Customer Reviews

The Godfather of Kathmandu

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Below the whimsical and irreverent surface of John Burdett's new novel lies the very lifelike real world of a Thai cop. We have met his protagonist, Sonchai, before and if you liked him in his last incarnations, you will love him in this one. We see Sonchai at street level, bereaved over the death of his son, whacked out on pot, and trying to get his boss, Colonel Vikorn, to make this last huge heroin shipment the last one so his spirit can find peace. Sonchai sees himself as his boss' consigliore, the counterpart to Hagen in the Godfather films. But where Don Corleone stopped short of dealing drugs on principle, Colonel Vikorn sees it as a competitive necessity. For womenfolk we have the usual slutty detritus of Soi Nana, to which Burdett adds Rosie, the Australian mule. We might as well add Sonchai's transsexual partner, Lek, to the female dramatis personae. This latest version of the Sonchai chronicles veers slightly off the path of the earlier versions with the addition of the Tibetian freedom-fighting, drug kingpin Tietsin.

Burdett's depiction of the seamy Thai underworld is spot on, as is his description of the street scene in Kathmandu. He has Norman Mailer's knack of understanding what's truly happening amidst the bustle of normal daily life, and he has Joseph Wambaugh's capacity to capture the humor amidst the violence. Some armchair Buddhists will find Burdett's irreverence grating, but the life of a cop in a freak show like Bangkok is not about achieving higher levels of understanding. It's about finding out who cut the fat Hollywood mogul's stomach open, leaving his guts spilling out over his hotel sheets. And you must be patient, Farang, to give the story time to unfold.

Having spent considerable time in Bangkok in 2008, I became an instant fan of John Burdett's Sonchai Jitpleecheep mysteries due to their intricate plots, fascinating characters, and references to buildings, landmarks, streets, and parks in Bangkok, Thailand. Reading his books makes me feel as though I'm back on the crowded, bustling streets that make up this city.

In this book, Sonchai is involved in a murder concerning a famous Hollywood director who would come to Bangkok to partake in the the "delights" of the young women of the street. His death was somewhat patterned after the book The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lector) which happens to also be in possession.

Sonchai Jitpleecheep is a complex indivdual who has a hard bitten approach to his job, but is also inside a gentle follower of Buddha. He is the half-caste son of a prostitute and an American GI. His boss on the force is Colonel Vikorn who is also a drug dealer. In Bangkok, where everything is for sale, Sonchai tracks the killer, navigates his promotion by Col. Vikorn to his consigliere (the Colonel has been studying the Godfather DVD's), and does what he needs to do with Colonel Vikorn's ongoing battle with General Zinna over who heads the illegal trades.

If you have read the prior three books, Bangkok 8: A Novel, Bangkok Tattoo, and Bangkok Haunts, you will enjoy once again being immersed into the conflicted world of Sonchai Jitpleecheep as he tries to please Vikorn, his mother, his wife, his Buddhist leanings and do his job. If you haven't read the prior three books, this book is fine as a stand alone!

Although this is first and foremost a mystery, if you have been to Bangkok or are planning to go, you will find the book rich with the details that separates an author who researches through books versus an author who actually has walked the walk. The book is laced heavily with humor as well as a realistic look at the culture. Reading them, as I said in the first paragraph, takes me back to the streets of Bangkok!

I've been more than favorably impressed with Burdetts' previous three books. They were rich in everything I seek in a detective thriller. I'd give five stars to all of them, recommended them to friends and purchased gift copies. This one has too many arch comment 4th wall breakins, a wandering plot, unexciting characters and an uninspired, barely believable finish. It feels like the outline of what could have been an interesting and exciting story.

I am a huge fan of the Burdett books. But I have to say that this is by far the weakest of the "Bangkok" quartet. And that is a pity, because the premise of this story could have made a much stronger book. Burdett got carried away with fatuous riffs on meditation in general and on Buddhism in particular. Plus the device of his hero speaking condescendingly to the reader as "farang" has become pretty tiresome. I am skeptical this book would have found a publisher if it was the author's first effort, instead of feeding a huge and loyal fan base's appetite for more "Bangkok murder mysteries". Burdett's Editor failed badly on this one - that red pen is sorely needed. I give 5 stars to Bangkok-8 and Bangkok-Tattoo, and 4 stars to Bangkok-Haunts. This one gets 2-plus . . . maybe 3-minus for the creativity of the plot. But a disappointing sequel overall.

