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Bangkok Tattoo
by John Burdett


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Like its predecessor, "Bangkok 8," Burdett's latest is a thriller set in Thailand, where the latest case for Buddhist police detective/bartender Sonchai Jitpleecheep finds him tracking down the assassin of a CIA agent.

Knopf, 320 pages
05/10/2005
$24.00

ISBN: 1400040450

Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Publishers Weekly

Thoroughly familiar with Thailand, Burdett does an impressive job of depicting an often romanticized society from the inside out. His characters are unforgettable, his dialogue fast-paced and perfectly pitched, his numerous asides and observations generally as cutting as they are funny.

The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Margaret Cannon

I loved Burdett's first novel, Bangkok 8, and I'm pleased to report that it looks like Royal Thai Police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is in for a long and excellent run.

Salon Laura Miller

The story lines are baroquely perverse, but all the fizz comes from crossing the culture gap.

Booklist Bill Ott

Outrageous yet bizarrely tender follow-up to "Bangkok 8" (2003). [1 May 2005, p.1516]

Chicago Tribune Dick Adler

Burdett, who has soaked up enough Thai culture to fuel several more books, writes like a dark angel. [29 May 2005]

Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese

Pensive, articulate Sonchai has a strong philosophical bent that makes him an excellent guide to the seamy Southeast Asian underworld.

Kirkus Reviews

Burdett is gleefully entertaining as he uses Sonchai's Buddhist pragmatism to explore his exotically varied setting.

The New Yorker

It’s a giddy, occasionally over-the-top performance, but mesmerizing: a comic tour of the underbelly of Bangkok in pursuit of both a murderer and the sublime.

Washington Post Michael Dirda

Open Bangkok Tattoo and you will read on and on, with wide-eyed fascination, some horror or disgust and considerable delight.

Boston Globe Gail Caldwell

Bangkok Tattoo is on occasion clever and engaging. It is also overwritten, wildly unorganized, and sometimes irritatingly arrogant.

The Guardian Duncan Campbell

So when Sonchai returns, as he doubtless will in a third book, perhaps he can do so without an author's pre-emptive note and without feeling the need to deliver lectures on the sex trade which slow down the plot for those readers in the west who may or may not be suffering from post-industrial despair.

The New York Times Book Review Charles Taylor

The atmosphere in Bangkok Tattoo is no less humidly and richly imagined, and the luridness is perhaps even more welcoming than in ''Bangkok 8.'' But this time that world doesn't feel as unfamiliar or strange, or as enticing.

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Bangkok Tattoo by John Burdett

Bangkok Tattoo
by John Burdett