Product Description

From the author of the best seller Bangkok 8, a head-spinning new novel that puts us back in the company of the inimitable Royal Thai Police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep.

We return to District 8—the underbelly of Bangkok’s underworld—where a dramatically mutilated dead body is found. It’s bad: he was CIA. It gets worse: the murderer appears to be Chanya—a tough, sweet working girl who’s the highest earner at The Old Man’s Club, jointly owned by Sonchai’s mother and his boss, Police Colonel Vikorn.

Alerted by Sonchai, Vikorn quickly concocts a cover-up that involves Al Qaeda and Thailand’s porous southern border where, since 9/11, the CIA has been an obviously covert presence. But the truth will be harder to come by, and it will require Sonchai to find an ever-more-delicate balance between his ambition and his Buddhism, while running the gamut of Bangkok’s drug dealers, prostitutes, bad cops, worse military, and the pitfalls of his own melting heart (Chanya!)—most of which he can handle. But even Sonchai is not prepared for what he discovers at the end of his investigation.

Piercingly smart and funny, densely atmospheric, and—as we already know to expect from John Burdett—packing a surprise at every turn, Bangkok Tattoo is sensational.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #315940 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-10
• Released on: 2005-05-10
• Format: Deckle Edge
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
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.

From The New Yorker
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

From Bookmarks Magazine
Burdett, well on his way to establishing a series with the inquisitive Jitpleecheep at the helm, has again mastered the art of mystery in this entertaining romp through the shady underbelly of Thailand. Supported by an oddball cast of characters and colored with dark humor, Bangkok Tattoo is at once brassy and daring in its approach. Jitpleecheep’s narration, sarcastic and bold, provides the readers with a fresh perspective on everything from the sex trade industry to American greed. Though critics wondered if Burdett could successfully revisit Jitpleecheep’s seedy world of sex and murder, Bangkok Tattoo proves there’s still a lot left in Burdett’s imagination.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Customer Reviews

"Killing customers isn't good for business"


Chanya, the most profitable lady at the Old Man's Club, is holed up with an opium pipe, her blood-soaked clothes decorating the stairs to her room. A couple of streets away lies is the mutilated corpse of a farang (foreigner) and a single rose in a plastic mug of water. The Thai Royal Police Colonel Vikorn dictates Chanya's statement, phrasing it in such a way as to cover all possibilities when blame is cast. Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep artfully transcribes Vikorn's report, because that is how things are done here in District 8. Unfortunately, the mutilated corpse is CIA and the victim's ID carries inherent problems. The murder could be blamed on Al Qaeda, but how do you justify a terrorist/castration murder?

In Bangkok, where pragmatism rules the day, the Colonel is also a gangster and the police often supplement their salaries by working in brothels. Such is Sonchai's case, policeman by day, dedicated papasan by night. Sonchai is following the path of the Buddha, but constantly challenged by Vikorn's manner of doing business. A Muslim shows up at the club where Sonchai is overseeing the girls as they attach themselves to customers. Disdainful, the Muslim, Mustafa, unfolds a picture of the dead man, then leaves his card. Mustafa's father is an imam, who welcomes the detective, explaining that his network has been tracking the CIA agent. Now the imam is worried about being blamed for the murder, a convenient answer to everyone's problems.

What is so fascinating about this novel is the total immersion in Thai culture, from Buddhist practices to ancient rituals, alongside the very practical approach to the vagaries of human sexuality. This is a country that happily accepts all its differences, a finely tuned morality tempered with understanding for the many challenges that face the people who coexist in a difficult world. To read it is to think it, to experience life surrounded by the exoticism of Eastern values and thought processes. Throughout, advice is narrated to the "farang" reader, explaining the easy order of business in Thailand, "Farang, tell your evangelists not to bundle salvation with the work ethic. It really doesn't play in the tropics."

Bangkok Tattoo is a complicated slice of drama, an angst-ridden CIA agent hopelessly in love, tormented by his duty and religious beliefs vs. his amorous obsession; the Americans' interminable quest to tie every violent act to a subversive plot by Al Qaeda to undermine the moral of the American people; the naturally pragmatic and corrupt system of the accommodations of the Thai personality; and a group of Muslims trying to avert an excuse for war in their part of the country, hyper-aware that they are the bogeymen du jour. The ubiquitous Sonchai watches all unfold, reporting to Vikorn, yearning for Chanya, a dutiful son and conscientious policeman. Sprinkle in a Japanese tattoo artist, the community of katoeys (transsexuals-in-progress), a couple of gruesome murders that include castration and flaying, a dash of karma and mix well. This is the perfect recipe for a spicy Eastern mystery that is uniquely satisfying. Luan Gaines/2005.

Are you up for this, farang?
"Cynical" seems a wan description of the world of Sonchai Jitpleecheep. Many readers will have a hard time with Sonchai, who advocates prostitution as a worthwhile way for poor Thai girls to get rich quick, and who doesn't bother to conceal his utter contempt for post-911 America and Americans. If you hold your Western morality dearly, better skip this one.

On the other hand, if you're up for a stylish, sexy, rollicking good read with oodles and oodles of plot, dripping with exotica of every description, then welcome to Sonchai's world. Sonchai's mom, an ex-hooker turned clubowner, and the ever-inventive Colonel Vikorn (with his limo blasting "Ride of the Valkyries" through its sound system at all times) are characters who will make you laugh out loud--that is, when you're not squirming over the moral dilemmas they pose (and then leap past, with the greatest of ease). You may think you've read it all on the moral ambiguity front, but Burdett takes all those wised-up detective stories and raises the stakes to another level entirely. When you find yourself rooting for a young male cop to be successful in his sex-change operation, you'll know Burdett has gotten into your head. It's a great ride! Enjoy!

Where's Sonchai?
Like a lot of other reviewers, I read and loved Bangkok 8. What a great read. I was surprised to find- after I finished it, that it wasn't written by a Thai. Sonchai was a real person to me.

Now I read Bangkok Tattoo and I wonder what happened to Sonchai? What comes through is a Brit slamming the U.S. and the west in general through the voice of Sonchai.

What's the purpose of having the CIA being the fools in the story? The female boss of the CIA officers is a lesbian? Why's that? Why isn't MI6 the object of ridicule? Why is the word "farang" in every other sentence? I get it- I get it...it's a derogatory word for westerners, right?

I hope Burdett keeps writing in the series. I also hopes he lets Sonchai act like a Thai Buddhist and not like some political commentator on the Chris Matthews show.