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| Bangkok Tattoo | 
 enlarge | Author: John Burdett
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
Buy Used: $0.72
You Save: $23.28 (97%)
New (37) Used (50) Collectible (8) from $0.72
Avg. Customer Rating:  66 reviews
Sales Rank: 372073
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.7 x 1.3
ISBN: 1400040450
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781400040452
ASIN: 1400040450
Publication Date: May 10, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Stale Storytelling May 31, 2006
9 out of 14 found this review helpful
I picked up Burdett's first thriller, Bangkok 8, prior to a trip to Thailand and found it brimming with atmosphere but somewhat disappointing in the plot department and marred by a painfully bad ending. This sequel is similarly atmospheric and similarly disappointing. We are reintroduced to Thai police officer Sonchai Jitpleecheep as he manages his mother's bar/brothel on Bangkok's legendary Soi Cowboy. The establishment -- which caters to aging Westerners and opened in the previous book -- has not been the golden goose his mother hoped for and is barely breaking even. So when the joint's top earner, Chanya, is found covered in blood in a nearby hotel room with a castrated and flayed American, Sonchai and his boss (who is also part owner of the brothel), police Col. Vikorn, move quickly to remedy the situation. Here, the murder "mystery" framework is an excellent vehicle for conveying just how different the Thai culture is from the West. They know the woman couldn't have committed the murder because the desecration of the corpse just isn't in line with Thai psychology, but their efforts aren't directed at solving the murder so much as deflecting any attention from it.
Vikorn quickly decides to sweep the matter under the rug and enlists Sonchai's help in creating a semi-plausible "self-defense" confession for the girl and a quick and clean disposal of the body. Unfortunately, it turns out the American was a CIA agent working in Thailand's southern provinces, keeping an eye out for extremist Muslims. Soon CIA agents show up looking for their missing man and Sonchai is sent South, ostensibly to get the lay of the land and try and figure out if maybe al-Qaeda is somehow involved. This is all pretty absurd (particularly the notion that the CIA would send a blond musclehead to lurk in provincial Muslim towns), but it does provide the chance to see a different part of Thailand.
However this is just the tip of the iceberg, as there are plenty of other subplots revolving around Sonchai. Most dangerous of these is the increasingly lethal feud between Vikorn and his army nemesis, General Zinna, for control of a portion of the heroin trade. Then there is the question of Chanya's past, which includes a year in the United States, and how that might relate to the CIA agent's murder. There is also the question of Sonchai's feelings for Chanya -- are they love or lust? And then there's Sonchai's long-lost father, an American GI whom he's never met and is making plans to come to Thailand for a visit. And lets not forget the mysterious Japanese master tattooist... There's simply far too much going on, and the book lurches around awkwardly from storyline to storyline and major elements (such as Vikorn's feud with Zinna) simply disappear at times.
In addition to keeping track of all these threads, one also has to buy into Sonchai's ability to see people's past lives when he first meets them, and his obtaining clues through dreams of his dead partner. These elements end up feeling like more of an unnecessary gimmick than anything else. Another somewhat awkward device is the use of direct address to the reader by Sonchai, which really takes one out of the moment, as well as a pervasive sneering tone toward "farangs" (ie. foreigners). This gets old fast, and it reads like some kind of overcompensation by farang author Burdett, as Sonchai paints all Westerns as bumbling, soulless idiots.
Ultimately, one wishes that Burdett had concentrated on one or two storylines and worked at making them plausible. The rivalry between Vikorn and Zinna, for example, could have made a great plot all on its own. Instead it gets lost in the shuffle and very perfunctorily resolved. Perhaps worst of all was the confirmation of my suspicion that the motive behind the murder of the CIA man was a heavily recycled one. It's actually a plot I've come across THREE TIMES previously: first in Roald Dahl's short story "Skin", then in a Akimitsu Takagi's Japanese crime novel "The Tattoo Murder Case", and lastly, in a recent German film called "Tattoo."
