Who knew that ?Bangkok 8? and ?Bangkok Tattoo? were just the warm-up acts? As vibrantly as those sizzling thrillers captured the exotic flavor of crime and corruption in Thailand?s capital city, John Burdett?s BANGKOK HAUNTS (Knopf, $24.95) opens up new avenues of awe. Continue Reading…

On my third visit to Thailand in as many months this past winter, a Thai friend greeted me on the phone with the words, “Ah, you’ve come back to paradise!” He was only half kidding. Continue Reading…

“Even emotional anguish is another misleading phenomenon,” Sonchai
Jitpleecheep tells us in John Burdett’s latest novel, ‘Bangkok Haunts’.
Alas, that level of awareness is beyond Sonchai himself, and he could
use some extra equipoise. Continue Reading…

Burdett’s first two Sonchai Jitpleecheep novels heralded the arrival of a distinctive new voice in crime fiction. His third effort goes further, building on the exquisite moral ambiguity implicit in both setting and hero with tighter plotting and, if possible, an even more potent mix of underworld seaminess, startling tenderness, and Buddhist wisdom . . . Burdett’s Bangkok may be the most vibrant landscape of any in current crime fiction, and Sonchai, an improbable mix of West and East, the fact-seeking investigator meets the tranquil Buddhist, at ease with contrary realities?is certainly the genre’s most intriguing sleuth.

At the start of Burdett’s superb third mystery-thriller to feature Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep (after Bangkok 8 and Bangkok Tattoo), Jitpleecheep shows old friend Kimberley Jones, an American FBI agent, a vicious snuff film he’s received depicting the murder of an ex-lover of his named Damrong. Jitpleecheep and Jones maintain their complex platonic relationship as, helped by Jitpleecheep’s assistant Lek, they pursue Damrong’s killers. The trail leads them to an important banker, an American teacher, a Buddhist and an exclusive men’s club called the Parthenon. Jitpleecheep, who now lives with Chanya, a former prostitute pregnant with his child, is visited in an erotic way by Damrong’s ghost, while his corrupt superior, police colonel Vikorn, orders Jitpleecheep to help start a porn film business. Expertly juggling elements that in lesser hands would become confused or hackneyed, Burdett has created a haunting, powerful story that transcends genre.”