Bangkok Haunts Hardback - 2007

Summary

Excerpt

Chapter OneFew crimes make us fear for the evolution of our species. I am watching one right now.In a darkened room in the District 8 Police Station with my good friend FBI agent Kimberley Jones, a forty-two-inch Toshiba LCD monitor hangs high up on a wall, out of the reach of villains.The video I’m sharing with the FBI uses two industrial-quality cameras that between them seamlessly provide all the tricks of zoom, angle, pan, et cetera, and I am told that at least two technicians must have been involved in its production. The color is excellent, thanks to however many millions of pixels that contribute to their subtle shading; we are looking at a product of high civilization unknown to our forefathers. At the end of the movie, though, tough-guy Kimberley bursts into tears, as I’d rather hoped she would. I did. She turns her head to stare at me wild-eyed.“Tell me it isn’t real.”“We have the body,” I say.“Oh, god,” Kimberley says. “Oh, sweet Jesus, I’ve seen things bloodier, but never anything this demonic. I thought I’d seen everything.” She stands up. “I need air.”I think, In Bangkok? But I lead her through a couple of corridors, then out into the public area, where brown men and women not much more than half her size wait to tell a cop of their homely grievances. It’s not exactly a festive atmosphere, but it’s human. An American extrovert, Kimberley doesn’t mind dabbing her red eyes with a tissue in front of an audience, who naturally assume I’ve just busted this female farang on some minor drug charge—cannabis, perhaps. Like my own, her eyes naturally seek out any attractive young women sitting in the plastic seats. There are three, all of them prostitutes. (No respectable Thai woman dresses like that.) They resent the attention and glare back. I think Kimberley would like to hug them in gratitude that they’re still alive. I take her out into the street: not quite what the words fresh air normally invoke, but she fills her lungs anyway. “My god, Sonchai. The world. What monsters are we creating?”We have achieved that rare thing, Kimberley and I: a sexless but intimate rapport between a man and a woman of the same age who are mutually attracted to each other but, for reasons beyond analysis, have decided to do nothing about it. Even so, I was surprised when she simply got on a plane in response to a frantic telephone call from me. I had no idea she was specializing in snuff movies these days; nor did I realize they were flavor of the month in international law enforcement. Anyway, it’s great to have a top-notch pro familiar with the latest technology on my side. She’s not intuitive, as I am, but owns a mind like a steel trap. So do I treat her like a woman or a man? Are there any rules about that where she comes from? I give her a comradely embrace and squeeze her hand, which seems to cover most points. “It’s great to have you here, Kimberley,” I say. “Thanks again for coming.”She smiles with that innocence that can follow an emotional catastrophe. “Sorry to be a girl.”“I was a girl too, the first time I saw it.”She nods, unsurprised. “Where did you get it, in a raid?”I shake my head. “No, it was sent to me anonymously, to my home.” She gives me a knowing look: a personal angle here.“And the body, where was it found? At the crime scene?”“No. It had been returned to her apartment, laid neatly on the bed. Forensics says she must have been killed somewhere else.”Now the American Hero emerges. “We’re gonna get them, Sonchai. Tell me what you need, and I’ll find a way of getting it to you.”“Don’t make promises,” I say. “This isn’t Iraq.”She frowns. I guess a lot of Americans are tired of hearing those kinds of jibes. “No, but that movie had a certain style, a certain professionalism about it, and if that alpha male isn’t North American, I’ll turn in my badge.”“A Hollywood production?”“For something like that, frankly the U.S. is the first place I would start looking. Specifically California, but not Hollywood. San Fernando Valley, maybe, with international connections. This could tie in with what I’m doing stateside.”“What would you look for? He was wearing a gimp mask.”“The eyeholes are quite large—light had to get in. You have isometric surveillance at all points of entry to this country. Give me a copy of the DVD—I’ll get our nerds on the case. If they can make a good still of his eyes and enlarge it, it’s as good as a fingerprint. Better. Are you going to let me see the body?”“If you want. But how deeply involved do you want to get?”“Look, I don’t know much, but Chanya told me you’re very upset. That touches me too. If I can help, then that’s what I want to do.”“Chanya spilled her guts?”“She loves you. She hinted that you need a little moral support from a fellow professional. I said okay, I’ll do what I can, so long as he lets me in.”The FBI has no idea how many points she’s accumulated with me for treating a pregnant third-world ex-prostitute as a friend and equal. That kind of heroism leaves us slack-jawed in these parts. Chanya loves her too, of course, and when a Thai girl loves, she tells all.A tuk-tuk passes, spilling black pollution from its two-stroke engine. They used to be a symbol of Thailand: three wheels, a steel roof on vertical struts, and a happy smiling driver. Now they’re a tourist gimmick catering to a diminishing number of tourists. So far the new millennium has not delivered much in the way of new; instead we have a certain foreboding that a return to old-fashioned grinding poverty might be our share of globalism. Kimberley hasn’t noticed this yet—she’s been here only two days, and already the work ethic has gripped her. She’s not seeing the tuk-tuk or even its pollution.“I’m not going to use our guys to copy the DVD,” I say. She looks at me. “That kind of thing is produced in very limited numbers, sold to a specialized international market.” She is still looking at me. I feel blood rising up my neck, into facial blood vessels. “This is a poor country.” Still the look: I have to come clean. “They would sell it.”She turns away to save me from her contempt. A couple of beats pass, then briskly: “I’m okay now. How are you going to copy it?”“I’m not. I’ll put it in my pocket. You can use the business center at the Grand Britannia to e-mail it straight from the disk.”She waits in the public area while I go back to retrieve the disk: five point seven megabytes of distilled evil. Out on the street she pauses to stare at a young monk in his early to mid-twenties. He is tall, and there is an exotic elegance about him incongruous with the Internet café he is about to enter.“Using the Net is frowned on by the Sangha, especially in public areas, but it’s not a serious offense. Often monks use it to check Buddhist websites,” I explain, glad to talk about something lighter than a snuff movie.“Is he a regular around here? Somehow this doesn’t seem like the kind of place a monk would want to hang out.” Kimberley feels the need for small talk too.“I saw him for the first time yesterday. I don’t know which wat he’s attached to.”

