Bangkok 8

Book cover of Bangkok 8: A Royal Thai Detective Novel

Book description

In surreal Bangkok, city of temples and brothels, where Buddhist monks in saffron robes walk the same streets as world-class gangsters, a US marine sergeant is killed inside a locked Mercedes by a maddened python and a swarm of cobras. Two policemen - the only two in the city not…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Bangkok 8 as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Andrew Pearson

Author

Another darkly comic thriller that is stunningly original and filled with cinema-worthy characters.

The book opens when an African American Marine meets a ghastly end inside a bolted-shut Mercedes that is filled with deadly cobras. Two cops arrive at the scene, but only one survives the ordeal. Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a devout Buddhist, watches his partner die from a cobra bite and vows revenge.

He teams up with an American FBI agent brought in to work the case. They chase a killer through the atmospheric streets of Bangkok, navigating through a world of illicit drugs, colorful prostitutes, and infinite corruption. Sonchai…

From Andrew's list on that should be adapted into movies.

Brian Klingborg

Author

I’d never heard of or seen a copy of this book before I randomly encountered it in the Frankfurt central train station.

I was instantly captivated by the unique voice of the protagonist, a Bangkok police detective named Sonchai Jitpleecheep.

Sonchai is half-white, half-Thai, and acts as the reader’s guide to the seedier side of Thai culture, politics, and society. As with any crime novel, the focus of the narrative is on sex, drugs, and crime, but this is balanced with witty and insightful bon mots, courtesy of Sonchai’s Buddhist upbringing.

While none of the subsequent novels in the series…

From Brian's list on international crime both fiction and nonfiction.