Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BANGKOK FICTION
First-time visitors to virtually any of Bangkok's English-language bookstores will notice an abundance of novels
with titles such as
The Butterfly Trap, Confessions of a Bangkok Private Eye, Even Thai Girls Cry, Fast Eddie's
Lucky 7 A Go Go, Lady of Pattaya, The Go Go Dancer Who Stole My Viagra, My Name Lon You Like Me?, The
Pole Dancer,
and
Thai Touch.
Welcome to the Bangkok school of fiction, a genre, as the titles suggest, defined
by its obsession with crime, exoticism and Thai women.
The birth of this genre can be traced back to Jack Reynolds' 1956 novel,
A Woman of Bangkok.
Recently re-
printed, the topic continues to be an acknowledged influence for many Bangkok-based writers, and Reynolds'
formula of Western-man-meets-beautiful-but-dangerous-Thai-woman - occasionally spiced up with a dose of
crime - is a staple of the modern genre.
Standouts include John Burdett's
Bangkok 8
(2003), a page-turner in which a half-Thai, half-
fa·ràng
(Western-
er) police detective investigates the python-and-cobras murder of a US marine in Bangkok. Along the way we're
treated to vivid portraits of Bangkok's gritty nightlife scene and insights into Thai Buddhism. The topics four se-
quels have sold well in the US.
Christopher G Moore, a Canadian who has lived in Bangkok for the last two decades, has authored more than
20 mostly Bangkok-based crime novels to positive praise both in Thailand and abroad. His description of
Bangkok's sleazy Thermae Coffee House (called 'Zeno' in
A Killing Smile
) is the closest literature comes to
evoking the perpetual male adolescence to which such places cater.
Private Dancer,
by popular English thriller author Stephen Leather, is another classic example of Bangkok fic-
tion, despite having only been available via download until recently.
Jake Needham's 1999 thriller
The Big Mango
provides tongue-in-cheek references to the Bangkok bargirl
scene and later became the first expat novel to be translated into Thai.