Media reviews

“Spellbinding . . . To conjure Burdett's unique blend of garishness and gravitas, imagine a Conrad novel transformed into a video game . . . Burdett is equally good with male and female characters. His portrayal of Sonchai gains depth with each Bangkok novel, his apprehension of women ever more nuanced . . . [These] characters are scintillating; even more powerful is Burdett's depiction of an economy with prostitution as a fundament . . . Shadowing Sonchai on his trip to the heart of darkness is haunting indeed.”
–Carlo Wolff, Boston Globe

“Bangkok 8 turned out to be such a dazzlingly unusual detective story that I bought 25 copies of the thing and began giving them away. John Burdett is the mastermind behind these cops and robbers tales set in Thailand. This is not the tourist’s Thailand! You won't read anything else like Burdett, nor will you ever escape the spell of his extraordinary Buddhist detective, Sonchai Jitpleecheep . . . Now, happily, he has another one titled Bangkok Haunts . . . Highly recommended.”
–Liz Smith

“Full of his usual insights into the subculture for which Thailand is known, Bangkok Haunts is Burdett's best mystery yet in the series . . . Burdett has found his voice with Bangkok Haunts. The plot is more complex, the observations of Thai, American and Southeast Asian cultures more nuanced, the reach of his story greater. I found it hard to put down this book and loved its pace, wit and humor. Many writers would tell such a story with an air of condescension or disapproval, but not Burdett . . . Good story, this. And fun to read, too. A perfect diversion for summer.”
–Repps Hudson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Who knew that Bangkok 8 and Bangkok Tattoo were just the warm-up acts? As vibrantly as those sizzling thrillers captured the exotic flavor of crime and corruption in Thailand’s capital city, Bangkok Haunts opens up new avenues of awe . . . The wonder of Burdett’s hallucinatory brand of Southeast Asian magic–which puts his novels in range of the fabulous Yellowthread Street procedurals William Marshall set in Hong Kong and of Colin Cotterill’s fanciful mysteries featuring the Laotian coroner-sleuth Dr. Siri Paiboun–is that this spooky stuff is manifested in a real world . . . The author, who clearly knows his territory, has a fine skill for distilling the morbid beauty (not to mention the grotesque humor) in scenes of everyday misery.”
–Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

