Bangkok 8: A Royal Thai Detective Novel (1) (Sonchai Jitpleecheep) by John Burdett (Epub)

Description

A thriller with attitude to spare, Bangkok 8 is a sexy, razor-edged, often darkly hilarious novel set in one of the world’s most exotic cities.

Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz. Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep—a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I.—is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones and captures her heart in the process. In a city fueled by illicit drugs and infinite corruption, prostitution and priceless art, Sonchai’s quest for vengeance takes him into a world much more sinister than he could have ever imagined.

User’s Reviews

Review “A tour de force. . . . Burdett is purely and simply a wonderful writer.” —The Washington Post”A stiletto-sharp mystery/thriller . . . brilliantly rendered.” —The Seattle Times-Post Intelligencer“Like Thai cuisine, Burdett’s comic thriller blends spicy, sour, salty and sweet—and makes for a delicious wake-up for jaded palates.” —People“Vividly written and even more vividly imagined. . . . This novel is as wild as the city in which it takes place. . . . Read it to blow your mind.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel“A thriller as exotic as it is enthralling, and as provocative as it is obscene.” –Harper’s“One of the year’s most seductive thrillers. . . . Think of Bangkok 8 as a destination spot for any reader with a taste for the exotic and desire for a really good time.” –New York Daily News“Gruesome and memorable.” –The New York Times“Burdett knows how to dole out engagingly gory details and hard-boiled platter.” –Entertainment Weekly“A different kind of mystery, one you’re not likely to have seen before. . . . Bangkok 8 makes you change your perspective. It takes you into another world and exposes you to different ways of thinking.” —Rocky Mountain News“Bangkok 8 is one of the most startling and provocative mysteries that I’ve read in years. The characters are marvelously unique, the setting is intoxicating and the plot unwinds in dark illusory strands, reminiscent of Gorky Park. Once I started, I didn’t want to put it down.” –Carl Hiaasen“Edgy, intricate and atmospheric . . . [Burdett] uses plenty of narrative sleight-of-hand to weave together character development, comic relief and inspi… Amazon.com Review When a U.S. Marine is killed in Bangkok, the task of finding the murderer falls to Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, seemingly the only member of the Royal Thai Police Force whose idea of justice precludes his fellow officers’ customary system of bribery. This assignment’s especially important to the devout detective for during the investigation of the murder scene, the methamphetamine-stoked snakes that bit the marine also kill Sonchai’s police partner, best friend, and Buddhist soul-mate Pichai. Sonchai’s pursuit of revenge will team him with a sexually frustrated FBI agent and leave them at the mercy of yaa-baa-fueled motorcycle-taxi drivers as they hurtle through neon-lit Bangkok and into the labyrinthine and deadly machinations of the international jade and drug trades in search of the killer. As Sonchai himself notes at one point, “This isn’t a whodunit, is it?” And, no, it isn’t, but author John Burdett (A Personal History of Thirst, The Last Six Million Seconds) infuses the plot with enough suspense, detail, and dry Asian insight to keep readers rapt as the story careens about the bars and brothels of Thailand’s flesh trade, through its cut-rate plastic surgery parlors, and ends in a climax with a fittingly Buddhist twist. Bangkok 8 is highly recommended for readers in the mood for Thai. –Benjamin Reese –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1The African American marine in the gray Mercedes will soon die of bites from Naja siamensis, but we don’t know that yet, Pichai and I (the future is impenetrable, says the Buddha). We are one car behind him at the toll for the expressway from the airport to the city and this is the closest we’ve been for more than three hours. I watch and admire as a huge black hand with a heavy gold signet ring on the index finger extends from the window, a hundred-baht note clipped stylishly between the pinkie and what our fortune tellers call the finger of the sun. The masked woman in the booth takes the note, hands him the change and nods in recognition at something he says to her, probably in very bad Thai. I tell Pichai that only a certain kind of American farang attempts conversation with toll booth operators. Pichai grunts and slides down in his seat for a nap. Survey after survey has shown sleep to be my people’s favorite hobby.