GOOD ONES YOU NEVER HEARD OF

 Mentioned below: "Bankok 8," and "Bankok Tattoo," by John Burdett; "Chasing the Dragon," and "The Big Boom," by Dominic Stansberry;




                   GOOD ONES YOU NEVER HEARD OF




    Modern Bangkok is polluted and traffic-clogged. This prosperous capitol seaport (in Thai called Krung Thep – heaven knows where Bangkok came from), is the setting for “Bangkok 8” by JOHN BURDETT (Knopf, 2003). Formerly Siam, Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia that was never colonized by a European power. Since the 13th Century, the Thai monarchy has been a unifying force in national affairs and the picture of the king is displayed on the walls of homes and offices, the way JFK’s picture used to be here.

    I read “Bangkok 8” on the recommendation of someone who rarely reads fiction and at first, had a few threshold problems because I was warned the story opens with a grotesque murder by drug-crazed snakes. Once I got beyond the cobras, I entered an exotic world of sex for sale, jade, meth of a particularly weird variety, and a monkish Buddhist detective.

    Although placed on the library shelf as a mystery, “Bangkok 8” could well have been catalogued under “Eastern Religion” or “Thai Cuisine” or “Transmutation of Souls” or “Economics” (with a sub-head: “Prostitution as a Factor in a Global Economy”). Other possibilities include “Perceptions of Reality,” “Drug Trafficking in The Golden Triangle” “The CIA in Southeast Asia,” and so on… You get the idea: the novel explores areas beyond our own sweet Bedford experience.

    “Bangkok 8” and Burdett’s latest, “Bangkok Tattoo” (Knopf, 2005) challenge Western, particularly American, hypocrisy about sex and gender. They remind us that no matter what high degree of affinity the farang, the foreigner, has for Asia, it is impossible to become One with the Eastern mind and morality.

    Atmosphere is a big part of both Bankok books but it is the characters, some continuing from the first novel to the second, that you’ll remember. Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai Police Force, erudite and devoutly Buddhist, half-Caucasian bastard son of a Bangkok whore and the only honest cop in the entire Far East, is a drag on the police force profit-sharing and an occasional pain in the ass to his pistol-waving, supremely corrupt boss, Colonel Vikorn, Chief of Bankok District 8. A selectively cruel soft touch, the Colonel is a great character – so good that Burdett gives him in a major role in “Bangkok Tattoo”.

    As wonderful as these characters are, the best one is Nong, former prostitute turned madam and teen mother of Sonchai. Still gorgeous at the age of 50, Nong hones new management skills with Wall Street Journal courses on the Internet. Manipulative, seductive, ambitious and witty in several languages, she runs circles around anyone who comes near her, including Sonchai and the Colonel.

    Even the great John LeCarre can’t better this description in “Bangkok Tattoo” of a CIA boss come to Bangkok to follow a (non-existent) lead to Al Queda: “She is close to six feet, slim with a military bearing, a fit and handsome fortysomething, although her face and neck suffer from that drawn quality characteristic of those beset by the vice of jogging. Her hair is very short, gray and spiky… She does not waste time or money on cosmetics; her hygienic odor includes carbolic references. The suit is gray with baggy pants… She keeps her hands in her trouser pockets, thoughtfully pacing up and down as she talks. There is about her the restrained superiority of a senior librarian with access to secret catalogues.”

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    Ex-San Francisco cop, Dante Mancuso, has an enormous Luccan schnoz that he sticks into investigations involving smuggling of drugs and human beings or elaborate real estate scams. Police and City politics where lines of good and evil often blur figure into the mix and Mancuso, obsessive and intense as he is, gets caught in webs of power and money even he cannot avoid.

    The dwindling Italian neighborhood of North Beach where Mancuso grew up, has seen property values soar and the old timers either die off or sell and move out. Places that were once owned by generations of Italians are now up for grabs by yuppies or Chinese. There is major dot com and offshore money around and the church and the funeral parlor are about the only institutions that remain as they used to be. “Chasing the Dragon” (St. Martin’s, 2004) is the first in a new semi-noir series by the American, DOMINIC STANSBERRY a better writer and story teller than whom you’ll be hard-pressed to find.  I picked this novel off the shelf at the West Tisbury Library at Martha’s Vineyard. Usually I’ve at least heard of an author before I take the book, but this time, no: hog luck.
To get the next book, “The Big Boom” (St. Martin’s, 2006) in this recent series, I had to go to the Chilmark library, also on Martha’s Vineyard. Both of these libraries have great mystery sections, not surprising in seasonal communities where it rains a lot.

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DEON MEYER I read Meyer's South African novels with a map close by. I follow the routes and look up places I never heard of. Along with interesting characters and thoughtful excursions into the realities of apartheid, Meyer educates and expands the reader's understanding of South Africa past and present following in the footsteps of James McClure and preceeding Malla Nunn.

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ANDREA CAMILLERI  I had never heard of him and again, the Chilmark Library comes through with a good one.  Penguin has published several in Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano series. These are police novels á la Dibdin and many are set in Sicily. Like Dibdin’s Inspector Aurelio Zen, Montalbano is an honest cop and you can imagine how this unusual trait complicates his life. The writing is plain and the translation runs smoothly. Inspector Montalbano, disillusioned with police work though he is, understands and enjoys good Sicilian cooking and the novels take you along with him as he relishes squid in ink and other Sicilian specialties. Camilleri has written many books and according to various blurbs, is popular and successful at home in Italy and abroad.

    So now, gifts from me to you on a silver platter, you’ve got four new authors I’ll bet you never heard of before: Andrea Camilleri, Deon Meyer, Dominic Stansberry, and John Burdett.