Rating: 
Summary: Surreal, Magical, Gritty
Review: Great Surreal, yet gritty Portrait of Bangkok, a "why'd-they-do-it", magical, Spicey, with a fresh, funky ending. Does not follow dogmatic, petrified-wood thriller formula. Ignore the folks complaining this is anti-American or whatever....I think most people can tell by the book title that it's about Bangkok. If you want a really, really patriotic American story....I don't know, maybe look for a book that doesn't have Bangkok in the title. You have 2 childhood friends, Sonchai and Pinchai, troublemakers sent to the Bhuddist Monastery for a year by their prostitute mothers, then placed on the police force. They are so spiritual, devout, they could ascend to heaven now, but resist to pay for their sins. Being in the monastery apparently rewired their delinquent brains, as they seem to be more sensitive to the environment, people, and possibly, the nonvisible universe. Yet, for all his straining for spiritual ideals, he is accidentally always around westerners, drawn to top-of-the-line clothing and perfumes. He has a yearning for connection to his mysterious caucasian father, and that the only males to spend quality time with him were westerners. They are sent to tail a US Marine, only to find him murdered in a freaky revenge killing, and our lead's pal is accidentally killed. For all his buddist values, he vows deadly revenge.
There's a lot of atmosphere building, lots of background which is fascinating, especially the lifestyle and treatment of prostitutes, and their children, especially the half-asian ones. He and the FBI team to work on this case, only it starts to get sticky politically, starts reaching far up the American foodchain. He is paired up with some americans but eventually ends up with MS. FBI who seems to be pursuing this in her own vendetta, and she has twisted the facts in order to pursue the culprit against top-brass orders. It is interesting to see the clash of styles in personal dynamics between Ms. FBI and him. He's used to female Thai behavior, their flirting, approachability and sexuality. She is slow to warm up, very business-like and assertive, which to him is manlike. It is very interesting to see them alternately flirting, then offending each other, getting turned off, yet still being drawn to each other, despite what they think is commonsense, and their pride and mutual stereotypes get in the way. He can't see it at all, which is rather funny. They do hammer each other with their dumb mutual stereotypes of what America & Americans are like vs. Thailand and Thai folks are like. (This happens at my work too, when one Thai guy says that Thai schools are so much better, so I "innocently" ask if everybody can fight like Jackie Chan & fly through the air.) They are both conflicted about themselves. He's supposed to be free of desires, yet lonely, can't seem to not flirt or allow physical proximaty. She's supposed to be professional, robot-like, yet very lonely, alternately wanting professionalism yet starving for connection and romance. His police boss, although corrupt, is a caring, responsible man, who has done the best he could in life. His mother is one smart ex-prostitute business woman, and she scares him a little with her ambition and brains. A lot of the things you see in the news about SE Asia are tied together here in vivid grit. The Russians, moonshiners, spirits, ghosts, bribery, artwork, plastic surgery and the drug and sex trade---all portrayed in very interesting fashion. I did not want to have this story end.
Rating:
Summary: Bangkok 8 delivers
Review: I'm listening to this book on CD and unfortunately, I'm nearly finished. It's great -- really well written in terms of suspense but also incredibly atmospheric. I love it. The only problem now is deciding whether to give it to friends as a book or on CD.
Rating: 
Summary: Wow! What a great read!
Review: This is a book I did not want to finish because I liked it so much. I simply didn't want it to end. Bangkok 8 was such a pleasant surprise to me that I am recommending it to everyone I know. Loved the characters and loved the plot, a little wayward at times but I was really pleased with this book. Maybe Burdett will continue with Sonchai's character in another book! Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: this is a wonderful read, ignore critics
Review: I just finished this this afternoon, what a delightful read. great conversation, ideas, plot and just wonderful. Ignore the overly critical critcs and settle down for a good bbok.
Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable read
Review: Bangkok 8 is a fantastic book, read it!
