John Burdett

Mystery of the month

I pity any Mystery of the Month contender who has to go up against John
Burdett; it is almost as if they should consider releasing their books in a different
month. That’s not really the case, of course, but Burdett has both the chops
and the history to be a strong contender every time he turns out a new book, and
The Godfather of Kathmandu (Knopf, $25.95, 320 pages, ISBN 9780307263193) is
no exception. Thai policeman Sonchai Jitpleecheep is back—this time in a tale
of murder, police corruption and wholesale drug transport, with all of South
Asia as the backdrop. It seems that Frank Charles, a onetime wunderkind of
Hollywood, has suffered a particularly ignominious death: someone has
disemboweled him, sawed off the top of his skull, and made a light lunch of his
frontal lobes. Even by the creatively macabre Thai murder standards related
by Jitpleecheep in his earlier adventures, this falls well beyond the pale.

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