The Bangkok Girl (A Lee Jensen Novel) by Sean O'Leary; One Crime in Bangkok Makes a Neo-Noir Rumble

 

The Bangkok Girl (A Lee Jensen Novel) by Sean O'Leary; One Crime in Bangkok Makes a Neo-Noir Rumble 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: With apologies to Tim Rice, Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Benny Anderssen, I couldn’t resist the paraphrase of “One Night in Bangkok.” I also apologize for the earworm. I am suffering for it, believe me.

When it comes to settings in Mysteries and Thrillers, Bangkok is a likely one if the mystery involves the sex tourism industry. It’s like New Orleans for Supernatural Horror, or DC for political crimes, New York for organized crime, or LA involving celebrity crimes. There are just some places on Earth which are practically short hand tropes, almost cliches, for certain types of crimes and conflicts that the reader will encounter. Bangkok with its reputation for a decadent night life, loose enforcement, stigmatization, and ambiguous distinction of the definitely of sex crimes is just the right place if the crime involves sexual assault, human trafficking, and forced sex work. That’s what Lee Jensen, private investigator is faced with in Sean O’Leary’s The Bangkok Girl. It is a modern day Neo-Noir Crime novel with its seedy location, troubled detective, ineffective or corrupt authority, powerful dangerous men and women in suits, and innocents who get swept up in the night life that destroys them.

Lee is a private investigator exiled from his native country, Australia and has settled in Thailand. He enjoys the roguish atmosphere and he gets plenty of assignments so he’s never bored. He receives a call from a potential client who is looking for his missing daughter. It seems Zoe Burgess, the young woman, worked as a jazz singer in various clubs around Sydney, Singapore, Bangkok, and Tokyo. However, she is missing and her parents are determined to find her. While Lee investigates Zoe’s trail with the help of his assistant/photographer/martial artist, Kanika, Lee learns that the poor girl did more than play special song requests. She was kidnapped, trafficked, drugged, and forced into sex work. Now Lee has to find her while facing the Yakuza, who have very powerful connections that have spread through various cities and countries and don’t like this detective nosing in on their business. 

There is definitely a sense of the old hard boiled detective noir books in The Bangkok Girl. It’s a subgenre that reminds Readers that the world is a dark cynical place and is full of soulless people who will corrupt, destroy, dominate, and murder others for money, position, or just for the Hell of it. There are places and people that practically thrive on that environment and rely on it to survive.

The settings in the book, particularly Bangkok, are shaped by that dark cynicism in O’Leary’s world. Lee goes through various nightclubs, encounters many unsavory characters sometimes using bribery and force to get information. In fact, the first few pages feature a fight between Lee and two enforcers that have nothing to do with the main case. Instead, the conflict is looked on as another day on the job in Bangkok. 

Along with crime, xenophobia and ethnocentrism is a presence throughout O’Leary’s book. As Lee investigates Zoe’s disappearance, he learns that there are clubs in which he is forbidden to enter because he is looked upon as a foreigner. In a homogenous Asian country whose residents consider one ethnicity or country of origin to be superior to others, someone like Lee is looked on as the minority. 

Keep in mind, this is the type of environment in which organized crime thrives. People with big ideas, fancy suits, and a charismatic style that draws law abiding citizens who are suspicious of local authority and The System. (Remember the opening scene in The Godfather with Bonasara, the undertaker’s “I Believe in America” speech? It’s like that). These people claim to be the spokesperson of their particular ethnic group playing on their fears, insecurities, and paranoia of those that are different from them against a status quo that often struck back and minimized them first. 

So of course The Yakuza would have a hand in this with their control with money, influence, threats, intimidation, and abuse. The Yakuza members, particularly one Hiro Kawasaki, have such a presence in the book. He is magnetic and cutthroat, the type that may invite you to his fancy private rooms but leaves his target uncertain whether he is going to sleep with them, shoot them, or both. The people surrounding him are both drawn to and are in fear of him so he is able to get away with a lot.

 Hiro has plenty of influence that allows him to practice his criminal acts and plenty of informers, like one who befriends women so they can then traffic them. Hiro has so much power and authority that there really is only one way to remove him. Even that won’t work, because there will always be another Hiro waiting to take his place.

Besides the crime element, that bitter cynicism can also be found within its protagonist. Lee has his own issues to work out. His exile from Australia is dubious and only hinted at but suggests that he committed some violent acts, suffered personal and professional trauma, and may have earned the ire of more than a few in charge. 

Lee is the right person to travel into such dark corners because he is as dark as they are, sometimes darker. He often has to rely on the assistance of others like Kanika, who is a sardonic but observant aide, to go inside places that he, a white man, can’t always enter. But he has the mindset to put those connections and clues together to make a whole picture.

Lee knows this world because he has to live it, not just because of his job but because it’s in his body and mind. He is Schizophrenic and relies on meds to keep his hallucinations and delusions at bay. At times this makes him vulnerable in certain situations. 

In some very eerie chapters, Lee is kidnapped by the Yakuza and is deprived of his medications. Surrounded by the enemies that he is supposed to face for Zoe’s life, he is consumed by the enemies in his mind that threatens to destroy and annihilate him from within.