Having read all of the previous Sonchai novels, I was so excited to see this newest one at the bookstore. But, alas, my excitement didn't last too long. I LOVED the previous three....but this one, I'm only about 2/3's the way through it, and it is a job to get through it. Not sure if I'll even be able to finish it...and I never leave a book unfinished!!!

Burdett mailed this one in. I wonder...from a purely Buddhist perspective....will Burdett enjoy the money made from this one, knowing that he didn't put the work in??? lol

I love Sonchai Jitpleecheep, but you cannot go romping through the brothels and food stalls of Bangkok with someone who has just lost his six year old son in an automobile accident. It just does not work emotionally and makes everything else seem false. In one of the earlier novels a previous incarnation of Pichai as Sonchai's brother and soul mate is actually a character in the novel and appears in dreams to give him tips to solve the crime. That worked just fine, but a son is a different order of grief. At one point in this novel, Sonchai sees a boy his dead son's age and breaks down. He thinks to himself, "How to explain at times like this that it is not merely grief that gnaws my guts, but Tietsin's mantra as well?"

On no! It doesn't matter the religion or culture, Burdett must not be acquainted with anyone who has lost a child. Some mantra from a nutty Tibeten is more on Sonchai's mind then mere grief for the death of his son? Sonchai keeps telling us that the Tietsin was so impressive and took over his mind, but Burdett does not succeed in making that impression on the reader. The Tietsin encounter seems kind of campy and ridiculous.

Another thing that bothered me was Burdett's overuse of the farang expression. I enjoyed the cultural observations in the earlier novels. They were interesting and informative. Here he seems to be carping, and it is every other sentence. The three earlier Jitpleecheep novels are really good. Skip this one. Let us hope Burdett will regain his light touch in the future.

Sonchai the Thai detective has introduced us to another side of Thailand with great humor, and I think quite a deal of compassion. The first book in the series (Bangkok 8: A Novel) was utterly original, with a great story, and even greater humor. Sonchai has grown since then, but some of the originality is unavoidably lost on the way. In this book, the author moves some focus to Nepal, perhaps partly to keep being fresh. It only works partly for me. Sonchai is still a great figure whom I care about and want to read about, but the story is thinner than in the previous books. The humor is still here though, and like all of Burdett's books, it made me want to read the next.

I am a great fan of John Burdett and have enjoyed reading all of his previous books. They are funny, informative, exciting and educational. His descriptions of Hong Kong, Nepal and Bangkok are right on the money and looking at the world through the eyes of his characters is very different and interesting. His new book, "The Godfather of Kathmandu" is a bit dissapointing. I found the story disjointed and fairly unbelievable and was frankly confused. Although some of the book contained the usual Burdett excellent storytelling and there was the usual great background settings, overall, in my opinion, it was not his best work.

Resisting the Chinese genocide of Tibet, Buddhism's apocalyptic appeal, a bit of Tantric sex, lots of lemon iced tea, conniving drug lords disguised as a police chief and army general, and sorrow over a devastating personal loss energize this, the fourth in a series about Royal Thai Police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep's Bangkok investigations. Even as a first-time reader of Burdett, I could follow it all along, although the personal loss appears to either be off-stage or between this and the third novel. Intrigued by the topics and settings, I enjoyed this.

A rapid read, but intricate enough that it improves upon the mystery template. John Burdett's reflections upon crime, faith, karma, and greed deepen the tone here. Mimi Moi, a doctor with a sinister twist, and Tara, a Tantric emanation, both entice Sonchai as he pursues the case of a Hollywood filmmaker's disembowling and the clues that he seems to leave behind. He also is made "consigliere" as a go-between for a big drug shipment that challenges his own Buddhist ethics.

