Navigating the Bangkok Noir

Navigating the Bangkok Noir
Author: Chris Coles
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Limited
Total Pages: 125
Release: 2011
Genre: Expressionism
ISBN: 9789814346498

Bangkok, also known as Krung Thep of the City of Angels, is an almost-perfect setting for noir fiction, films, music and paintings, and the artistic movement known as Bangkok Noir. This title provides a vibrant, visual celebration of Bangkok's notoriously colourful nightlife.

CultureShock! Bangkok

CultureShock! Bangkok
Author: Dan Waites
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2014-02-15
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 9814516937

CultureShock! Bangkok is your all-in-one guide to navigating and living in Thailand’s vibrant capital. Learn how to get around the city quickly and safely by motorcycle taxi, how to order the tastiest street food, and how to behave with respect to Thai manners and beliefs. Join in the local celebrations such as Songkran and Loy Krathong and get a first-hand taste of the Thais’ zest for life and love of sanuk (‘fun’). Packed with practical information and frank advice, CultureShock! Bangkok shows you how to find your feet and enjoy your stay to its fullest in this ever-fascinating ‘City of Angels’. About the author Born in Durham, England, Dan Waites moved to Bangkok for the first time in 2004. In 2008, he moved to Phuket to join the Phuket Gazette, then left to work with Burmese refugees in Mae Sot. After covering 2010’s historic general elections in Burma for the Democratic Voice of Burma, Dan got drawn back to Bangkok to work as a sub-editor for The Nation, at the same time reporting on business and politics in Burma and Thailand for publications including Forbes Asia and Asian Correspondent. He now works in Bangkok as a Thai-English interpreter for an international humanitarian organisation.

The Barcelona Brothers

The Barcelona Brothers
Author: Carlos Zanon
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2012-08-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1590515196

A gritty noir set in Barcelona's savage underbelly. Epi Dalmau is a desperate man. Early one morning, he carries a duffle bag into a dingy bar in a rough neighborhood of Barcelona. Four other people are in the bar: his brother Alex, his good friend Tanveer, the bartender, and a Pakistani man who wandered in to use the restroom. Epi grabs a hammer out of his duffle bag and attacks Tanveer. After a brief struggle and a couple of blows, Tanveer lies dead on the floor and Epi flees the bar. Alex and the bartender plan to find and protect Epi, while blaming the murder on the unfortunate Pakistani man, who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Meanwhile, Epi is hunting for Tiffany, the woman of his dreams and the reason behind the murder. What he'll do when he finds her, and what drove him to brutal violence are the subjects of Carlos Zanón's gritty, unflinching novel, set in a city tourists never see. The Barcelona Brothers is a hard look at what people are capable of when they have no other options, and a portrait of a modern, multicultural Barcelona.

Bangkok 8

Bangkok 8
Author: John Burdett
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2003-06-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1400040914

A thriller with attitude to spare, Bangkok 8 is a sexy, razor-edged, often darkly hilarious novel set in one of the world’s most exotic cities. Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz. Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep—a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I.—is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones and captures her heart in the process. In a city fueled by illicit drugs and infinite corruption, prostitution and priceless art, Sonchai’s quest for vengeance takes him into a world much more sinister than he could have ever imagined.

Bangkok Beat

Bangkok Beat
Author: Kevin Cummings
Publisher:
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2015-06-08
Genre:
ISBN: 9780692396452

Bangkok Beat is a compilation of short stories, interviews, literature reviews and author profiles, plus the previously unpublished history and pictures of the iconic Bangkok cabaret nightclub, Checkinn99 located on Sukhumvit Road. In reading Bangkok Beat you will get up close with many well-known and not so well-known expats and characters staying in Thailand and Southeast Asia. You'll also find a section of noir poems by John Gartland, in which the author depicts life in the city's dark zone. Between the covers of Bangkok Beat you will get to know: champion male and female Muay Thai boxers, a surfing historian, a legendary mamasan, Chris Coles - noted expressionist artist of the Bangkok night, and a gold chain snatching ladyboy. You'll also encounter the inside of Baccara Bar on Soi Cowboy, an Australian front man for a Khmer band, a smiling waitress named Mook, a spirit house for a Hollywood screenwriter and producer, and the biographer for Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix. Plus world class musicians including Jason Mraz. In addition you'll find interviews and profiles of many well known novelists living in and writing about Thailand and Southeast Asia. (Contains 54 black and white photographs.) This book of non-fiction is ably assisted with an introduction by Bangkok pulp fiction author, James A. Newman, a short story by T Hunt Locke titled The Beauty of Isaan and a chapter of noir verse written by the poet noir, John Gartland. Many of the 54 black and white photographs found in Bangkok Beat were taken by professional photographers Eric Nelson, Alasdair McLeod, and Jonathan van Smit. There are a variety of interesting tales chronicled in words and pictures in Bangkok Beat.