 

Return of the Weird #2: Merchants of Light and Bone (The Pentagonal Dimensions Book 2) by Erika McCorkle; A Family Drama From Another Dimension

 

Return of the Weird #2: Merchants of Light and Bone (The Pentagonal Dimensions Book 2) by Erika McCorkle; A Family Drama From Another Dimension 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: So we come to the next weird book continuation, the next installment in Erika McCorkle’s Pentagonal Dominion series: one of the strangest Fantasy/Science Fiction worlds put into book form, a world where few humans or humanoid characters exist so McCorkle was free to let her imagination run wild and wild it ran.

The first book, Merchants of Knowledge and Magic, is about Calinthe Erytrichos, a reptilian Merchant of Knowledge, and Zakuro “Pom” Rathmusen, a Godblood, demi-god and Merchant of Magic. The duo encounter many patrons, assignments, estranged family members, and totalitarian governments as they affirm their love for each other. While the Epic Fantasy/Science Fiction setting and world building was important, at heart Merchants of Knowledge and Magic was a Road Trip Comedy-Drama/Queer Romance set in a world of living gods and anthropomorphic people.

That's what is at play with its successor, Merchants of Light and Bone. It's not a direct sequel so much as it takes place in the same universe as Merchants of Knowledge and Magic. Besides one reference to Zakuro’s family name, those characters are not featured or mentioned. 

Instead this book focuses on The Last-Scrim-Den Family of Aloutia. They consist of Amiere Lasteran, his wife, Liesle Denwall and husband, Su Scrimshander (yes they are a throuple), and their seven children. They and their children are in mourning for their deceased daughter and sister, Tawny. They also have to deal with local bully Militico Svelt whose daughter, Usana Demiu, might be getting abused. Amiere, the eponymous Merchant of Light, notices that his crystal light business is expanding and going through some troublesome changes. Su, the Merchant of Bone and a Godblood, is keeping secrets about his history, gender identity, and divine ancestry. Meanwhile, Liesle, the Merchant of Faces, goes through extreme measures to protect those that she loves including her children and spouses. 

The approach to this book is similar to Merchants of Knowledge and Magic which is a Queer Romance set in a Fantasy/Science Fiction World. It is also similar to another previous favorite book of mine, To End Every War by Raymond W. Wilkinson which was a Feminist Women's Fiction Novel set in an Epic Fantasy Occult Academia world of Dwarves, Elves, Selkies, Fairies, Giants and others. Both novels put the prosaic and ordinary plots of regular people and dropped them into fantastic settings that turned the ordinary events into extraordinary circumstances.

Whereas the focus in most Epic Fantasy or Science Fiction novels is on quests or revolution, the majority of plots in this book like the death of a child, abuse, employment concerns, and spouse's hidden lives would not be out of place in a Family Drama. It's sort of like what would happen if The Waltons, or The Dunphys from Modern Family suddenly grew fur, sprouted wings, and gained electrolyte tails. After all, it happens. 

This book is comparable to other Fantasy novels when heroes go on epic journeys, spend a night in an inn, and the innkeeper rants about his marital problems or the dictatorial government is cutting into his business. Well Merchants of Light and Bone would be about that innkeeper and how he tries to live an everyday life in a world where magic exists and characters aren't human.

In fact the one journey narrative where characters go from one place to another has the more personal goal of saving a couple of children from slavery rather than a quest to save the entire world. 

There are some magical moments to remind Readers of the fantastic world that they are in. Su goes through a mesmerizing ritual where he communicates in person with a Water God. Liesle has conversations with a dark demon. Amiere is inflicted with a curse that when angered opens his more leonine side. But those are brief moments in a novel that captures the human, or human in personality though not in appearance, spirit.

The family goes through intense grief after Tawny’s death. They respond in different ways. One child, Kohaku, withdraws into her own private world. Others become more belligerent and quarrelsome. Liesle becomes physically ill and bedridden. Amiere tries to retain a brave front but can barely suppress his darker feelings. Su is the solid rock for the rest of the family but his vulnerabilities are present. The familial reaction to grief and how realistically McCorkle writes it would not be out of place in a traditional Earthling series. That the family has animalistic characteristics is almost immaterial.

Besides the grief, abuse is an ongoing theme within the book particularly in the story of Militico and Usana. Liesle and Amiere have to contend with the fact that Militico, a former childhood friend, has taken a darker, more violent turn as an adult. They have their suspicions that the caprine Militico is abusing his adorable leporine daughter. They recognize that the signs are there but as in the world of the Readers, it's not an easy thing to prove or stop. In many heart tugging moments Usana bonds with Su, himself a child trafficking and abuse survivor. The resolution leans to the fantastic elements but when removed from that angle, the real subtext brings up questions about self-defense, justice, and protecting the innocents at all costs.