“A wonderful mystery series that is at once sprightly and densely layered, like the Thais themselves . . . In Burdett's always amazing Thailand, [Sonchai’s] differentness has made him a keen cultural anthropologist whose principles are as admirable as his insights are professionally useful and often deliciously droll . . . His captivating, sometimes teasing voice and Burdett's affectionate take on everything visiting farangs find fascinatingly upside down and backward in Thailand never falter.”
–Richard Stevenson, Washington Post

“Along with its rich and haunting subplots, this whodunit also offers a commentary on a culture that has retained its uber-exotic purity because ‘nobody colonized us,’ says Sonchai . . . [A] sly thriller.”
–Jane Furse, New York Daily News

“It’s a rare and fine thing to discover an author of genre fiction who can craft such a strikingly original character as John Burdett has done with his trio of novels . . . Burdett’s novels suck you in like a boozy back-alley peep show, submerging the reader in a hot, sticky murk of nuanced characterizations and sultry Thai realities. You can almost feel the tropical humidity of the place while reading Burdett’s whip-smart, zenlike first person narration, and the daily doomery of lower-echelon badge-holders is as intense as being in the third-world hot spot itself. Why fly Thai Air when you can savor the mad, manic capital city minus its legendary pollution from the comfort of your own home, farang?”
–Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle

“Strikingly original . . . Burdett’s best novel in the series . . . Sonchai is engaging, funny, and animated by a penetrating intelligence . . . Bangkok Haunts will offer the best evidence that it is still possible to write utterly innovative horror fiction that is in all respects very different from everything else out there. Mystery readers will find an equally fresh approach to the genre . . . There's a particularly vivid and terrifying climax that will remain in mind long after you close the covers . . . You will indeed be haunted.”
–Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column

“So rich with intellect and humor, with Thai atmosphere and Buddhist philosophy, even a denizen of Planet Yin may find herself bewitched and amused . . . Sonchai’s narrative is awash in a unique combination of mysticism and irony.”
–Marion Winik, Newsday

“First-person is a magic act most authors can’t work [but] Sonchai Jitpleecheep is, by contrast, as complex–and as conflicted–as his culture . . . Bangkok Haunts is a dreamy, dirty, remarkably nuanced book, a jewel half-buried in sordid earth, yet still aglitter.”
–David Fulmer, Paste magazine

“Burdett’s first two Sonchai Jitpleecheep novels heralded the arrival of a distinctive new voice in crime fiction. His third effort goes further, building on the exquisite moral ambiguity implicit in both setting and hero with tighter plotting and, if possible, an even more potent mix of underworld seaminess, startling tenderness, and Buddhist wisdom . . . Burdett’s Bangkok may be the most vibrant landscape of any in current crime fiction, and Sonchai–an improbable mix of West and East, the fact-seeking investigator meets the tranquil Buddhist, at ease with contrary realities–is certainly the genre’s most intriguing sleuth.
–Booklist (starred)

“Not for your Agatha Christie—loving maiden aunt, but good grisly fun for those who like their noir rated NC-17 . . . Vice spins the wheels of this third gritty procedural . . . Burdett conduct[s] another mordant whirlwind tour of Bangkok’s darkest places . . . The story, narrated in Sonchai’s urbane voice is filled with intriguing nuggets of Buddhist wisdom and custom and graced by brief but telling appearances of recurring characters . . . Burdett holds our attention throughout a breezy tale reminiscent of the late, great Ross Thomas’s byzantine Asian-inflected capers.”
–Kirkus Reviews

“At the start of Burdett’s superb third mystery-thriller to feature Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, Jitpleecheep shows old friend Kimberley Jones, an American FBI agent, a vicious snuff film he’s received depicting the murder of an ex-lover of his named Damrong . . . Expertly juggling elements that in lesser hands would become confused or hackneyed, Burdett has created a haunting, powerful story that transcends genre.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred)