At one point, Sonchai’s pregnant girlfriend, Chanya, offers
to watch the horrific video with him because she knows that it will
upset him, but he asks her not to and she acquiesces. “Neither of us
wants an argument, and Chanya has grown too used to serenity to squander
it on something trivial like a snuff movie.”

Interestingly enough, for a book filled with wall-to-wall sex, described
in detail, the book manages to avoid both titillation and grossness.
This is all down to Sonchai’s voice, the perspective that Burdett brings
to bear on the situations. It’s refreshingly honest and gives the book a
vital texture. You’ll never feel as if you’re suffering through an
obligatory “romantic” sex scene in one of Burdett’s novels.

‘Bangkok Haunts’ is a thriller propelled not only by a series of
mysterious events, natural and supernatural, but mostly by a voice that
you simply want to hear. As Sonchai dives in the circumstances that
brought the movie into being, the reader becomes equally invested in the
outcome. Burdett manages a denouement that lives up to all the trails
he’s been traveling, both in this world and the next. There’s a
particularly vivid and terrifying climax to this novel that will remain
in mind long after you close the covers. Fortunately, the best humor and
Burdett’s serene Buddhist point of view also stay close. You will indeed
be haunted.

Pages: 1 2 3 4