous crimes and criminals in Bangkok. But for his newest assignment, everything he knows about his city'and himself'will be a mere starting point. He's put in charge of the highest-profile criminal case in Thailand'an attempt to bring an end to trafficking in human organs. He sets in motion a massive sting operation and stays at its center, traveling to Phuket, Hong Kong, Dubai, Shanghai, and Monte Carlo. He draws in a host of unwitting players that includes an aging rock star wearing out his second liver and the mysterious, diabolical, albeit gorgeous co-queenpins of the international body-parts trade: the Chinese twins known as the Vultures. And yet, it's closer to home that Sonchai will discover things getting really dicey: rumors will reach him suggesting that his ex-prostitute wife, Chanya, is having an affair. Will Sonchai be enlightened enough'forget Buddha, think jealous husband'to cope with his very own compromised and compromising world?
John Burdett writes darkly inventive fiction with a comic twist. In The Godfather of Kathmandu, Royal Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is called to a grisly murder scene that could make or break his career, but he's more worried about impressing Tietsin, his new Buddhist guru. However, Tietsin would rather use Sonchai to help him broker a heroin deal worth 40 million dollars. Left with no easy way out and plenty of moral conflict, Sonchai will have to decide between saving his soul and saving his career.
Critically acclaimed, nationally best-selling author John Burdett has earned starred reviews for the fast-paced action, snappy dialogue, and gritty realism of his thrilling tales starring Royal Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep. In this vibrant and witty novel, devout Buddhist Sonchai relies on his karma to guide him through the seamy underbelly of Bangkok as he pieces together the scattered clues of a complex mystery.
Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai Police returns in his riveting and smokily atmospheric new thriller.
A farang-a foreigner-has been murdered, his body horribly mutilated, at the Bangkok brothel co-owned by Sonchai's mother and his boss. The dead man was a CIA agent. To make matters worse, the apparent culprit is sweet-natured Chanya, the brothel's top earner and a woman whom the devoutly Buddhist sleuth has loved for several lifetimes.
How can Sonchai solve this crime without sending Chanya to prison? How can he engage in a cover-up without endangering his karma? And how will he ever get to the bottom of a case whose interested parties include American spooks, Muslim fundamentalists, and gangsters from three countries?
As addictive as opium, as hot as Sriracha chili sauce, and bursting with surprises, Bangkok Tattoo will leave its mark on you.
Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai Police returns in his riveting and smokily atmospheric new thriller.A farang -a foreigner -has been murdered, his body horribly mutilated, at the Bangkok brothel co-owned by Sonchais mother and his boss. The dead man was a CIA agent. To make matters worse, the apparent culprit is sweet-natured Chanya, the brothels top earner and a woman whom the devoutly Buddhist sleuth has loved for several lifetimes. How can Sonchai solve this crime without sending Chanya to prison? How can he engage in a cover-up without endangering his karma? And how will he ever get to the bottom of a case whose interested parties include American spooks, Muslim fundamentalists, and gangsters from three countries? As addictive as opium, as hot as Sriracha chili sauce, and bursting with surprises, Bangkok Tattoo will leave its mark on you.
Electrifying, darkly comic, razor-edged—a thriller unlike any other.
Under a Bangkok bridge, inside a bolted-shut Mercedes: a murder by snake—a charismatic African American Marine sergeant killed by a methamphetamine-stoked python and a swarm of stoned cobras.
Two cops—the only two in the city not on the take—arrive too late. Minutes later, only one is alive: Sonchai Jitpleecheep—a devout Buddhist, equally versed in the sacred and the profane—son of a long-gone Vietnam War G.I. and a Thai bar girl whose subsequent international clientele contributed richly to Sonchai’s sophistication.
Now, his partner dead, Sonchai is doubly compelled to find the murderer, to maneuver through the world he knows all to well—illicit drugs, prostitution, infinite corruption—and into a realm he has never before encountered: the moneyed underbelly of the city, where desire rules and the human body is no less custom-designable than a raw hunk of jade. And where Sonchai tracks the killer—and a predator of an even more sinister variety.
Thick with the authentic—and hallucinogenic—atmosphere of Bangkok, crowded with astonishing characters, uniquely smart and skeptical, literary and wildly readable, Bangkok 8 is one of a kind.
