Bangkok Haunts
by John Burdett
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Book Summary Information
Author: John BurdettEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Deckle Edge
Published: 2007-06-05
ISBN: 0307263185
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Book Reviews of Bangkok Haunts
Book Review: "What monsters are we creating?"
Summary: 4 Stars
Working in Bangkok, devoted Buddhist Royal Thai Police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep believes he has witnessed every depravity known to man; but after viewing a snuff film with a twisted ending, the detective is once more appalled by man's inhumanity to man. In Jitpleecheep's third outing (Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo), Burdett offers an inside view of a different reality, a country driven by enterprise without the banal rationalization of Western mentality. Sonchai views the world at large through a perspective of "functional barbarism": greased by advanced technology, our motives are barbaric, driven entirely by greed. With the aid of FBI Agent Kimberley Jones, currently assigned to uncovering the perpetrators of snuff films, Sonchai admits that the woman brutally murdered in the video is Damrong, his former lover. Currently in a healthier relationship with Chanya, a pregnant ex-prostitute, the detective has never quite recovered from a stormy affair with the murdered woman.
Sharing part ownership in the Old Man's Club with his mother, Sonchai supplements his income with long hours at the bar, an accepted practice for most underpaid police. The bar scene is changing, all-nude dancers replacing the tease of strippers, the city's decadence reaching new lows as exhibited in the video. Even the fate of the disturbing snuff film is at risk; Jitpleecheep personally delivers the disk to Agent Jones for retinal analysis lest someone in the Thai police seize an opportunity to sell it on the internet. Third-world countries are infinitely creative when a few dollars profit means survival: "For the poor, birth is the primary disaster." In this case, Sonchai must avail himself of the resources of Colonel Vikorn, the chief of District 8. The corrupt Colonel has much interest in the increasing decadence of the West and its potential.
As the old makes way for the new in a technologically advanced society, the past remains obdurate. Ancestry has its own demands, as does an ancient belief in the ghost world, the faces of the dead crowding out the living. The forensic pathologist doing the autopsy on Damrong spends her off hours filming the antics of this ghost world, a fact Dr. Supatra and Sonchai hasten to obfuscate before the disbelieving farang eyes of Agent Jones. While Agent Jones faces the angst of unrealized and misplaced passion in the katoey world, accepting finally the alternate universe that she discovers in Thailand, Sonchai makes difficult choices, falling from grace for a time, but resurfacing via his enterprising nature. Meanwhile the once-marginalized porn industry, greedily absorbed by corporations, saturates the internet.
In what is both a chilling mystery and indictment of civilization's continuing exploitation of the disenfranchised, Burdett once again captures the essence of Bangkok, corruption balanced with survival. The relentless wheels of commerce roll on, obliterating those who serve as fodder for profit. The bottom line has no conscience, yet the well-meaning continue to actively inhabit their daily lives, incorruptible men like Jitpleecheep fighting to prevail. In the words of the elusive monk, Gamon: "Love is the foundation of human consciousness...It's our constant betrayal of it that makes us crazy." (Note: Do not miss the shocking Appendix.) Luan Gaines/2007.
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