John Burdett
John Patrick Burdett (born July 24, 1951) is a British crime novelist. He is the bestselling author of Bangkok 8 and its sequels, Bangkok Tattoo and Bangkok Haunts.
Biography
Burdett is a former lawyer who lived and worked in Hong Kong for twelve years. For a time, he was employed by the Hong Kong Government. He later worked in private practice. After amassing a small fortune, Burdett decided to abandon law and pursue a career as a detective novelist.
Burdett now splits his time between France and Bangkok and spends a lot of time researching in the red light areas of Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza.[1]
He is divorced and has one daughter.
Work
Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo, and Bangkok Haunts
Burdett's Bangkok series of crime novels, set in the city of their namesake, center on the philosophical Thai Buddhist detective, Sonchai Jitpleecheep, whose's meditative internal dialogues are something of a cross between Sherlock Holmes, Carl Jung, and the Buddha. Sonchai is a "leuk krung", or half-caste, the son of a former "rented-wife" and a "farang", or foreign, American GI father he never knew. With one foot in each culture (having spent much of his childhood in Europe) his differentness leaves him both unbribeable and a keen cultural anthropologist whose principles are as admirable as his insights, which more often than not, are both professionally useful and deliciously amusing.
The novels usually involve Thailand's international sex industry, for example, in the red-light district of Bangkok. (See for example Prostitution in Thailand.) Sexual matters are often at the center of the narrative, but the sexual descriptions are never gratuitously salacious, and the juxtaposition of often conflicting Thai and Western norms and mores (with an emphasis on the sexual) only adds to the cultural comedy.
Frequently, they contain bizarre crimes and cruel characters interwined with a wry sense of humour. Juxtaposed is the investigative non-chalance and Buddhist acceptance of an "arahant" detective who can earnestly meditate even in a Bangkok traffic-jam. Many popular shamanistic superstitions that carried over into Buddhism in Thailand including those surrounding past lives (reincarnation) and hungry ghosts feature heavily. While the devout detective's narration in the first-person present seems an admonition to deal with the horrors of Sonchai's world here and now in the present moment.
Burdett has expressed interest in moving beyond the crime/detective genre once his Bangkok series is complete.
Film
Bangkok 8 has been optioned by Millennium Films, which recently produced the fourth movie in the "Rambo" series in Thailand, and is serious about making the film according to Burdett.[1] With a producer John Thompson currently scouting locations in Bangkok, and James McTeigue, the director of "V for Vendetta", having been hired to direct, production looks set to begin in 2008 with the IMDB listing 2009 as a possible release date for the new movie.
Published works
- A Personal History of Thirst, William Morrow & Co (February 1996), ISBN 0-688-14399-7
- The Last Six Million Seconds, Hodder & Stoughton (January 2, 1997), ISBN 0-340-68904-8
- Bangkok 8: A Novel, Alfred A. Knopf (2003) ISBN 0-9657525-3-4
- Bangkok Tattoo, Vintage Reprint edition (July 11, 2006) ISBN 1-4000-3291-1
- Bangkok Haunts, Alfred A. Knopf (2007) ISBN 0307263185
References
- ^ a b At Home Amid the Red Lights, The New York Times, 25 October 2007
External links
- John-Burdett.com Official web site
- John Burdett at House of Crime
- John Burdett at Random House Australia
- New York Times interview of John Burdett
- A Thai's Winning Ways, a review of Bangkok Haunts
- Bangkok 8 (2009) (film) entry at the imdb