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.
Charles? passport contains an inordinate number of visas for Nepal, which raises
eyebrows at police headquarters, since much of the drug trade is funneled
through Kathmandu en route to Southeast Asia and then the West. This is a
fact not lost on corrupt Colonel Vikorn, Jitpleecheep?s boss, who has made
himself a millionaire many times over thanks to the insatiable Western appetite
for opiates of every stripe. Three new characters introduce an exotic spiciness
to the mix: Norbu Tietsin, an exiled Tibetan lama with a couple of very
non-lamalike habits; ?Mad? Doctor Moi, an aristocratic Thai woman with a troika
of departed husbands, all of whom met with questionable fates; and Tara, a
Tantric nun schooled in the art of, um, transcendent earthly delights, which she
is only too eager to demonstrate to Comrade Jitpleecheep.
There is way too much going on to give you even a broad-strokes
idea in 300 words, so let me just say: pick up The Godfather of Kathmandu the
day it hits the stands, and block out several hours to read it in one sitting. Once
you start, you won?t get anything else done until you finish it.

BRUCE TIERNEY www.bookpage.com