Pun Salad

Perusing my book postings over the last few iterations, one might think that I almost never read outside a small number of my favorite genre writers. Not so! This is a totally different author, John Burdett, and a totally different kind of mystery. (Indeed, when I looked for Burdett's books at the local Barnes & Noble, they were in the "Fiction and Literature" shelves instead of "Mystery". Fine, I can read "Fiction and Literature" if provoked.)

The protagonist is one Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a detective in Bangkok, son of a Thai prostitute and an unknown American serviceman. Within the first eight pages, an American marine has been murdered, as has Sonchai's partner and "soul brother" Pichai. Sonchai starts off on a mission of revenge.

What's here is lots of matter-of-fact sex, commercialized and catering to just about every hidden kink you could imagine, and—assuming you're the straight and upstanding person I think you probably are—some you probably couldn't, and wouldn't want to. Mixed in: drugs, jewelry, corruption, Buddhism, and culture clash, mostly between American and Thai. Not a bad read, maybe a little don't-call-me-a-mystery pretentious; only thing is, you'll maybe want to read some Hardy Boys afterward to pull your mind out of the gutter.