“He’s picked someone up, a girl,” I mutter casually, as if this were not a shocking piece of news and clear proof of our incompetence. Pichai opens one eye, then the other, raises himself and stretches his neck just as the Mercedes hatchback races away like a thoroughbred.“A whore?”“Green and orange streaks in her hair. Afro style. Black top with straps. Very dark.”“I bet you know who designed the black top?”“It’s a fake Armani. At least, Armani was the first to come out with the black semi–tank top with bootlace straps, there have been plenty of imitators since.”Pichai shakes his head. “You really know your threads. He must have picked her up at the airport, when we lost him for that half hour.”I say nothing as Pichai, my soul brother and partner in indolence, returns to his slumbers. Perhaps he is not sleeping, perhaps he is meditating. He is one of those who have had enough of the world. His disgust has driven him to ordain and he has named me as the one who, along with his mother, will shave his head and eyebrows, which honor will permit us to fly to one of the Buddha heavens by clinging to his saffron robes at the moment of death. You see how entrenched is cronyism in our ancient culture.In truth there is something mesmeric about the black marine’s head-and-shoulder set which has consumed all my attention. At the beginning of the surveillance I watched him get out of his car at a gas station: he is a perfectly formed giant and this perfection has fascinated me for three hours, as if he were some kind of black Buddha, the Perfect Man, of whom the rest of us are merely scale models with ugly flaws. Now that I have finally noticed her, his whore looks erotically fragile beside him, as if he might crush her inadvertently like a grape against the palate, to her eternal and ecstatic gratitude (you see why I am not suitable for monkhood).By the time I have inched up to the toll booth in our dying Toyota, he has flown to who knows what celestial bed of pleasure in his late-model Garuda.I say to my beloved Pichai, “We’ve lost him,” but Pichai also has flown, leaving only his uninhabited corpse, which snores in the seat beside me.Naja siamensis is the most magnificent of our spitting cobras and might be our national mascot, for its qualities of beauty, charm, stealth and lethal bite. Naja, by the way, is from the Sanskrit, and a reference to the great Naja spirit of the earth who protected our Lord Buddha during a dreadful storm in the forest where he meditated. 2The elevated expressway is the only road in the city where a Mercedes E series can outrun a Toyota Echo, and I drive without hope or haste (which comes from the devil; slowness comes from Buddha), just for form, feeling out of place amongst the elite vehicles whose owners can afford the toll: Mercs and BMWs, Japanese four-by-fours, plus a lot of taxis with farangs in the back. We fly above the brothel-hotels of the Nana district before I take a slip road into the primeval jam below.Nobody jams like us. On Sukhumvit at the junction with Soi 4 the traffic is solid in four directions. There is a sentry box here for the traffic cops who are supposed to deal with the problem, but how do two underpaid cops move a million cars packed like mangoes for export? The cops are asleep behind their glass and the drivers have given up honking their horns. It is too hot and humid to honk. I spy our guns and holsters in a tangle at Pichai’s feet, along with the radio and the portable siren to clamp on the roof when we finally go into action. I nudge Pichai.“Better call him, tell him we lost the mark.”Pichai already has the monkish capacity to hear and understand whilst asleep. He groans, passes a hand through the condemned jet-black locks which I have always envied and bends double to retrieve the Korean short-wave radio. An exchange of static and the unsurprising intelligence that Police Colonel Vikorn, chief of District 8, cannot be located.