BANGKOK 8 - by John Burdett

When I first read the beginning, I thought it will be an interesting book because I like criminology books. And it started with a murder, where the murder weapons are drugged snakes.

But as I progressed, I felt the plot was draggy. Because it is not the typical FBI or CSI type of books where one uses technology, criminology profiling to lurk out the murderer. The real detective is a Thai cop, even though there was a female FBI detective involved. This is to highlight the differences between East and West.

In fact this is the first book I read where detective work is solved based on intuition. The detective is able to see the past lives, the karma, and the life of a person. He is what the book calls it, an arhat cop. He used to lead a very terrible childhood before he found enlightenment.

Thus this book does not have much action, but what it misses, it makes up with the culture of Thailand. It gives me new perspective of the sex trade in Thailand, of the different types of prostitutes, of the life of a country that does not use much technology compared to the West.

Towards the end, I got excited again as I got used to the detective’s way of using his intuition, his vision of seeing a person. The case was solved, but what is more surprisingly is I was left with a greater understanding of Thailand. Guess when the author wrote this book; his main objective is to share with us the flavour of Thailand, the lingo used, their perceptions of life. And he did it successfully.