Something happened to author John Burdett out in the East.
He had written two solid but unremarkable thrillers, The Last Six Million Seconds and A Personal History of Thirst, taking advantage of his experience as a lawyer in Hong Kong as dramatic fodder. Just when he should have been exiled to the dusty stacks of used bookstores, he got a vision, and it was good.
Sonchai Jitpleecheep, the hero of Burdett's Bangkok 8, is one of the most innovative heroes to emerge in crime fiction in the last decade. Written in first-person - present tense, no less, and it's a good trick - the book chronicles the adventures of a police detective in District 8 of the Royal Thai Police. Far from the familiar territory of New York or Los Angeles, the steamy and corrupt world of Bangkok makes for rich and exciting territory for a crime novel, not least because its protagonist is such a character. Sonchai is a devout Buddhist, driven into the religion by a childhood sin and exiled by monks into the police force to make a statement and lead by example.
He had written two solid but unremarkable thrillers, The Last Six Million Seconds and A Personal History of Thirst, taking advantage of his experience as a lawyer in Hong Kong as dramatic fodder. Just when he should have been exiled to the dusty stacks of used bookstores, he got a vision, and it was good.
Sonchai Jitpleecheep, the hero of Burdett's Bangkok 8, is one of the most innovative heroes to emerge in crime fiction in the last decade. Written in first-person - present tense, no less, and it's a good trick - the book chronicles the adventures of a police detective in District 8 of the Royal Thai Police. Far from the familiar territory of New York or Los Angeles, the steamy and corrupt world of Bangkok makes for rich and exciting territory for a crime novel, not least because its protagonist is such a character. Sonchai is a devout Buddhist, driven into the religion by a childhood sin and exiled by monks into the police force to make a statement and lead by example.
Somewhere between then and now, the young detective has become an expert at walking the line between right and wrong. Somehow he stays on the right side of his borderline evil boss, Colonel Vikorn, who is embroiled in his own war with a military general, while making his best efforts if not to catch the bad guys, then at least to see that they find justice. His last tale, Bangkok 8, was the stuff of a psychedelic nightmare, as Sonchai tries to unravel the mystery of a CIA agent murdered by methamphetamine-crazed cobras that also took the life of his partner.
Bangkok Tattoo is no less strange and wonderful, starting as it does with the other fascinating character of the books, Sonchai's brothel-owning, entrepreneurial mother. She has gotten into bed, at least figuratively, with Colonel Vikorn in order to open up The Old Man's Club, a new establishment built specifically to cater to the farang, as Sonchai often mutters about the influx of foreigners and sex tourists, and serving up that most American of cocktails, Viagara.
Bangkok Tattoo is no less strange and wonderful, starting as it does with the other fascinating character of the books, Sonchai's brothel-owning, entrepreneurial mother. She has gotten into bed, at least figuratively, with Colonel Vikorn in order to open up The Old Man's Club, a new establishment built specifically to cater to the farang, as Sonchai often mutters about the influx of foreigners and sex tourists, and serving up that most American of cocktails, Viagara.
A dead farang with major stab wounds and his bits lopped off in the middle of The Old Man's Club is bad enough for business, but it gets worse. The foreigner appears, long after being disappeared by Sonchai and Vikorn, to be CIA, and the young detective has to now find Chayna, a mysterious and beautiful prostitute who has gone to ground at his instructions.
To make matters worse, his boss has concocted a flimsy cover-up involving Al Qaeda, hoping to shift blame for the agent's death to the most flammable of targets. To set up a decent distraction, Sonchai flies to the country's southern borders to meet with Mustafa, a religious warrior with both a passion for Islam and a keen sense of politics, and put off the attention of a couple of rogue CIA agents looking to make good for their buddy.
Upon his return, he also has to deal with his developing transvestite partner, a botched drug-running operation being used by Vikorn as part of his private war, and a developing affection for Chayna. Chayna has her own story as well, wrapped up in the heart of Sonchai's book, detailing her adventures in America with Mitch Taylor, the reluctant spook, and a mysterious Japanese tattooist on the run from the mob, who meets a very sticky end.
To make matters worse, his boss has concocted a flimsy cover-up involving Al Qaeda, hoping to shift blame for the agent's death to the most flammable of targets. To set up a decent distraction, Sonchai flies to the country's southern borders to meet with Mustafa, a religious warrior with both a passion for Islam and a keen sense of politics, and put off the attention of a couple of rogue CIA agents looking to make good for their buddy.
Upon his return, he also has to deal with his developing transvestite partner, a botched drug-running operation being used by Vikorn as part of his private war, and a developing affection for Chayna. Chayna has her own story as well, wrapped up in the heart of Sonchai's book, detailing her adventures in America with Mitch Taylor, the reluctant spook, and a mysterious Japanese tattooist on the run from the mob, who meets a very sticky end.
Sonchai's sordid tales are as hard to put down as heroin. Perhaps there are lessons to be learned in our learned cop's middle ground between ambition and excess.
"How like a farang to find a sweet spot in life and then ruin it by excess!" Burdett writes. "In the golden days of opium, a gentleman smoker would restrict himself to a couple of pipes a night and might live to be a hundred, contentedly carrying out his daily chores with the confidence that an exotic vacation from the mundane awaited him on his divan in the evening. (Buddha knows here you get the idea that the unvarnished monotony of the inventory-obsessed mind is normal and healthy, farang). No one thought the poppy was the answer to life's problems; everyone understood it as merely a break in the interminable workings of the mind; nobody expected to stay high all day."
Maybe Bangkok Tattoo isn't for the weak-minded and to expect such splendid writing all the time is too greedy but it sure makes for a break in the mundane. Buddha knows.
"How like a farang to find a sweet spot in life and then ruin it by excess!" Burdett writes. "In the golden days of opium, a gentleman smoker would restrict himself to a couple of pipes a night and might live to be a hundred, contentedly carrying out his daily chores with the confidence that an exotic vacation from the mundane awaited him on his divan in the evening. (Buddha knows here you get the idea that the unvarnished monotony of the inventory-obsessed mind is normal and healthy, farang). No one thought the poppy was the answer to life's problems; everyone understood it as merely a break in the interminable workings of the mind; nobody expected to stay high all day."
Maybe Bangkok Tattoo isn't for the weak-minded and to expect such splendid writing all the time is too greedy but it sure makes for a break in the mundane. Buddha knows.