Last Night

Last Night
Author: James Salter
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307426564

Last Night is a spellbinding collection of stories about passion–by turns fiery and subdued, destructive and redemptive, alluring and devastating. These ten powerful stories portray men and women in their most intimate moments. A lover of poetry is asked by his wife to give up what may be his most treasured relationship. A book dealer is forced to face the truth about his life. And in the title story, a translator assists his wife’s suicide, even as he performs a last act of betrayal. James Salter’ s assured style and emotional insight make him one of our most essential writers. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James Salter's All That Is.

Historical Dictionary of Thailand

Historical Dictionary of Thailand
Author: Gerald W. Fry
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 712
Release: 2013-08-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 081087525X

Throughout its history, Thailand has shown remarkable resiliency, adaptability, and creativity in responding to serious threats and crises, and this since much earlier times when it was known as Siam. This book, while focusing on the modern period, does reach back to ancient kingdoms but also shows the impressive rise to a modern democracy, although still endowed with a king, and even more impressively, an economic “tiger.” Moreover, it has become a prime tourist destination and is thus known to vast numbers of foreigners as a sort of “instant Asia.” The Historical Dictionary of Thailand, now in its third edition, covers this amazing story in various ways. First, the chronology traces the most significant events from year to year. The introduction then provides a good overview of the land and people, the history and traditions, and where it now seems to be heading. The dictionary, which by now has hundreds of detailed and cross-referenced entries, looks more closely at important persons, places, institutions and events as well as more generally its politics, economy, society, culture and religion. So this is an excellent reference work not only for scholars but many others who have visited the country and were fascinated by it.

Bangkok Tattoo

Bangkok Tattoo
Author: John Burdett
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2005-05-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1400044901

Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai Police returns in his riveting and smokily atmospheric new thriller.A farang–a foreigner–has been murdered, his body horribly mutilated, at the Bangkok brothel co-owned by Sonchai’s mother and his boss. The dead man was a CIA agent. To make matters worse, the apparent culprit is sweet-natured Chanya, the brothel’s top earner and a woman whom the devoutly Buddhist sleuth has loved for several lifetimes. How can Sonchai solve this crime without sending Chanya to prison? How can he engage in a cover-up without endangering his karma? And how will he ever get to the bottom of a case whose interested parties include American spooks, Muslim fundamentalists, and gangsters from three countries? As addictive as opium, as hot as Sriracha chili sauce, and bursting with surprises, Bangkok Tattoo will leave its mark on you.

The Bangkok Asset

The Bangkok Asset
Author: John Burdett
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2015-08-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0385353200

Sonchai Jitpleecheep—the brash and beguiling Royal Thai Police Force detective who has been our guide through John Burdett’s five previous acclaimed Bangkok novels—is back. The former monk and devout Buddhist, forever battling to protect his karma from the assaults of morally compromising cases, is now faced with the most horrifying technological innovation to make its way to the streets of Bangkok, and a conspiracy of almost unfathomable reach. With Sonchai on this case is the young female inspector Krom. Like Sonchai, she’s an outsider on the police force, but unlike him, she is socially savvy and a technological prodigy. When they’re called to a demonstration—in the midst of a typhoon—of the deadly, superhuman strength of an American man who is seemingly controlled by a CIA operative, they have no idea what they’re actually witnessing or why. Their reliably obtuse and unequivocally crooked boss, Colonel Vikorn, explains some of it, but the most telling questions remain unanswered: Could the Americans have figured out a way to create a physically and psychologically enhanced supersoldier? Are they testing him—or it—on Thai soil? And why is everyone, from the Bangkok police to the international community, so eager to turn a blind eye? Searching for the answers to these questions, Sonchai and Krom find themselves in a remote Cambodian jungle compound for aging American ex-soldiers, where they will discover just how far a government will go to protect its worst secrets—both past and present. But the case will also have much more personal repercussions for Sonchai, shaking his world to its very foundation and perhaps finally forcing him to confront his long-lost American father.

The Coroner's Lunch

The Coroner's Lunch
Author: Colin Cotterill
Publisher: Soho Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2017-11-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1616959916

ALL-TIME BESTSELLER: The first “wonderfully fresh and exotic mystery” starring septuagenarian coroner Dr. Siri, who finds himself caught in the political intrigues and mystical underpinnings of 1970s Laos (New York Times Book Review). Laos, 1978: Dr. Siri Paiboun, a 72-year-old medical doctor, has unwillingly been appointed the national coroner of the new socialist Laos. His lab is underfunded, his boss is incompetent, and his support staff is quirky, to say the least. But Siri’s sense of humor gets him through his often-frustrating days. When the body of the wife of a prominent politician comes through his morgue, Siri has reason to suspect the woman has been murdered. To get to the truth, Siri and his team face government secrets, spying neighbors, victim hauntings, Hmong shamans, botched romances, and other deadly dangers. Somehow, Siri must figure out a way to balance the will of the party and the will of the dead.