I liked this installment in the Bangkok series featuring detective Sonjai Jitpleecheep. I especially liked how Burdett, through Sonjai's narration, brings the reader into different worlds and cultures. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, The Godfather of Kathmandu. ( )

Once again John Burdett does the remarkable. He engages you completely in the mind of his devout Buddhist detective. We are drawn into these discussions,
"Saved? There is nothing to save, my friend. You are talking like a Christian. You cannot cast yourself into the Unknowable in the hope that gesture will buy you salvation - you have to jump for the hell of it. In a nirvanic universe there can be no salvation because we are never really lost - or found. The choice is simply between nirvana and ignorance."

This may be pedistrian to a Buddhist scholar but it affects our tough guy Sonchai Jitpleecheep, so it affects us.

He also has a genuine affection for Thailand and even the farang men and women who become mesmerised by the prostitutes and the katoeys and the juxtaposition of deep spirtualism.

While he acknowledges the sorted and ugly he exalts what is beyond the base drive of man toward woman (and woman toward man): oneness, beauty, affection, and connection with the infinite however brief.

Our detective grows with each wound and in outing the bad guys he achieves a measure of peace. ( )

A devout Buddhist, Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is considered to be one of the most moral and enlightened officers on the Bangkok Police Force. This is despite that his mother owns a brothel – which he helps manage; his expecting wife used to work for his mother; and his boss, Colonel Vikorn, is also a drug trafficker on the side – now branching out into pornography, a venture for which Sonchai is his point man.

Jitpleecheep is investigating – with his highly perceptive katoey, or transgender, partner Lek, the murder of a prostitute named Damrong, killed in a snuff film. To further complicate things, Damrong previously worked for Jitpleecheep’s mother, when he fell in love with her – and was cruelly discarded by her. He runs up against some powerful people, and it’s not clear if the larcenous but powerful-himself Vikorn can protect him.

Burdett builds upon characters introduced in his previous two novels in this series (Bangkok 8 and Bangkok Tattoo), and introduces some new ones – most of those don’t last. Lek and the totally corrupt Colonel Vikorn are favorites.

He also continues to conjure some nice lines. The refrigerated drawers in the coroner’s office are “death’s filing cabinet.” In Jitpleecheep’s Buddhist philosophy “we are tiny figurines hanging from the charm bracelet of infinity. When these bodies wear out, we will migrate to others.” ( )

To read John Burdett's Sonchai Jitpleecheep mysteries is to immerse yourself in the culture and mindset of Thailand. Westerners are not always understood or appreciated there, but if you're thick-skinned enough to withstand a bit of cultural bashing, you will be paid back in some marvelous reading.

Sonchai is a police detective in Bangkok. Now living happily with Chanya, a former prostitute who's pregnant with his child, Sonchai at one time had had a passionate affair with a Cambodian beauty named Damrong. When he comes across a copy of a snuff film in which Damrong is murdered, he joins with American FBI agent Kimberley Jones to find the killer. While Sonchai's superior, Colonel Vikorn, has his detective set up a porn film business, the list of suspects in Damrong's murder grows to include a banker, a teacher, a Buddhist, and an exclusive men's club called the Parthenon.

Once again-- as with the previous two books in the series-- I was immersed in the culture of Thailand, which is fascinating and so different from my own. I have to admit that one of the reasons why I enjoy these books so much is because I have the chance to see my own culture through the eyes of others.

I enjoyed the convoluted plot, the further machinations of the wily Colonel Vikorn, and the glimpse across the border into Cambodia. Ultimately, however, the book fell flat for me because of the murder victim, Damrong. I felt only great indifference toward her, which really dampened my enjoyment of the book.

Although this book wasn't exactly my cup of tea, your mileage could definitely vary-- and the first two books in the series, Bangkok 8 and Bangkok Tattoo are both superb. The fourth book in the series, The Godfather of Kathmandu, will be released in January, 2010, and I'm looking forward to reading it.

There are many mystery series based in other countries. Usually the setting only serves to provide a whiff of the exotic, without nudging the reader fully into another culture. John Burdett's Thailand not only provides an exotic setting, the reader is dragged out of his comfortable chair and out into the streets of Bangkok-- out into a world where the people have different customs, a different religion, and an entirely different way of seeing the world. John Burdett takes the reader out of his comfort zone and makes him think about more than just whodunit, and I like that. ( )

It's not as good as Bangkok 8 - in fact, it's a lot more of the same: bad white people going to Thailand to do bad things to Thai women/transsexuals because that's the "Thai way"

The crime story is okay; the mystery would be much better if there was a little less "cultural exploration"... of course, this wouldn't be so bad if this was the first Burdett book you read, but it's the 3rd he wrote on this subject so by now I'm fully aware of how sexually depraved Westerners are.

Maybe it's realistic, maybe it's not... but I'd like a bit more story and a bit less background on Thai-Western sexual relations. ( )