“Call him on his mobile.”Pichai fishes his own mobile out of a pocket and presses the autodial button. He speaks to our Colonel in terms too respectful for modern English to carry (somewhere between “sire” and “my lord”), listens for a moment, then slips the Nokia back in his pocket. “He’s going to ask Traffic to cooperate. If the black farang shows up, Traffic will call us on the radio.” I turn up the air-conditioning and wind the seat back. I try to practice the insight meditation I learned long ago in my teens and have practiced intermittently ever since. The trick is to catch the aggregates as they speed through the mind without grasping them. Every thought is a hook, and if we can only avoid those hooks we might achieve nirvana in one or two lifetimes, instead of this endless torture of incarnation after incarnation. I am interrupted by more static from the radio (I register static, static, static before emerging from the meditation). Black farang in gray Mercedes reported stopped at Dao Phrya, on the slip road under the bridge. Pichai calls the Colonel, who authorizes the siren.I wait while Pichai slips out of the car, clamps the siren to the roof, where it flashes and wails to no effect on the gridlock, and walks over to the sentry box, where the traffic cops are dozing. At the same time he is strapping on his holster and gun and reaching in his pocket for his police ID. A more advanced soul than I, he gives no sign of the disgust he feels at being trapped in this pollution called life on earth. He would not wish to poison anyone else’s mind. Nevertheless, he smacks his hand somewhat violently against the glass of the sentry box and yells at them to wake the fuck up. Smiles and a gentlemanly discussion before the boys in donkey brown (the uniform can appear bottle green in some lights) emerge to take charge. They come up to me in the car and there is the usual double-take when they see what I am. The Vietnam War left plenty of half-castes in Krung Thep, but few of us turned into cops.There are several inches of slack within which every car can shunt, and our colleagues show considerable skill and cunning in making a space. In no time at all I am able to drive up onto the sidewalk, where the siren terrorizes the pedestrians. Pichai grins. I am skilled at very dangerous driving from the days when we used to take drugs and steal cars together, a golden age which came to an end when Pichai murdered our yaa baa dealer and we had to seek refuge in the Three Jewels of the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha. There will be time in this chronicle to explain yaa baa.While I practice close encounters with cooked-food stalls, sex traders and oncoming traffic, wheel spins, split-second lurches and even one hand-brake spin, I try to remember what Dao Phrya Bridge is famous for. Why have I heard of it at all?We are very happy. Sabai means feeling good and sanuk means having fun. We are both as we race toward the bridge in demonic haste, with Pichai chanting in Pali, the ancient language of the Gautama Buddha, for protection from accidents. He asks also of the Buddhist saints that we do not accidentally kill anyone who does not deserve it, a touchy point with Pichai.Krung Thep means City of Angels, but we are happy to call it Bangkok if it helps to separate a farang from his money. –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ A unique mystery-thriller unlike anything I have ever read, Bangkok 8 is the first of a series starring Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, who in the opener is following, with his cop partner Pichai, a shady American marine sergeant in Bangkok, when the marine is – right in front of them, in a car bolted shut – slaughtered by a nasty nest of cobras trapped with him in his Mercedes. When Pichai is also killed in the ensuing chaos, Sonchai – a devout Buddhist arhat – makes it his life’s mission to not only find out what happened, but to himself kill Pichai’s murderer to avenge his partner’s death. But the deeper Sonchai digs, even with the help of attractive FBI agent Kimberley Jones, the more the increasingly twisted trail seems to lead toward an American jeweler with untold wealth and influence – influence that extends even over Sonchai’s own superiors in the police force. As said, I have never read a novel like Bangkok 8; never read a piece of fiction that so solidified in me the essence of a people, culture, way of life – even religion – as this novel does of Thailand, tying it all into not just Sonchai and those he encounters and where he goes, but even the mystery itself. It’s a book that makes you think deeply, yet also has touches of dark humor and plenty of thrills; even conversations between characters, at length, never come off boring or as filler, as the characters are so exceptionally well-drawn – what they have to say so revealing of them or the story – you must read word for word. Sorry for the gushing, but yet again: have simply never read anything like Bangkok 8. And I certainly can’t remember when I was last so absorbed in a book that, while reading it, I completely forgot about the real world surrounding me. *****

