Crackdown
Page 38
“Very believable ... A brave book.”—Pattaya Mail
9 GOLD BULLETS
Twelfth in the series
Heaven Lake Press (2011) ISBN 978-616-90393-7-2
A priceless collection of 9 gold bullet coins issued during the Reign of Rama V has gone missing along with a Thai coin collector. Local police find a link between the missing Thai coins and Calvino’s childhood friend, Josh Stein, who happens to be in Bangkok on an errand for his new Russian client. This old friend and his personal and business entanglements with the Russian underworld take Calvino back to New York, along with Pratt.
The gritty, dark vision of 9 Gold Bullets is tracked through the eyes of a Thai cop operating on a foreign turf, and a private eye expatriated long enough to find himself a stranger in his hometown. As the intrigue behind the missing coins moves between New York and Bangkok, and the levels of deception increase, Calvino discovers the true nature of friendship and where he belongs.
“Moore consistently manages to entertain without having to resort to melodramatics. The most compelling feature of his ongoing Calvino saga, in my view, is the symbiotic relationship between the American protagonist and his Thai friends, who have evolved with the series. The friendships are sometimes strained along cultural stress lines, but they endure, and the Thai characters’ supporting roles are very effective in helping keep the narratives interesting and plausible.”—The Japan Times
“Moore is a master at leading the reader on to what ‘should’ be the finale, but then you find it isn’t... Worth waiting for... However, do not start reading until you have a few hours to spare.”—Pattaya Mail
MISSING IN RANGOON
Thirteenth in the series
Heaven Lake Press (2013) ISBN 978-616-7503-17-2
As foreigners rush into Myanmar with briefcases stuffed with plans and cash for hotels, shopping malls and high rises, they discover the old ways die hard. Vincent Calvino’s case is to find a young British-Thai man gone missing in Myanmar, while his best friend and protector Colonel Pratt of the Royal Thai Police has an order to cut off the supply of cold pills from Myanmar used for the methamphetamine trade in Thailand.
As one of the most noir novels in the Vincent Calvino series, Missing in Rangoon plays out beneath the moving shadows of the cross-border drug barons. Pratt and Calvino’s lives are entangled with the invisible forces inside the old regime and their allies who continue to play by their own set of rules.
“[Moore’s] descriptions of Rangoon are excellent. In particular, he excels at describing the human and social fall-out that occurs when a poor, isolated country suddenly opens its borders to the world.... Missing in Rangoon is a satisfying read, a mixture of hard-boiled crime fiction and acute social observation set in a little known part of Asia.”
—Andrew Nette, Crime Fiction Lover
“The story is delicious. Calvino gets a missing person’s case that takes him to Myanmar (Burma), drugs are involved, and the plot takes several wonderful twists that keep the reader mesmerized... It’s Moore at his best... Reading a book like Missing in Rangoon will open up a whole new world of knowledge that will help the reader to understand the element in the story that the newspaper—and reporter—dared not reveal.” —WoWasis Travelblog
THE MARRIAGE TREE
Fourteenth in the series
Heaven Lake Press (2014) ISBN 978-616-7503-23-3
It’s okay for Thais to believe in ghosts—it’s their birthright. But why is Vincent Calvino seeing ghosts, and why are they so angry? Calvino is haunted by a series of deaths in Rangoon and Bangkok, when he stumbles onto a new murder case—but is it a new case, or an old one returned from the dead? A murder investigation leads Calvino inside an underworld network smuggling Rohingya out of illegal camps and detention centers. Calvino looks for the killer in the mystical Thai world of sword and marriage trees.
“[The Marriage Tree] will keep the reader up at night, though, as the action is fast-paced and full of enough twists to foment insomnia. For readers who loved Missing in Rangoon, this follow-on book provides something of a final resolution.”
—wowais.com
“The plight of the Rohingya refugees has been documented many times, but never dramatised like this.... [W]hen a novelist brings his powers of description and sense of empathy to bear on such a subject, the wholehearted tragedy of these crimes against humanity hits home in a powerful way. The opening is riveting ... The plotting is taut and the pacing sharp.”
—Jim Algie, The Nation
“The Marriage Tree is a top tier crime novel set in a top tier city, Bangkok, to be enjoyed by crime fiction readers everywhere.”
—Kevin Cummings, Chiang Mai City News
Ralf Tooten © 2012
Christopher G. Moore is a Canadian novelist and essayist who lives in Bangkok. He has written 26 novels, including the award-winning Vincent Calvino series and the Land of Smiles Trilogy. The German edition of his third Vincent Calvino novel, Zero Hour in Phnom Penh, won the German Critics Award (Deutsche Krimi Preis) for International Crime Fiction in 2004 and the Spanish edition of the same novel won the Premier Special Director’s Book Award Semana Negra (Spain) in 2007. The second Calvino novel, Asia Hand, won the Shamus Award for Best Original Paperback in 2011.
More eBooks: http://www.heavenlakepress.com/ebooks.htm