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining though flawed...
Review: One becomes suspicious upon discovering an Apology at the beginning of a work of popular fiction. In this case, the author reminds the reader that the work their about to embark on is a work of fiction, and that his criticisms are merely poetic licence, tools to carry the story along. Burdett borders on obsequiousness in his efforts to justify his portrayal of the Royal Thai Police Force. Strangely, most people with knowledge of world affaires are aware of corruption in these sectors, and warnings from travel agencies and home governments before travelling to South East Asia, is common practice. However, after reading this entertaining novel, to my surprise, Burdett's apologies were misplaced. He certainly presents the Thai police force as corrupt, but in a light that justifies this system as somehow workable and much less hypocritical than our Western system. In fact, for all his criticisms of America, his Apology should have been directed at Western society in general, as he presents American's as consumerist, puritan, insensitive, greedy and inept. To make an apology before presenting your creative endeavours, really show's that the artist is extremely insecure about their creation. Art should stand on its own without pre-emptive explanations and apologies regarding its subject matter. These criticisms aside, ~Bangkok 8~ is a crime thriller from an Eastern perspective. For this genre, telling a crime story from Buddhist eyes, including and using the tenets from this religion to solve the mystery, is indeed a fresh approach. Our narrator, Detective Sonchai Jiteecheap, is an 'arhat', a Buddhist who is a '...fully realized (person), who voluntarily pauses on the shore of nirvana, postponing their total release in order to teach wisdom.' In other words, a holy man, who must workout his remaining karmic lessons, before their final step into the abyss. Jiteecheap is a likable character, despite his arrogance and evident sense of superiority over Westerner's, particularly his FBI assigned partner, Kimberly Jones. Unfortunately, the Jones character is presented as a cardboard cutout, representing the modern American woman as ambitious, exclusively right-brained, Anglo-centred and crass. I found Burdett's conscious perpetuation of Western and Eastern stereotypes extremely annoying. As a reader of this novel, if you can somehow ignore the stereotypes and sociological biases, concentrating on the mystery itself, the book is an entertaining read.
Rating:
Summary: Too Many Ingrediants in Over Cooked Potboiler
Review: Intrigued by the premise of a Buddhist detective solving a murder in the lurid red light district of decadent Bangkok, my interest was initially rewarded. Burkett paints a fascinating portrait of an international city filled with culture and contradiction. His depiction of crime, corruption and society in Thailand are worth the read. The background is great, but as a action/mystery the plot and story fail to keep pace. The author overreached and tried for spiritual depth, social commentary, cultural analysis and lost sight of suspense, tension and credibility essential to a mystery novel. The ending was like some tacked on silly Hollywood resolution.
Rating:
Summary: Bangkok Comes to Life in Little Incidents
Review: What I loved about Bangkok 8 were the snippets of Thai life and culturally-driven attitudes of the everyday people, especially the prostitutes and the members of the drug network. Sonchai, too, is a character study of a man having solid values and beliefs that are melded by experiences. Here's where the touching humor of the book is revealed. I had no problem with what some consider an attack on Western ideals. On the contrary, it's our boldness, combined with a lack of understanding of other, and older belief systems that causes so much mis-communication. At one point Sonchai says this is not so much a Who-done-it as a Why'd-they-do-it. And Bangkok 8 is exactly that. It's not your traditional murder mystery. And this vehicle allows the author to examine cultural differences among the various characters, Asian and American. It's very thought-provoking about lots of issues, from the sex trade to police procedures, to economic exploitation, politics, and international diplomacy. That John Burdett can handle all of these issues adroitly in a single 300-page book is a tribute to his skill and tight-editing. I read the book thinking that it was more a man's book. I guess I still think so, only now I'm a little less sure.
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Summary: anti-american rant or planet splok?
