http://www.john-burdett.com Welcome to John's website Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:04:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en An American film producer on vacation in Thailand is found dead in a seedy hotel in Bangkok. Detectives Sukum and Sonchai Jitpleecheep, affable hero of the novel, of the Royal Thai police force are sent to investigate. From glancing around the room Sonchai is able to correctly deduce the manner ... http://www.john-burdett.com/2010/02/23/liffeyside-letters-from-dublin/ The Godfather of Kathmandu is a Tibetan Buddhist teaching for our time. Burdett's grasp of karma (so often simplified in Western interpretations) cuts to the bone. http://www.john-burdett.com/2010/02/15/burdetts-a-bodhisattva-wikio/ John Burdett’s Bangkok series first burst upon the crime reading world in 2003 with the publication of Bangkok 8. The fourth, The Godfather of Kathmandu,is now published in the UK (28 January 2010, Bantam Press, Transworld, £12.99).This remarkable quartet of crime novels, in which Western materialism comes face to face ... http://www.john-burdett.com/2010/02/08/amy-myers-catches-up-with-the-british-crime-novelist/   Many trace the modern crime thriller back to Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. A still more venerable ancestor would be Shakespeare's Macbeth. In both cases literary giants used acts of aggravated homicide to illustrate the most agonising dilemmas of their day. http://www.john-burdett.com/2010/02/04/burdett-godfather-of-kathmandu/ Thai detective serves up street-level riffs on contemporary Asia. John Burdett is writing the most exciting set of crime novels in the world. The four books featuring Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep demonstrate the enormous elasticity of the genre and how a talented writer can use it to discourse on just ... http://www.john-burdett.com/2010/02/04/jeff-baker-the-oregonian-the-godfather-of-kathmandu/ Sonchai Jitpleecheep, pot-smoking Bangkok cop, devout Buddhist and occasional crime abettor, begins his fourth adventure in one of the city’s most popular red light districts, where a wealthy American filmmaker has been murdered in the style of the Hannibal Lecter books on his shelf. http://www.john-burdett.com/2010/02/01/lynn-harnett-mostly-fiction-the-godfather-of-kathmandu/ Page 69 begins: “The victim’s name was Frank Charles. He owned a luxury condominium on Soi 8.” We are at the crime scene where a gigantic American lays disemboweled on a flop house bed with the top of his skull removed. The speaker is a colleague of Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, the ... http://www.john-burdett.com/2010/02/01/page-69-test-the-godfather-of-kathmandu/ John Burdett opens The Godfather of Kathmandu, his fourth book featuring Bangkok police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, with his conflicted Buddhist hero viewing the disemboweled and trepanned body of Hollywood director Frank Charles through a detached marijuana haze. http://www.john-burdett.com/2010/01/29/koch-the-godfather-of-kathmandu/  Readers of what might be termed John Burdett's Bangkok Trilogy - "Bangkok 8," "Bangkok Tattoo" and "Bangkok Haunts" - know that he is adept at getting under the skin of the eponymous Thai capital, where he makes his home. http://www.john-burdett.com/2010/01/18/rubin-godfather-of-kathmandu/ Jitpleecheep Rides Again Readers who are looking for some good news to start the New Year need look no further than Kathmandu. You'll find it proves to be a lot closer than you expected, since the newest novel by John Burdett, 'The Godfather of Kathmandu' (Alfred A. Knopf / Random House ... http://www.john-burdett.com/2010/01/18/kleffel-godfather-of-kathmandu/