“In Bangkok’s underbelly, everything seems to relate back to Buddha”

A unique mystery-thriller, unlike anything I have ever read, Bangkok 8 is the first of a series starring Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep.

As I said, I have never read a novel like Bangkok 8; never read a piece of fiction that so solidified in me the essence of a people, culture, way of life - even religion - as this novel does of Thailand, tying it all into not just Sonchai and those he encounters and where he goes, but even the mystery itself.

It's a book that makes you think deeply, yet also has touches of dark humor and plenty of thrills; even conversations between characters, at length, never come off boring or as filler, as the characters are so exceptionally well-drawn — what they have to say so revealing of them or the story — you must read word for word. I have simply never read anything like Bangkok 8. And I certainly can't remember when I was last so absorbed in a book that, while reading it, I completely forgot about the real world surrounding me.