There's a spate of sudden leaps in logic midway that threw me off, so closely and rapidly do they arrive. The pace starts and goes erratically at times as Sonchai's own confrontation with the mantra he receives from Doctor Tietsen in Nepal makes this a curiously off-kilter look at how the West and East, in this half-Thai, half-Western detective clash. He, an outsider-as-insider and vice-versa as far as his fellow Thais perceive him, looks into a case that represents the appeal of a less capitalistic, less greedy way of life, even as that way of life is financed by drug running, corrupt bureaucrats, sex workers, and tricky Buddhists making their own living in a heartless global economy. Tietsen explains his motive for a scheme involving drugs-for-dharma: "We've invaded the world. But we've lost Tibet." (38)

The flavor of this book lingers in the pithy, wry, thoughtful dialogue. It mixes the everyday with the mysterious, One prostitute tells our protagonist: "After sex men go vague, if they don't fall asleep." (145) Sonchai notes on the next page how "witches are best approached by water at night without prior warning, right?" He's told by Moi: "Pets die. Children are a pain in the ass for the duration."

Tara tells him: "I think it is difficult for people with a Western background to understand how impersonal bliss really is." (174) Sonchai learns from a spectral informant: "Our extreme-- you might say homicidal-- aversion to pain and suffering makes us the ultimate apostates in the business of life." (210) He later muses how, based on Hong Kong's frenetic pursuit of goods, this is "what happens in societies with too much money and too few brothels: citizens are forced to play with themselves in cyberspace." (247)

Finally, in one of those extended speeches that in movies don't play well but which sometimes work in fiction, Robert Clive, founder of the first corporation, the East India Company, gets linked to the drug wars he helped expand into our globalized economy. Tietsen tells Sonchai: "He was the first to make the connection between arms and narcotics." He blames "the sociopathic nature of the modern corporation" on the British Empire's export of the opium trade, a private army, and a system to spread this all over the world by "narcotics, slaves, and weapons. It's the great tripod upon which our global civilization continues to be based, even if they have changed the labels and the slaves get health insurance." (287)

The novel takes about halfway to really get rolling, and supporting characters appear often underwritten but this may be since some of his co-workers earned more time in earlier installments. Not only Bangkok but Kathmandu and Hong Kong earn vivid description, and food, sights, sounds, and textures infuse these pages. So, despite a sometimes sudden leap by Sonchai and his helpers into logic that helps solve this case, and a tendency to rely on the deep meditation trance to get Sonchai in and out of his narrative, this proved a worthwhile tale, and one that ends with the Beijing 2008 Olympics and a subtle feature that you and I may have overlooked during its broadcasts of one of the latest imperial pageants that celebrate global domination.

Wow, could this book have been more hypocritical if Burdett tried? The whole murder and drug deal could have made a really short story (maybe 12 pages) and been a lot a LOT better than this drawn out book. It reminds me of what I used to do when I had a paper due with a mandated number of pages but you couldn't mess with the margins or the fonts. You just state the problem is the longest terms possible (and be as repetitively redundant as you can) so that yo can then spend most of the paper discussing the ideas behind the problem that you solved in the second paragraph.

I'm not sure what was worse, the crazy Thai-Chinese Pharmacologist, the insane Tibetan anti-Chinese drug dealing non-monk, the dead Fat Farang or the overly adaptable but underly explainable Thai cop. This has been a good series so far, but I guess that there comes a point when the writer gets carried away by their publicity and believes that anything they write (and I do mean anything, even birthday card wishes) is worthy of being published and receiving the accolades it so readily deserves. Yeh, right!

So what we have here, friends, is the writer as artist going through the motions so that they can enjoy the celebrity to which they hope to become over accustomed to. Yes I did end a sentence with a preposition, sue me.) There is way to much discussion of karma, dharma, the far shore, past lives and anything that came to mind while sitting in from of his word processor that his editor(s) were too afraid to remove. It's not Kerouac-ish writing by train-of-thought, it's just diarrhea of the fingers. Just because something is incomprehensible or totally worthless when it comes to literature doesn't make it great writing, it's still trash, just culturally mutated trash. Too bad, better luck next book, maybe he can write "Jane Eyre reincarnated".

Zeb Kantrowitz