Bangkok Tattoo

Bangkok Tattoo

by JohnBurdett (Author)

Synopsis

Bangkok, rich in history and spirituality, crowded with temples, markets and canals, is also a city shrouded in shadows. Polluted, corrupt, infamous as the sex capital of the world, it is a place where wealth, poverty and unimaginable evil walk hand in hand. In District 8, the underbelly of Bangkok's crime world, a dramatically mutilated body is found in a hotel bedroom. It looks bad: the corpse - who's been flayed - is CIA. And it gets worse when the self-confessed murderer is the beautiful Chanya - the best 'working girl' at The Old Man's Club, a brothel owned jointly by Sonchai's mother and his boss, Police Colonel Vikorn. Alerted by Sonchai, Vikorn quickly concocts a cover-up that involves an Al-Qaeda terrorist cell, located in a southern Thai border-town where, since 9/11, the CIA has also had a covert presence. So far so good: but the truth will be harder to come by, and it will require Sonchai to find an ever more delicate balance, between his ambition (western) and his Buddhism (eastern), while he runs the gamut of Bangkok's drug-dealers, prostitutes, bad cops, even worse military generals, and the pitfalls of his own melting heart. Crowded with astonishing characters, redolent with the authentic, hallucinogenic atmosphere of Bangkok, with needle-sharp observations about the clash of cultures when East meets West, this is a literary thriller like no other.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 448
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Corgi
Published: 03 Jul 2006

ISBN 10: 0552771414
ISBN 13: 9780552771412
Book Overview: John Burdett's extraordinary head-spinning new novel featuring Sonchai Jitpleecheep, Thai Buddhist detective extraordinaire

Media Reviews
An original, imaginative thriller. . . . Burdett writes like a dark angel. - Chicago Tribune
You will read on and on, with wide-eyed fascination, some horror. . . and considerable delight. . . . If you're looking for a good time, look no further. - The Washington Post Book World
Mesmerizing: a comic tour of the underbelly of Bangkok in pursuit of both a murderer and the sublime. - The New Yorker
Author Bio
John Burdett is a former lawyer who worked in Hong Kong until he found his true vocation as a writer. An Englishman by birth, he has lived in France and Spain, and is now back in the Far East. His previous novel, Bangkok Eight, also features Sonchai Jitpleecheep, and is available as a Corgi paperback.