Bangkok 8 - Tapa blanda

Bangkok, rich in history and spirituality, crowded with temples, markets and canals, is also a city shrouded in shadows. Polluted, corrupt, infamous as the sex capital of the world, it is a place where wealth, poverty and unimaginable evil walk hand in hand. Inside a locked Mercedes, an African American Marine sergeant is killed by a maddened python and a swarm of cobras. Two cops - the only two in the city not on the take - arrive too late. Minutes later, only one is alive. Sonchai Jitplecheep is a blond fair-skinned Thai; a devout Buddhist who commutes daily between the sacred precepts of his religion and the profane delights the city has to offer as darkness falls. Sworn to avenge the death of his partner and soul brother, Sonchai works his way through District 8, where illicit drugs, prostitution and police corruption are an endemic way of life. His tools are the forensic techniques of the modern police department; no less vital is his profound understanding of the mystical workings of the spirit world. Soon he is in a realm he has never before encountered: the moneyed underbelly of Bangkok, where desire rules and the human body is as custom-designable as a raw hunk of jade. And where Sonchai eventually tracks the killer, a predator of an even more sinister variety. A deeply original story of gripping pace and reality, Bangkok 8 is that rare thing: a darkly atmospheric literary novel that continues to haunt long after you've turned the last page.

John Burdett is a former lawyer who worked in Hong Kong until he found his true vocation as a writer. An Englishman by birth, he has lived in France and Spain, and is now back in the Far East. He is the author of A Personal History of Thirst, Six Million Seconds and the acclaimed Bangkok 8.