"Bangkok 8, John Burdett’s first novel starring detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, was seriously messed-up and good fun: there were girls, sex, drugs, guns, monks, forced sex-change operations, money-laundering, fine art, plenty of jade, and monks. (Oddly, though, what I remember most is Burdett’s brief but loving descriptions of Thai food.) Aside from being an enjoyable, hard-boiled read, it also offered a version of Bangkok that tourists hear about but never get to see, and in that way, was part of a generation of mystery books that allow us entrée into the underbellies of different countries that we as travelers aren’t exposed to (and probably don’t want exposure to anyway): think of the Sweden of the late Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, or the Japan of Natsuo Kirino’s Out, or even the Mexico of the late Roberto Bolano’s 2666 (although that was really more of a meta-detective novel). Burdett’s new book, The Godfather of Kathmandu, promises Tantric practitioners and “apocalyptic Buddhism,” whatever it is. This series makes for great plane-reading…especially, I imagine, if you’re headed to points East."
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