What was fresh in Bangkok 8 has grown stale here. Yes, there's still good Thai atmosphere, but that's about it -- and much of it is the same as the previous book. The plotting is muddled, the pacing is terrible and the overall effect is more yawn-inducing than thrilling. I don't think I'll be back for another visit to Sonchai's Bangkok.
 Farang, John Burdett really needs to get off his barstool and learn about Thailand November 9, 2007
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
I read the first few pages at a friend's house (in Bangkok) and thought this might be better than Bangkok 8, so I went out and bought a copy for my flight home. Burdett's previous novel was a good read despite a heavy dose of Thai stereotypes. Unfortunately, "Tattoo" quickly descends into a poorly informed anthropology lesson about Thailand that meanders through a high concept plot that also concerns things Burdett knows little about. The plot builds on two common SE Asian stores and 1990s headlines about the CIA. The first story line is a variation on a common and truth based Thai tale: the violent death of a US GI/sailor/Marine, whose body is found in a divey bar or sleazy hotel after a joint US-Thai military maneuver (if it happens in Bangkok) or a large organized R&R (if it happens in Pattaya). This happens about once a year and an old colleague of mine used to be the guy who had to handles these. Burdett turns the GI/sailor/Marine into a CIA agent, who seems to be a cross between Graham Greene's Quiet American (based on an actual CIA agent) and Forrest Gump. Story element #2 is a variation on the "Air America" legend of CIA operations in Laos financed by opium dealing, which has been raised and to varying degrees, debunked over the last 30 years. Finally, Burdett adds CIA agents turning for money. Unfortunately, he knows little how CIA agents are recruited, what motivates them or how much they're paid. His agents are oafish characters who make the dead agent look like a genius.
Along the way, Burdett uses his tiresome and didactic "Farang..." device to give us various pieces of misinformation about Thailand. Muslim Malaysians appear where ethnic Chinese Malay usually predominate (the border massage parlors Sungai Golok), Western sex tourists pop up in places where Westerners are rarities, and the description of working girls from NE Thailand borrows from the mythology of young women from the villages of a different region where sex work came to be something of a cottage industry. The Isaan women who serve foreigners come from a different world where they are much less tied to the village, much less respected there, and much more interested in ending up with a foreigner. In one spot, Burdett can't decide if he's in Patpong (which features "ping pong shows" is for tourists) or Soi Cowboy (which is more sedate and for expats) some distance away. These kinds of details wouldn't aggravate if Burdett was less interested in telling us over and over again what he "knows".
Ultimately the plot falls apart with its cartoonish CIA gents (who would be better cast as small town or suburban cops in a xenophobic place like Indiana), its ludicrous assumptions about their motives (Burdett thinks a PhD holding case officer would make as much as a senior administrative assistant), and the tiresome use of his "Farang..." storytelling device. Burdett is skilled in the use of stereotypes about people from the US, although his fellow Brits only do slightly better.
Bangkok has had an explosion of really lame fiction and non-fiction written by expats and graduate students over the past decade. It's entertaining place full of paradoxes, sleaze, corruption, cuteness (the sappy popular culture never seems to make into books), and unexpected places of tranquility. It certainly deserves a decent book and definitely deserves something better than this smug string of cliches and misinformation.
Disappointed December 31, 2005
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
After thoroughly enjoying Bangkok 8 I was excited to ready Bangkok Tattoo. I found Tattoo to be a boring read, not in the "action" so much as in it's lack of depth or new creativity by the author. I felt that the author wrote this book because he did so darn well on the first one and wanted to cash in on his previous success (I can't blame him for that). Hence, the book lacked originality and I felt that Mr Burdett, like a chef simply repeating a dish over and over again, was dishing up the same gangster, foreign spies, prostitute, drug recipe in bangkok simply as a recipe, not as a new and creative masterwork. I would have liked to have seen a more inspired and creative storyline instead of another familiar romp in seedy bangkok again by the detective who has a great personality.
