John Burdett, Bangkok 8
Featured Book
The first volume in Burdett’s quartet about municipal detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is a trippy, tragi-comic ride, as chilly and caffeinated as a Thai iced tea. Sonchai is a mess of contradictions: a half-farang (white) devout Buddhist who was raised by a prostitute mother; the only honest cop left in Bangkok, and yet still very much in the thrall of his crooked boss; a stoner with a precise eye for detail. Burdett takes full advantage of his tropical, gritty setting. Sonchai’s meals, motorbike rides and hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold pals are so richly and wittily written that by the time our hero’s solved his crime you’ll feel as if you’ve spent a lost weekend in the Far East.
