A Thai detective seeks vengeance after his soul brother dies in the line of duty.

I found this to be a good book but not a spectacular one. The characters were interesting, but I never really engaged with them. Some the character dynamics also felt like they could have been fleshed out a bit more. I got some sense of how these people related to one another, but I never really felt it.

The plot, however, is nice and complex, with plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing, (or too confused for words; it could go either way). I found that the mystery was set out in such a way that I could see it unfold just as Sonchai did: intuitively rather than factually. It made for a different sort of mystery, and a pretty good one at that.

But what really sets this book apart is the focus on the Thai mindset. The story is steeped in Thai culture. Burdett paints a vivid picture of a society completely unlike anything westerners are used to. The justice system operates under different rules. The morality is complex and often surprising. And, most importantly, the boundaries between the living and the dead are much less rigid. There's a lot of emphasis here on Buddhist ideas, especially those regarding reincarnation. It makes for fascinating reading.

I'd definitely recommend this to mystery fans with a fondness for the speculative. ( )

Bangkok 8 is the district in which the main character, Sonchai Jitpleecheep is a police detective) where Jitpleechep & his partner are assigned to keep a tail on an American -- but he ends up dead in a Mercedes filled with cobras and a python is eating his head as the detectives arrive. Jitpleechep's partner is killed by two of the cobras; from then on Jitpleechep vows to find the killer and rather than send him to trial, makes a vow to kill him. This is the beginning, and the action does not stop until the end.

The characters are interesting, especially Sonchai, who is no ordinary detective, but rather an arhat; he runs his life through meditating on the Buddha and lives his life based on compassion.He is in contact with his former selves from previous lives and he speaks to ghosts. He became a policeman after having been involved in a murder and then sent to a monastery to learn the ways of Buddhism. The author has offered up a fresh concept here in the way one thinks about detectives.

From the first few pages it is difficult NOT to get hooked...the author brings the reader down into the underbelly of Bangkok and draws the reader into a mystery so convoluted and twisty that it's hard not to keep reading.

Very good book; I highly recommend it for those who like a good mystery and to those who enjoy books set in Thailand. ( )

This book, which is one of the steamiest I have ever read and has plenty of violence, is certainly not for everyone, but I thought it was a terrific read. Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a devoutly Buddhist Bangkok cop; his mother; his friend Pichai (alive and dead) and virtually all the other characters are unforgettably written. So -- the book has chutzpah, excellent writing, excellent characters, plenty of local color, great plotting, suspense, cross cultural musings and intelligence, philosophy that makes you ponder, and even a strong spiritual undercurrent. IFor those not put off by the underbelly views, Who could want anything more? Well, I want to read the next two books in the series for sure! ( )

Not only is is a crime/detective novel, it's a glimpse into the underbelly of a nation riddled with corruption, prostitution, crime and poverty - all of which is "normalized" through the main character's Buddhist mentality.

It has interesting details of prostitution as a lifestyle, or, more accurately, as THE lifestyle and the underlying crime is solved in a very weird way.

It's actually quite engaging but it's also a lot like a socialist investigation of poverty and prostitution... with perhaps a bit too much of the latter. ( )

This is a book that actually lives up to the reviews on the cover. Burdett drops us into an alternate universe called Bangkok, which we see through the eyes of a police detective, half Thai and half American, the son of a prostitute, who weaves his Buddhist beliefs throughout the first person narrative. It's unlike anything I've read - as atmospheric as the best of Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko novels, but a lot more exotic and even better written. There's also a very ironic sense of humor that runs through the entire story, despite the gruesome goings on. Burdett's take on Thai prostitution will not go down well for a lot of readers, but he does a pretty good job of reconciling the good and bad aspects of Thai society - something I had a hard time doing during the week I spent there a few years ago.

I don't want to speculate on how the author did his research into the various elements that make up this book - I hope it wasn't all done in person - but he does an amazing job of weaving in commentary on Thai culture in a direct but not heavy-handed way. For example, the detective listens to a popular Thai radio call-in show whose discussions are relevant to the bizarre case he is working on. To provide more details would just lessen your enjoyment of the story. Just dive in; don't even read the description on the back cover. ( )