Book review: Thai detective tangled in grisly case
By Robin Vidimos
Special to The Denver Post
Posted: 02/28/2010 01:00:00 AM MST
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_14472844 (http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_14472844)
John Burdett's crime novels, narrated by Royal Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, are lovely and complex. The streets of Thailand and, in the new "The Godfather of Kathmandu," of Nepal, are as vivid as any of his characters; the reader is transported to a foreign world made familiar through the voice of his guide.
snip
At the crime scene he finds, "waiting for me is my long-haired assistant, Lek, a katoey — transsexual — who has not yet scraped together the courage or the funds for the final op. He avoids the supernatural brightness in my eyes (I've been meditating all night) to inform me, sotto voce, that Detective Sukum is here before me and has already developed possessive feelings toward the cadaver."