Bangkok Tattoo [Poche]

Starred Review. In Burdett's brilliantly cynical mystery thriller, the follow-up to Bangkok 8 (2004), Royal Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is called in by his supervisor, hard-bitten Captain Vikorn, to investigate the murder of a CIA operative, Mitch Turner, found disemboweled and mutilated. The prime suspect is a beautiful bar girl, Chanya, with whom Sonchai believes himself to be in love. When Turner's murder turns out to be far more complicated than originally thought, Sonchai must deal with his boss's rages and Chanya's gradually revealed secrets, along with CIA agents who have come to investigate the crime, a Thai army general with whom Vikorn has been feuding for years, Yakuza gangsters, Japanese tattooists, Muslim fundamentalists and more. Thoroughly familiar with Thailand, Burdett does an impressive job of depicting an often romanticized society from the inside out. His characters are unforgettable, his dialogue fast-paced and perfectly pitched, his numerous asides and observations generally as cutting as they are funny. Agent, Jane Gelfman. 9-city author tour. (May 16)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .

Bangkok's red-light districts, perhaps the most infamous in the world, have inspired their share of breathless prose. Here, however, the tone is mordant, thanks to the serene narration of Sonchai Jitpleecheep, the Thai police detective who steered readers through Burdett's previous novel, "Bangkok 8." A devout Buddhist, Sonchai makes complex karmic calculations to justify his roles as law-bending cop and part-time papasan at his mother's go-go bar. When the bar's biggest moneymaker is suspected of killing her john, who turns out to be C.I.A., Sonchai initiates a coverup that eventually involves Muslim separatists in southern Thailand and American operatives eager to exploit post-9/11 paranoia for career advancement. The plot showcases Burdett's sly riffs on Third World stereotypes, Buddhism, and the gustatory pleasures of fried grasshoppers. It's a giddy, occasionally over-the-top performance, but mesmerizing: a comic tour of the underbelly of Bangkok in pursuit of both a murderer and the sublime.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .

What a fine transformation of novel to audio art! Reader Paul Boehmer seamlessly delivers this sophisticated story in the voice of its humble narrator, a Thai police detective and respected pimp who is caught up in an artfully embroidered plot involving corruption, lust, and the Buddhist culture of Thailand. As Detective Sonehai Jitpleecheep, Boehmer conveys every nuance of the first-person narrator's inner voice, as well as handily embodying a broad cast of Thai characters, including prostitutes and other women, who are interacting with hard-headed, ham-handed American intruders, in particular the CIA. Listeners will find this fictional audio diary enthralling, moving, even humbling as they absorb its layered depths of narrative art. D.J.B. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

You've read a few Italian mysteries, and you think you know what moral ambiguity is all about. Time for a trip to District 8 in the heart of Bangkok's sex district, where Buddhist police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep simultaneously investigates crimes and works the bar in a brothel owned jointly by his mother and his boss, the exquisitely corrupt Colonel Vikorn. In this outrageous yet bizarrely tender follow-up to Bangkok 8 (2003), Sonchai must solve the murder of a CIA agent before the trail leads to Chanya, the star whore at his mother's brothel, and before Colonel's Vikorn's elaborate cover-up plan, a fantasy about al-Qaeda agents fomenting trouble in southern Thailand, manages to start a revolution. The plot is incredibly elaborate, but it doesn't faze Sonchai, who reacts to so many opposing ideas dancing madly on the head of the same pin with a kind of Buddhist calm. Tunnel-visioned Western readers may shake their heads in dismay, but Sonchai understands perfectly when the killer says, "I could have castrated the whole city for her. That's love." Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .

Fils d'une prostituée thaïe et d'un soldat américain qu'il n'a jamais connu, Sonchaï Jitpleecheep est un flic atypique. Inspecteur le jour, il dirige, à la nuit tombée, un des bordels les plus réputés du 8e District, le quartier chaud de Bangkok. Un mélange des genres à l'image d'une ville où la frontière entre légalité et interdits disparaît dans les volutes d'opium. Jusqu'au jour où un G.I. est tué lors d'un rituel érotico-barbare par une de ses protégées. Un délire sadique qui s'est mal fini ? Pas si sûr, car très vite, Bangkok se met grouiller d'agents de la C.I.A. Mauvais pour les affaires. Et pour Sonchaï, les nuits chaudes de Bangkok ne sont pas prêtes de finir : un crime à résoudre, une fille à absoudre et quelques espions à renvoyer chez eux.

John Burdett’s extraordinary head-spinning new novel featuring Sonchai Jitpleecheep, Thai Buddhist detective extraordinaire --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

‘Killing customers just isn’t good for business’

In District 8, the underbelly of Bangkok’s crime world, a dramatically mutilated body is found in a hotel bedroom. It looks bad.

It gets worse for Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep when the self-confessed murderer is Chanya, the most successful ‘working girl’ at The Old Man’s Club, a brothel owned jointly by Sonchai’s mother and his boss, Police Colonel Vikorn.

And it gets deadly when Sonchai, in an effort to get at the bizarre truth, is forced to run the gamut of Bangkok’s drug-dealers, prostitutes, bad cops, even worse military generals, and the pitfalls of his own melting heart.

‘Like no other novel that’s come my way lately. Ironic, sexy and trailing an odour that reminds me of a Bangkok street after hours…Expect to be enlightened’
Literary Review

‘Open Bangkok Tattoo and you will read on and on, with wide-eyed fascination, some horror or disgust, and considerable delight’ Washington Post --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Avocat de formation, John Burdett a travaillé à Hong Kong dans un cabinet juridique britannique avant de devenir écrivain. Grand bourlingueur, il a vécu successivement en France et en Espagne avant de s'installer de nouveau en Asie. John Burdett est l'auteur de quatre romans dont Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo et Bangkok Psycho (Presses de la Cité, 2009).