Eating wild bugs can be a risky affair, but in the global bazaar, insect specialties are now available, “collected fresh from farms and then cleaned, quick frozen, cooked, dehydrated, seasoned and packed in special vacuum packs with oxygen and moisture absorbers ready for shipping.” Besides chocolate-covered scorpions, canned BBQ tarantulas, and sacks of dried bugs in profuse variety, Thailand Unique…
The Axe Factor by Colin Cotterill is the third Jimm Juree Mystery about a relocated news reporter in rural Thailand who finds herself entwined with a suspicious crime writer (available April 15, 2014). The setting is Thailand. I close my eyes and hear the sounds of Chiang Mai and the smell of cooking fills my…
A Good Death by Christopher R. Cox is an atmospheric almost-traditional mystery set in Thailand (available February 19, 2013). A woman is found dead of an apparent OD in a grimy backpackers’ hostel in Thailand, a needle still stuck in her arm. A passport found at the scene identifies her as Linda Watts, a Thai…
When it comes to eye-popping landscapes and city streets that evoke exotic, deadly intrigue, Hollywood’s go-to country for Asian locations may very well be Thailand. The kingdom boasts a variety of terrain—everything from thick jungles and vaulting limestone mountains to broad, bone-white beaches and chaotic, neon-drenched urban cores—as well as competent, relatively inexpensive movie crews.…
An excerpt of A Good Death the debut novel from Christopher R. Cox (available February 19, 2013). Linda Watts is a beautiful, talented Southeast Asian refugee with a promising career in finance—or she was, until she turned up dead, the victim of a heroin OD, in a cheap Bangkok guest house. Her death seemed straightforward…
On the surface, Thailand boasts all the hallmarks of an exotic tropical idyll: white-sand beaches; dramatic limestone mountains; a languid, Buddhist lifestyle. Delve a little deeper and you’ll encounter a more troubling reality—a culture of impunity among the phu yai (literally, “big people”) who are used to having their way, often aided and abetted by…
The Fear Artist by Timothy Hallinan is the fifth dark Poke Rafferty thriller set in Bangkok, Thailand (available July 17, 2012). An accidental collision on a Bangkok sidewalk goes very wrong when the man who ran into Rafferty dies in his arms, but not before saying three words: Helen Eckersley. Cheyenne. Welcome to Bangkok,…
I am especially fond of John Burdett’s Bangkok mysteries. The setting is just so interesting and the characters are written with such unique voices that they are a true armchair trip. Sonchai Jitpleecheep might be the only honest cop in Thailand. But you have to measure that by local standards. He is a half-caste. His…