Disappointing February 22, 2006
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
I read Burdett's predecessor to this story, Bangkok 8, and thoroughly enjoyed it. In it, Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep investigates the murder of a U.S. marine by method of poisonous snakes. Sonchai's best friend is killed and Sonchai begins a relentless search for the killer. The story provides a fascinating tour of the Bangkok sex industry and the corrupt Bangkok police. The fact that Sonchai is a pious Buddhist makes the story even more enthralling. At one point, when he is whizzing through the crowded Bangkok streets on the back of a kamikaze motorcycle taxi, Sonchai remarks how he almost wishes the motorcycle would crash so that he would be liberated from the decay of human existence and be reunited with his friend. I only rehash the plot to Bangkok 8 because it was so much better than Bangkok Tattoo.
Bangkok Tattoo meanders pointlessly through a murder investigation of an American Intelligence Agent. When it appears that the murder was committed by a whore who works for the brothel owned by Sonchai's mother, Sonchai and his boss Colonel Vikorn manufacture a self-defense story. This brings in parties from both the CIA and the Muslim world to investigate. Both want to ensure that the killing wasn't a terrorist act. The plot relies on several coincidences and even worse on amateurish oversight on the part of Sonchai. At one point he simply loses a computer hard drive and at another he finally remembers to read the diary the whore has given him, both of which would have allowed him to solve the mystery hundreds of pages before he does.
Absent from this novel are the frenetic pace and sense of urgency that permeated Bangkok 8. With Bangkok 8, the plot required us to examine the depths of human degeneracy. In Bangkok Tattoo, the plot is merely an excuse to examine it. It's pretty clear to me that this novel was written just because the last one was such a success and Burdett wanted to cash in again using the same characters. He really should have waited until he thought of a better plot because for me the characters failed to carry the book. I would be hard pressed to purchase another of his novels.
 Colorful Villains and Anti-Heroes June 2, 2005
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
As spicy as a four-pepper pot of Pad Thai, BANGKOK 8 whetted our palates for a second course. Author John Burdett serves it up in BANGKOK TATTOO with asbestos mitts, brim filled with culturally diverse, eclectic and exciting characters. His Buddhist monk cum Bangkok police detective, Sonchai Jitpleecheep, is the singularly most complex and exotic police detective to be found in current noir detective fiction.
In his first highly acclaimed novel we are introduced to Sonchai, a troubled young detective under the tutelage of Police Colonel Vikorn, head of Bangkok's notorious Precinct 8. Sonchai is the half-breed son of a vanished American GI and one of Bangkok's most successful concubines. Now retired, she has the connections needed to allow her son entre to what she hopes will be a life away from the bitter streets of the Red Light district.
These hopes are upended due to his familiarity with the business end of Bangkok's seamy sexual underworld. His Buddhist monastic training has rendered him incorruptible, but his upbringing has left him unblinkingly aware of the dark hazards that can befall those who ply the trade.
In BANGKOK TATTOO he becomes inextricably entangled in a plot that involves the FBI, CIA, Muslim clerics, Al Qaeda operatives, and ghoulish figures of the Thai underworld. It seems that the love of his life, the beautiful Chanya, is a chief suspect in the grisly murder of a CIA agent, found dead in her room. Sonchai follows a trail of evidence that burrows into a feud between the Thai military, upper echelon police and international terrorist groups. Mere suicide bombings pale against the toll of the highly lucrative drug and sex trade, as always at the root of the strife.
Burdett creates a vivid sense of place and offers a cast of colorful villains and anti-heroes that favorably compare to the worlds of James Lee Burke and Michael Connelly. His writing is literary in style, reflective and philosophical in nature, yet filled with action and suspense often delivered with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
Bring on the third course, Mr. Burdett. We're ready with a six-pack of Singha beer in the cooler.
--- Reviewed by Roz Shea
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