⭐ As these surrealist crime novels go, this one is a cut above Larson’s MILLENNIUM TRILOGY. It hovers on the brink of literature in the same way that Graham Greene’s novels do, and the narrator evokes Greene in sidelong (possibly self-reflexive) illustration of this. Family values are conjured up in the context of a pornographic enterprise and the novel constantly engages with the complexities of Buddhism, so if you are looking for moral certitude, pass on to fare less rich, less nuanced. The plot unravels through a series of second- and third-level narratives recounted to the main character, a Thai detective who refuses to take bribes. It is not a cozy read, but an eminently satisfying one, living down to the worst in human nature and up to the best in human storytelling. It’s a grim, lipsmacking, otherworldly yarn that manages to explore some dark and fascinating realties of the contemporary world with equal parts philosophical introspection and cinematic aplomb.

⭐ The best of the Sonchai Jitleecheep books and, IMHO, a minor masterpiece of the detective novel genre. While I know little of Thai culture, there is a strong feeling of authenticity here. The narrator straddles the western and eastern worlds due to his parentage, and he does so well. This book has it all: great, distinctive characters, wonderful locations, intensely vivid description, and a great plot. Sonchai’s wry asides about both his and western cultures alone make this book worth reading. If only Burdett had been able to reach this level in his other Royal Thai novels…

⭐ A wonderful breath of fresh air. Burdett recreates modern day Bangkok from a Thai perspective rather than a cliched foreigner’s view.Detective Jitpleecheep is that rare breed – an honest cop and an honest man in a society that requires ‘corruption’ (at least to Western eyes) to function.He also happens to be a fairly good detective, adroit at balancing the needs of justice and his superiors while solving a horrific crime.

⭐ This is a terrific book. I read all my books by audio and B.D. Wong of Law and Order, SVU fame is an excellent reader on this one (the reader adds a salient dimension to the spoken book). The protagonist, Sonchai Jitpleecheep, is a complex, intellectual, compassionate, procedurally brilliant, humorous pot smoking buddhist (what more can you ask?). He fascinates, and so do the characters around him. Settings are Thai–beautiful, outrageous, perspective expanding–so different from the West. Satisfying action pace, peppered with spiritualism, philosophy, and deep losses sustained. Original story lines will surprise you. I love the “newness” of his books when comparing them to the many other procedurals, mysteries, paranormal etc etc books I’ve read. Burdette himself is interesting too, a life arc both wise and actualized. See also The Godfather of Kathmandu read by Stephen Hogan, another reader who pegs it. Glad I discovered Burdett. I hope to see all his books as audio books available in my library. Read him!

⭐ Sonchai Jitpleecheep has been one of my favourite detectives ever since I first read this book many years ago. I enjoyed him even more this time – uncorrupted and incorruptible (he is a holy Buddhist man), his attempt to avenge the violent death of his ‘brother’ makes for a stimulating, funny, and very human story. But beware – there are 6 Sonchai Jitpledcheep novels, the last 2 of which are absolute crap. Obviously John Burdett is a 4-book author.

⭐ a phrase came to me as i finished this book today: “forget it, jake, it’s chinatown”. o.k., yes, yes, it’s not about chinatown or china, but it’s the meaning behind that phrase that makes me think of “bangkok 8″…..bangkok is a different world, it’s not the western world. we learn quite a bit about the eastern world in this book, a world where a buddhist cop is hated for not taking bribes, who vows to avenge the deaths of loved ones, quoting the buddha all the way, while dealing with the prejudice of being a half-caste, and son of a prostitute.it’s a lot to take in, and there is so much more: the fbi, the marines, drugs, snakes, jade, the sex trade….there is so much going on every minute, topped by the unusually interesting “voice” of the narrator, whose thoughts and actions are fascinating….and very very NOT of the western world. i never knew so much about the thoughts of the buddha and details of pimps/prostitiutes’ activities, all on the same page.i won’t even get into the story, except to say it’s a real doozy, complex and so very unusual. and so much fun to read. i have fallen for the buddhist cop/narrator, and i may have to read the rest of the books in the series. yes, it’s a series. but this book can be read without any need to read another, it’s not a cliffhanger ending. i loved that about it. and i loved this book.

