When crime reporter Jimm Juree is forced to follow her family from Chiang Mai to a fishing village on the Gulf of Siam, she's convinced her career is over. Her journalism will surely dwindle to reports on the annual monsoon-induced floods, for what crimes could possibly happen in such an out-of-the-way place? A local palm oil plantation owner and his worker are excavating a well. They dig down six feet and hit metal. It turns out to be the roof of an old Volkswagen combi, which, once unearthed, is found to contain two skeletons - one of them wearing a hat. A monk is murdered in Lang Suan, the nearest town. There is apparently no motive for the killing and no suspects are found. But there are odd connections between this killing and several others. Suddenly Jimm's new life becomes somewhat more promising - and a great deal more dangerous.
Colin Cotterill was born in London and trained as a teacher and set off on a world tour that didn't ever come to an end. He worked as a Physical Education instructor in Israel, a primary school teacher in Australia, a counselor for educationally handicapped adults in the US, and a university lecturer in Japan. But the greater part of his latter years has been spent in Southeast Asia. Colin has taught and trained teachers in Thailand and on the Burmese border. He spent several years in Laos, initially with UNESCO and wrote and produced a forty-programme language teaching series; English By Accident, for Thai national television.
All the while, Colin continued with his two other passions; cartooning and writing. He contributed regular columns for the Bangkok Post but had little time to write. It wasn't until his work with trafficked children that he found himself sufficiently stimulated to put together his first novel, The Night Bastard (Suk's Editions. 2000).
Colin is married and lives in a fishing community on the Gulf of Siam with his wife, Jessi, and two very annoying dogs.