Review: I came to Amazon searching for a copy of the excellently titled "A Personal History of Thirst" - another alleged 'first novel' by former Hong Kong lawyer John Burdett, and was surprised by a few of the US based reviewers of Bangkok 8. I guess some are still tingling with righteous anger and feel sensitive to criticism (I note the date of one review - 9.11) however historically accurate. What is this criticism? That the CIA set-up the heroin run out of Laos - there's a surprise. That some SE-Asian economies are still corrupt and in tatters thanks in part to post Vietnam War political chaos - really? This is tamely handled, and quite non-judgmentally described as background explanation for the Thai attitude to the west in Burdettt's superb police procedural. Burdett was careful to apoligize in advance to the Thai police and people, fearing he might ofend them with this tale of endemic and institutionalised corruption, and I am sure he didn't anticipate cultural sensitivity coming the other way. As an expat swimming to and from Thailand all the time, I appreciate Burdett's ear and eyes for the goings-on in the seedy parts of Bangkok that we business-class tourists know and exploit so very well. His observations ring with genuine experience and he shows an empathic fondness for the working girls and their sorry situation. I read in the South China Morning Post just this morning that Burdett decided to refocus his novel as he found out more about these girls. They are amazing people and prostitution in Thailand is an amazing business. "The sequel is a continuing conversation with them," he is quoted as saying. I was recommended this book for the entertaining cultural commentary it provides and I enjoyed it for that plus the nicely tuned sexual tension, and the fact that I was lying by the pool in my Phet-Buri Rd hotel as I read it. Bangkok is not Planet Splok to me, but a place I know well, and it is here described finely and astutely. When I see those criticisms I think that maybe, despite Burdett efforts to explain it to the world, Bangkok remains, as Australian band Cold Chisel used to sing, a place, an atmosphere, an attitude "that only other vets would understand." However the some of the world so convincingly described in Bangkok 8 has already been reshaped. For those who didn't know, Prime Minister Thaksin has recently been cleaning up the streets of Bangkok. The girly shows are nowhere as raunchy and the bars shut promptly at 2am. There has been a sharp rise in the "extra-judicial" deaths (about 2000 shot in Feb and March) of suspected drug dealers in shoot-outs conveniently not involving the police or the justice system. And if they had made it through the courts, Thailand's offical death penalty is by machine gun. Back to the novel. The weakness is not in the ending, which I thought refreshingly off-beat, but the unrelenting tendency for the various suspects to sit down with Officer Sonchai and a bottle of Mekong for some extended and contrived confessional monologues which burn my plot-device sensitive palate worse than the fieriest Thai prik (chilli). However, it remains an excellent example of the recent explosion of Bangkok low-life lit that is choking the bookstores in Don Muang airport terminal's shopping areas. For me, the best is the older stuff, particularly John Ralston Saul's hard to find "Paradise Eaters", from 1988 or so, when the political rot was settling in nicely (prior to the most recent coup and well before the Baht's crash.) Now where was Burdett's other first novel again?
Rating:
Summary: Anti-Western ranting kills an otherwise excellent novel
Review: I found myself thoroughly enjoying this book about 10 pages in, when I was jarred out of a captivating read by the first bitter rant about the futility of the western mindset compared with enlightened, relaxed Thai attitudes towards life. I dismissed it and read on, only to have the same sensation again and again. I disliked this book for the same reason I disliked Ayn Rand's novels: if I wanted to be periodically force-fed doctrine about the Eight-fold Path (or the virtues of Objectivism), I would have went to a different section of the library. This book comes off as a bitter, culture-centric indictment of Western thinking by an angry Eastern writer, until one realises that the writer is not Eastern, merely another Westerner enthralled with Eastern culture and inspired to take pot shots at the futility of his own native culture. Witness Madonna, Sting, et. al... This ruined an otherwise entertaining read for me, and ended up being a chore to finish the book. Frustrating. I'm giving it 3 stars because the parts of the book that actually furthered the story were fascinating, as was the in-depth look into Bangkok life.
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