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Bangkok Haunts
by John Burdett
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Knopf (2007-06-05)
ISBN: 0307263185
EAN: 9780307263186
Dewy Decimal #: 823.914
Hardcover: 320 pages
Edition: 1
Release Date: 2007-06-05
SKU: 08040031
Condition: Very Good Very Good
Comments: First Edition. Hardback in very good plus condition with no markings. Owners name on flyleaf. Dust jacket in very good condition with minor shelf wear. Tight binding and clear crisp text. Very nice book.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Sonchai Jitpleecheep—the devout Buddhist Royal Thai Police detective who led us through the best sellers Bangkok 8 and Bangkok Tattoo—returns in this blistering new novel.
Sonchai has seen virtually everything on his beat in Bangkok’s District 8, but nothing like the video he’s just been sent anonymously: “Few crimes make us fear for the evolution of our species. I am watching one right now.”
He’s watching a snuff film. And the person dying before his disbelieving eyes is Damrong—a woman he once loved obsessively and, now it becomes clear, endlessly. And there is something more: something at the end of the film that leaves Sonchai both figuratively and literally haunted.
While his investigation will lead him through the office of the ever-scheming police captain, Vikorn (“Don’t spoil a great case with too much perfectionism,” he advises Sonchai); in and out of the influence of a perhaps psychotic wandering monk; and eventually into the gilded rooms of the most exclusive men’s club in Bangkok (whose members will do anything to protect their identities, and to explore their most secret fantasies), it also leads him to his own simple bedroom where he sleeps next to his pregnant wife while his dreams deliver him up to Damrong . . .
Ferociously smart and funny, furiously fast-paced, and laced through with an erotic ghost story that gives a new dark twist to the life of our hero, Bangkok Haunts does exactly that from first page to last.
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Customer Reviews
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Way too Much Polemic and Way too Little Story
Rating  (2)
Date: 2009-01-01
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Anyone who knows anything about Southeast Asia knows that for years Thailand has been catering to European men who are pedophiles and like to abuse both young men and women. Yes it's sordid and disgusting and Burdett has addressed the problem in the other two books in this series.
The problem with this book is that it is totally a monogram against the sex trade. Once again, there's nothing wrong with that, except this is supposed to be a book of fiction and a police procedural to boot. But that's not what it's about. There is way too much mysticism and anti- Buddhism to make it a worthwhile story. (The Appendix is way over the top for this type of book and belongs in 'Foreign Affairs' or on the OP-Ed page of a major paper.)
There are many major problems in the world, and the sex trade in Thailand is one of the worst, but this is not the forum for this type of tirade. Very disappointing.
Zeb Kantrowitz
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Sultry scenes, ugly villains
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-12-30
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
No one in detective fiction makes transvestites more alive and alluring than Burdett. In a place as humid as a Louisiana swamp, Burdett's characters seem to drip from his creative mind. The plots never disappoint and his descriptions of the Khmer Rouge is spot on. This is the best of the series and I hope it continues for many more.
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A murder mystery featuring a buddhist pimp cop, who would have guessed?
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-10-16
... that it would be so fun! My mother recommended this, and I ripped my way through it. Not for the squeamish, or for folks who insist on a purley negative view of the sex industry. But I found the plot complicated enough to be fun and the characters deep and loveable.
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Police Procedural - Thai Style
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-10-10
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Thailand, poverty stricken and seething with mysticism, is the brilliant setting for this police procedural - Thai style. When mesmerizing prostitute Damrong becomes the star of a well produced snuff film, Detective Sonchai Jitplecheep calls in his farang (westerner) friend - "almost" lover Kimberly Jones - to help him find the killer, and Eastern and Western cultures are brought face to face.
Sonchai moonlights as part owner of a brothel run by his mother, whose frank philosophy has her say, "who we are in the next life is determined by how generous we are in this one, not by what market forces bend us to do." When Damrong worked in the brothel, she seduced Sonchai so thoroughly that he reached the point where his feelings for her switched from objective admiration to the psychosis of possession. She then unceremoniously dropped him. And now, years later, he's married with a child on the way, but the DVD containing the snuff film has been delivered to him and he is on the case. Damrong might be dead, but she's NOT gone. Very soon her ghost begins to visit his dreams, and every night, in his bed beside his sleeping wife, she has her way with him until he wakes, trembling and spent.
Bangkok Lights is all levels below delicious levels. The author's depictions of the activities of the undead are vivid and believable, and the Buddhist concept of Reincarnation is made to feel very real indeed. As the story progresses and each development reveals a bit more of Damrong's story, the reader becomes so immersed in the mysteries he forgets that he doesn't believe in ghosts, demons, or other lifes. I loved this one. Five Stars.
Art Tirrell is the author of The Secret Ever Keeps
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Lurid Plotting Mixed with Interesting Cultural Insights
Rating  (3)
Date: 2008-09-22
I more or less liked Burdett's first Thai thriller (Bangkok 8), but felt that the second (Bangkok Tattoo) left quite a bit to be desired -- so much so that I didn't plan on reading this third in his series featuring Thai policeman Sonchai Jitpleecheep. However, I did eventually pick it up, and found it to be pretty much in line with the other two: strong on atmosphere and Thai culture, weak on plotting and pacing.
Burdett is great at capturing Bangkok and other parts of Thailand (in this book, the story makes excursions to Isan province and Phnom Phen, Cambodia). However, it's unfortunate that he does so with some of the most outlandishly lurid plots I've come across. In this case, the story revolves around a snuff film featuring a former employee and lover of Sonchai. Naturally, he feels compelled to investigate and bring the film's backers to justice -- even as his superior (Colonel Vikorn) has him overseeing a high-end porn film operation.
As in the first two books in the series, the story brims with explanations of Thai culture and how it's different from the West. This is interesting material which is unfortunately undercut by a rather snide, condescending tone. As in the other books, pretty much every farang (white foreigner) is revealed to be a bumbling idiot or soulless jackal. FBI agent Kimberly Jones makes another appearance (although her presence seems completely artificial in terms of how the FBI actually works), acting as a proxy for the reader, so that Sonchai has someone to explain cultural differences to. More engaging is Sochai's deputy, a katoey named Lek, who is getting close to having his sex change operation.
The plot is full of vivid (if somewhat cartoonish) supporting characters and scenes. There's an exclusive sex club, ghosts, sex with ghosts, ex-Khmer Rouge thugs, elephants stomping on people, HiSo (high society) multimillionaires, and a mysterious monk (whose identity is easily guessed by the reader long before Sonchai clues in). Then there is the supernatural element -- present in the previous two books, and even more front-and-center here. The climax features a spirit entering another person's body and taking control of it to do battle with Sochai -- complete with levitation. If you don't mind that, great, but personally, I prefer the more restrained mysticism of Colin Cotterhill's Laotian-set mysteries (see The Coroner's Lunch).
Ultimately, despite all the flourishes, the book feels pretty much like the other two in the series. Improbable plots and groan-inducing climaxes juxtaposed with some interesting cultural fodder. I doubt I'll be reading another in the series, but then again, I said that last time...
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