Royal Thai Detective Novels

5 primary works

Bangkok 8

by John Burdett and Rosalin Burdett

Published 1 January 2003

Bangkok, rich in history and spirituality, crowded with temples, markets and canals, is also a city shrouded in shadows. Polluted, corrupt, infamous as the sex capital of the world, it is a place where wealth, poverty and unimaginable evil walk hand in hand. Inside a locked Mercedes, an African American Marine sergeant is killed by a maddened python and a swarm of cobras. Two cops - the only two in the city not on the take - arrive too late. Minutes later, only one is alive. Sonchai Jitplecheep is a blond fair-skinned Thai; a devout Buddhist who commutes daily between the sacred precepts of his religion and the profane delights the city has to offer as darkness falls. Sworn to avenge the death of his partner and soul brother, Sonchai works his way through District 8, where illicit drugs, prostitution and police corruption are an endemic way of life. His tools are the forensic techniques of the modern police department; no less vital is his profound understanding of the mystical workings of the spirit world. Soon he is in a realm he has never before encountered: the moneyed underbelly of Bangkok, where desire rules and the human body is as custom-designable as a raw hunk of jade.
And where Sonchai eventually tracks the killer, a predator of an even more sinister variety. A deeply original story of gripping pace and reality, Bangkok 8 is that rare thing: a darkly atmospheric literary novel that continues to haunt long after you've turned the last page.

Bangkok Tattoo

by John Burdett

Published 1 January 2005

John Burdett's extraordinary head-spinning new novel featuring Sonchai Jitpleecheep, Thai Buddhist detective extraordinaire Bangkok, rich in history and spirituality, crowded with temples, markets and canals, is also a city shrouded in shadows. Polluted, corrupt, infamous as the sex capital of the world, it is a place where wealth, poverty and unimaginable evil walk hand in hand. In District 8, the underbelly of Bangkok's crime world, a dramatically mutilated body is found in a hotel bedroom. It looks bad: the corpse - who's been flayed - is CIA. And it gets worse when the self-confessed murderer is the beautiful Chanya - the best 'working girl' at The Old Man's Club, a brothel owned jointly by Sonchai's mother and his boss, Police Colonel Vikorn. Alerted by Sonchai, Vikorn quickly concocts a cover-up that involves an Al-Qaeda terrorist cell located in a southern Thai border-town where, since 9/11, the CIA has also had a covert presence.
So far so good: but the truth will be harder to come by, and it will require Sonchai to find an ever more delicate balance between his ambition (western) and his Buddhism (eastern), while he runs the gamut of Bangkok's drug-dealers, prostitutes, bad cops, even worse military generals, and the pitfalls of his own melting heart. Crowded with astonishing characters, redolent with the authentic, hallucinogenic atmosphere of Bangkok, with needle-sharp observations about the clash of cultures when East meets West, this is a literary thriller like no other.

Bangkok Haunts

by John Burdett

Published 1 January 2007

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 novel.Sonchai has seen virtually everything on his beat in Bangkok's District 8, but nothing like the snuff film he's just been sent anonymously. 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 more than lives up to the smart and darkly funny originality of its predecessors.

The Godfather of Kathmandu

by John Burdett

Published 7 January 2010

Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is summoned to investigate the most shocking murder of his career. Solving it could mean a promotion, but Sonchai, still reeling from a personal tragedy, is more interested in Tietsin, an exiled Tibetan lama living in Kathmandu. There are however obstacles in Sonchai's path to enlightenment. Police Colonel Vikorn and Army General Zinna are at war again for control over Bangkok's network of illegal enterprises. And although Tietsin is eerily charismatic , he also has 40 million dollars of heroin for sale. If Sonchai wants to be one of Tietsin's true initiates, he has to pull off a deal that will bring Vikorn and Zinna to the same side of the table. With his life in increasing danger, and his soul in thrall to a woman with sorceress-like powers, Sonchai is put to the extreme test in John Burdett's most inventive, darkly comic and wickedly entertaining novel yet.

Vulture Peak

by John Burdett

Published 10 January 2012

Nobody knows Bangkok like Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, and there is no one quite like Sonchai: a police officer who has kept his Buddhist soul intact-more or less-despite the fact that his job shoves him face-to-face with some of the most vile and outrageous crimes and criminals in Bangkok. But for his newest assignment, everything he knows about his city-and himself-will be a mere starting point.

He's put in charge of the highest-profile criminal case in Thailand-an attempt to bring an end to trafficking in human organs. He sets in motion a massive sting operation and stays at its center, traveling to Phuket, Hong Kong, Dubai, Shanghai, and Monte Carlo. He draws in a host of unwitting players that includes an aging rock star wearing out his second liver and the mysterious, diabolical, albeit gorgeous co-queenpins of the international body-parts trade: the Chinese twins known as the Vultures. And yet, it's closer to home that Sonchai will discover things getting really dicey: rumors will reach him suggesting that his ex-prostitute wife, Chanya, is having an affair. Will Sonchai be enlightened enough-forget Buddha, think jealous husband-to cope with his very own compromised and compromising world?

All will be revealed here, in John Burdett's most mordantly funny, propulsive, fiendishly entertaining novel yet.

Praise for John Burdett and his Bangkok novels:

'Cracking East meets West thriller introducing a half-Thai, half-American cop whose Buddhist beliefs are as important as his forensic skills. Terrific' Observer.

'A fantastic new thriller with an avenging Buddhist cop as its central character' Mail on Sunday.

'Read this book, savour the language - it's the last and most compelling word in thrillers' James Ellroy.

'Impeccably researched, this is sometimes poetic, often exotic, and totally hardcore' Daily Mirror.

"Burdett's fever-dream mysteries, set in Bangkok, recast the police procedural as psychedelic peep show." The New Yorker.

"Burdett is purely and simply a wonderful writer." The Washington Post Book World.