Wong skillfully conveys the secret pain and self-doubt lurking beneath Sonchai's insouciant facade, while underlining the Eastern mood and the dark humor of Burdett's unique noir tale. The inspired casting of Wong, who's known for his roles in Madame ButterflyĪnd Oz, more than makes up for this small flaw, however. The policeman's account of his harsh life and what he must do to serve both the Buddha and his teeming, decadent city enriches the novel, but those fond of neatly wrapped tales may find the surreal but shocking finale less than satisfying. This thriller abounds with sensational elements-from homicidal vipers on speed to jade smuggling and the Thai sex trade-but listeners would be wise to follow the lead of Buddhist narrator Sonchai, who is more interested in the graceful acceptance of life's puzzles than in their resolution. (Feb.Set in Thailand's capital in the mid-1990s, this ambitious first novel by Burdett ( The Last Six Million Seconds) follows the city's only honest police detective, Sonchai Jitplecheep, as he searches for the person responsible for the deaths of his partner (a friend from childhood) and an American Marine sergeant. Film rights sold to 20th Century-Fox for $1 million. But a strong and moral hero, intricate plotting, fierce dashes of violence and sex and, above all, the looming-if crassly portrayed-menace of Communist masters (''monsters who have been spawned by monsters to govern monsters'') will keep readers attentive right through the novel's bitter conclusion. His prose marches rather than flows, and a few of his characters verge on stereotype. Under a Bangkok bridge, inside a bolted-shut Mercedes: a murder by snakea charismatic African American Marine sergeant killed by a methamphetamine-stoked python and a swarm of stoned cobras. It's a far-fetched scenario, but Burdett, who once practiced law in Hong Kong, lacquers it with the realism of intense local color and encyclopedic knowledge of the soon-to-be-former colony and its ways. 5 hours 18 minutes Summary Electrifying, darkly comic, razor-edgeda thriller unlike any other. His investigation, which Burdett bolsters with much forensic detail (the victims were minced alive), takes Chan into an astonishingly complex power struggle over the future of Hong Kong waged by cynical British diplomats trying to hide the bloodstains on their three-piece suits, American mafiosi scheming to exploit a China ripe for anarchy and, most malevolently, a Chinese warlord planning to establish Hong Kong as his fiefdom, in part by purchasing a black-market A-bomb.

During the 10 weeks before June 30, 1997, Hong Kong Chief Inspector ''Charlie'' Chan Siu-kai-33, half-Irish, half-Chinese-attempts to solve a horrific triple murder. Burdett means his book to be a scary cautionary tale as well as an enthralling thriller, and it is both.

Six million seconds are, in Burdett's second novel (after A Personal History of Thirst, 1995), all the time left until Hong Kong is subsumed by the People's Republic of China.

Bangkok 8 by john burdett