⭐ Forget about whether or not this book accurately depicts Bangkok life, or is slanted by the misconstrued vision of the author. After all, it is not a travelogue, it is a work of fiction first and foremost. And it is a work of fiction of extreme ingenuity. The writer is highly talented. He is also highly complex, and so is his story.And he is funny as all get out. I can’t count the many times this book got a laugh out of me, either for its outright humor, or its subtle, more hidden ironic meanings.Yes, I agree with some other reviewers that there is a tendency to bash “farangs” in black and white terms. They are facilely pigeonholed. Although this view is seen through the eyes of his fascinating main character (fascinating because it is impossible to guess what he is going to say or do next – the unexpected is always forthcoming), the reader senses (correctly or incorrectly) that the main character expresses the views of his creator. Only Mr. Burdett himself can confirm or deny the truth of this impression.This book is about divides and contradictions; finding, losing and searching again. Confusion? Yes. But always in the cloak of ingenuity.The only weakness that I can point out is that the male characters are drawn very three dimensionally, while the female characters always remain somewhat in the mist. None are clearly wholly defined. They don’t come out into the sunlight as do the males. In fact, one can almost say they are drawn stereotypically. Almost, but not quite.As the writer is exceptionally gifted, he has created an exceptional book. Its uniqueness ensures that this novel has no predecessor, and it is not likely there will ever be another one even resembling it. For its complexity, its genius, and for just a plain old-fashioned fascinating read, I would highly recommend it. It is full of contradictions that have yet to be resolved. And it leaves it’s reader (and perhaps the author as well) with the responsibility of doing so.

⭐ First Sentence: The African American marine in the gray Mercedes will soon die of bites from Naja siamensis, but we don’t know that yet, Pichai and I (the future is impenetrable, says the Buddha).Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is the son of a Thai retired prostitute and a white man, whose identity his mother won’t divulge. Sonchai and Pichai, his partner, best friend and soul-mate, have been assigned to follow a U.S. Marine sergeant. In tailing the sergeant, they lose him for a bit, but then see his car. When they arrive, they see the sergeant, his head half engulfed by a python and being bitten by cobras. In trying to rescue him, Pichai is bitten and killed. Sonchai swears death to the killer.This was a fascinating book. It has wonderful imagery and humor. I loved the injections of Buddhist philosophy, particularly the attitude toward death. Reincarnation is an accepted fact of being, made even more interesting by Sonchai’s ability to see other’s past lives. But best is that the author provides a real look at Thai life and culture, not just that as seen by tourists. .The story is told from Sonchai’s point of view and it really is as much, if not more, his story than a traditional police procedural. Not only is Sonchai set apart from those around him because of being of mixed blood, but because, in a country where corruption is accepted, he is arhat (meritorious) and doesn’t accept bribes or sleep with women.I found the story a little hard to follow at times, but at no time was I tempted to stop. I found the ending completely appropriate to the story.

⭐ What I loved about Bangkok 8 were the snippets of Thai life and culturally-driven attitudes of the everyday people, especially the prostitutes and the members of the drug network. Sonchai, too, is a character study of a man having solid values and beliefs that are melded by experiences. Here’s where the touching humor of the book is revealed.I had no problem with what some consider an attack on Western ideals. On the contrary, it’s our boldness, combined with a lack of understanding of other, and older belief systems that causes so much mis-communication.At one point Sonchai says this is not so much a Who-done-it as a Why’d-they-do-it. And Bangkok 8 is exactly that. It’s not your traditional murder mystery. And this vehicle allows the author to examine cultural differences among the various characters, Asian and American. It’s very thought-provoking about lots of issues, from the sex trade to police procedures, to economic exploitation, politics, and international diplomacy.That John Burdett can handle all of these issues adroitly in a single 300-page book is a tribute to his skill and tight-editing.I read the book thinking that it was more a man’s book. I guess I still think so, only now I’m a little less sure.

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