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BANGKOK 8 is John Burdett's first novel. Detective Sonchai Jitpleesheep is an aspiring monk. He is the child of a Thai bar girl and an American GI. He and his partner, Pichai Apiradee, are tailing an American Marine and find him dead. The body was found in a bolted shut Mercedes. As they pry the body out, Apiradee is bitten by the poisonous snake that was also trapped in the car. Jitpleesheep avows to find his partner's killer as well as that of the dead American. This trail leads him through the steamier side of Bangkok and leads him towards possible death. Jitpleesheep must find his killer without becoming a victim himself. The reader of this audio book is B.D. Wong. He has a flare for the dramatic and does attempt to keep the listener interested. Wong does have the ability to turn an accent on and off at will. This ability did help to keep the book interesting. BANGKOK 8 seems as though it is the type of book to read rather than listen to. Listening to words and places that were unfamiliar ended up being distracting rather than captivating. The book also had very tiny plot elements that were vital to the book; yet, easily missed if the listener did not pay absolute attention, i.e. the listener could not do anything else but listen. If a listener knew anything about the topic, the audio might be a valid option. The one element that seemed the most disconcerting was that Jitpleesheep and his partner were supposed to be the only two honest cops in Bangkok. This might be true; yet, their idea of honest was radically different from Western ideas. Jitpleesheep still finds himself engaged in activities involving drugs and other activities not normally acceptable by authority figures. Some of this can be explained by cultural differences; however, he is still a less than desirable hero. BANGKOK 8 is probably an enjoyable book once Western ideals are completely ignored. This is not the type of book to appeal to every reader; in fact, this book is likely to appeal to only a select few.
Reviewed by Sarah Dudley, August 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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