The Other City of Angels
Book Review: "Bangkok 8" by Alfred A. Knopf, June 2003

By Tommy Tung

"Krung Thep means City of Angels, but we are happy to call it Bangkok if it helps to separate a farang from his money."

From page 8, this witticism primes us for the irreverent humor that will saturate the rest of John Burdett's crime novel. To Burdett's credit is the authentic feel of Thai words in his fiction, such as "farang" (American) and "yaa baa" (methamphetamine), and also to the Hong Kong author's credit is the jaded attitude of the protagonist, Sonchai.

Sonchai Jitpleecheep would make the ratings of any talk show soar. He's the son of a Thai prostitute and a nameless American G.I., who's out of sight but always on his mind. Since Sonchai and his best friend murdered a crystal meth dealer ("Pichai had thrust the broken bottle into the jugular of humanity, and therefore of the Buddha himself, while I giggled"), Sonchai and Pichai have repaired their karma by serving as legit cops for Bangkok's District 8.

The novel starts in high gear when Sonchai and Pichai do a routine tailgating and find a parked car in which their mark, a U.S. Marine, meets a gruesome death: "This one, an enormous python, has wrapped itself around the black man's shoulders and neck and is trying to swallow his great head. I note that pythons do not normally shake like that, nor do they normally ride in Mercedes. Is the black man shaking the serpent, or vice versa?"

Pichai springs into action and breaks open the Mercedes, but to his chagrin and demise, a meth-induced cobra sinks its fangs into his left eye. More cobras slither out of the Mercedes as Sonchai shoots all of them dead. With the bullets gone and the serpents dismembered, Sonchai vows to kill the culprit responsible for this double-homicide.

"Bangkok 8" takes charge with an unparalleled storytelling style, rife with Buddhist existentialism, redolent of traditional detective fiction and even Graham Greene's "The Quiet American." In each line of lapidary prose, the cleverness of language cuts right to the irony of the moment. Also indicative of Burdett's literary penchant is the floridly twisty plot thanks to the Khmer thugs, Chiu Chow Chinese gangsters, an American jade connoisseur, a transsexual sadist, an enterprising ex-hooker-mother, and the FBI agents that make life all but simple for Sonchai.

The pacing of "Bangkok 8" is unstoppable for the first 200 pages and then the book slows down with lengthier chapters, more expository than the preceding ones driven by the main conflict. While some of these chapters contain well-researched information, they nevertheless serve as speed bumps for Sonchai's mission. Just as distracting is the tenuous romance between Sonchai and FBI agent Kimberley Jones who seems less a character and more a device to counter Sonchai's ideologies.

Still, "Bangkok 8" is a force not to be reckoned with and its strength rests upon Sonchai's shoulders. How many gritty noirs feature a speed-popping-Buddhist? Sonchai's integrity as a Bangkok policeman who doesn't accept payoffs or sleep with hookers (because his mother is one) makes him a unique guide through Bangkok.

One could see Sonchai's opinions about the dilapidating Thai culture as cynical, but Burdett describes them in such a way that they are sound, particularly Sonchai's rationalization of crystal meth abuse: "Bar girls whose job it was to dance from 8 p.m. into the small hours of the morning, policemen on night duty, students needing to stay awake for exams-this stress was alien to the Thai way, and required chemical treatment."

Sonchai explains the evolution of the sex trade along with the industrialization of Thailand and suddenly, the novel's other character couldn't be more larger than life-the city of Bangkok, a behemoth that's Buddhist by tradition but capitalist by political trend. The conflicts of business and religion so wonderfully dramatized by the plot are also at war within Sonchai.

Despite some slow chapters, "Bangkok 8" is an entertaining ride through a noir world like no other. Burdett has an incisive voice that seduces, spellbinds, and ultimately enraptures any reader looking for a good fix of sinister crime fiction. The author's attention to detail is as impressive as his informed perspective of the Thai culture. Being Chiu Chow and Thai, I admittedly expected a misrepresentation of my ancestral home when I prejudged the author, but I found his insights even clearer than my own. I especially enjoyed an FBI character's stereotype: "Thais are actually not sensitive at all, they just have this way of covering up through ritual politeness…if you cut away the wais and the other formalities, you find people who really don't give a damn"-delightfully ironic since Sonchai (victorious) puns "sonjai" (interested).

August 1, 2003