The personal conflicts and struggles intermingle with the fantasy world in unique ways. Amiere’s occupation getting overtaken by bureaucrats who care more about the bottom line and getting rich than they do about the people working there is highly relevant even if the crystals are remnants of the gods. Liesle’s desire for vengeance and spell to protect her loved ones might be a magical solution, but it could also be seen as a metaphor for trauma survivors and how the trauma comes on them like a demonic figure. The trauma can be ignored, faced, or the survivor could attack the person who caused the trauma. 

Even the questions about Su’s origins carry a lot of resonance. Liesle and Amiere love their husband as he is and formally respect his privacy but still they are curious. They observe him and pick up clues about his powers to learn who his divine parentage actually are. Even though Su identifies as male and currently uses “he/him” pronouns, there are suggestions that this wasn't always the case so even his gender identity is a question. As much as he is a sweet, even tempered nurturing third parent to the children and loving spouse to his husband and wife, Su’s identity is a mystery that neither Amiere nor Liesle can entirely avoid. In a world where people’s identities are precious and are currently being held under scrutiny because of recent executive orders, the questions and acceptance of Su’s identity is very relatable to some Readers.

Merchants of Light and Bone tells Readers that even in a Fantasy or Science Fiction novel populated with non-humans, human Readers can still recognize the relatable struggles that are similar to their own.

Weekly Reader: Servitude by Costi Gurgu; Grim and Suspenseful Science Fiction Thriller Set in a World of Legal Human Trafficking

 

Weekly Reader: Servitude by Costi Gurgu; Grim and Suspenseful Science Fiction Thriller Set in a World of Legal Human Trafficking

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Servitude by Costi Gurgu is another one of those Science Fiction novels that can be labeled under the file marked, "Current Times Taken to Extreme Levels." It depicts a world in which people are taken from the streets for minor offenses and forced into Servitude, in other words taken forcibly and sold into slavery in a process that is perfectly legal and sanctioned by the government.

In this book, frighteningly set in the near future of 2046, Blake Frye, a police detective and his TV producer wife, Isa decide to take a random vacation to London. Unfortunately, this is not a pleasurable holiday. As they see the sights, they are caught in various riots protesting the Servitude program. (The Servitude program is extremely active in Britain and is only being considered in the United States, so far). They see people being taken away such as the parents of two small children, who are arrested for being in debt. 

It's enough to disgust the emotional and newly pregnant Isa. Blake however has ulterior means to make this trip. Isa got into some trouble with a documentary that she made which discussed potential trafficking in the U.S. and called some elite billionaires to task for benefiting from it. Blake has to meet an informant to learn whether his wife is in trouble and what could be done to protect her. Unfortunately, all of Blake and Isa's worst fears are confirmed when they return to the U.S. and come face to face with some mysterious people that take Isa away. While Isa tries to survive her captivity and Blake is driven to rescue her, we are given flashbacks to the issues that Isa explored in her documentary and the elites' fury at being caught in taking part and controlling this deplorable institution.

Servitude is a very intense book on how people reinterpret guilt, innocence, and punishment to fit their needs. Gurgu captures what happens when the 1% seize that power and control over the people under them. Well, I mean more so than now.

 In Servitude, the multibillionaire who controls the Servitude program in the U.S. is William Wilmot, a tech mogul who uses Servitude to silence his enemies. When Isa's documentary about human trafficking names Wilmot specifically as a beneficiary to this secret organization, Wilmot and his equally conniving daughter, Gabriella definitely have her and her colleagues on their list.

There are a few real-life obvious inspirations for Wilmot, many moguls who use their money and connections to get away with the worst crimes and still have people that will defend them. They are the types who will control a media outlet under the guise of fighting for free speech and then use ruthless hypocritical tactics to silence those who oppose them.

 We've seen them all and we know them all. In the United States, nothing speaks louder than money and in Servitude, money controls other people's freedom.

Blake and Isa are the honest courageous people who would speak out against such horrors. The opening chapters show this. Even though it's set in London, the tension and ramifications are pretty clear. This is happening out in the open what is being done in the United States in secret and it's only a matter of time before it's in public in the U.S. It gives the Reader a sense that soon there will be nowhere to hide.

We also peer into Blake and Isa's characters as well. Isa is anguished and protective of the children. It's easy to see why with her pregnancy and documentary. After studying cases of families left in this situation and worrying about bringing another child into a world that allows such things to happen, her maternal instincts are in full overdrive. She would do anything to protect those that she cares about: her husband, two parentless children, and in a later chapter, her colleagues. 

Blake too reveals much about himself in this early vacation. Even though he knows what he and Isa might see, they go anyway. He is someone who works hard to get the right information to protect and later find his wife. He also knows how to find that information by asking certain people and researching what is needed. He will sacrifice his own freedom to protect people like Isa.

Besides the story about Isa's captivity and Blake's rescue attempts, we are treated to flashbacks in alternating chapters. They serve to provide much needed explanation for the documentary, the Fryes, and the people for and against them.

The flashbacks are pretty clever in that they reveal some interesting information about the main plot. One character appears to work for one side. Then in the flashbacks, one line reveals that they are a different character from another side and had their name changed and appearance altered.

 This is a pretty impressive feat because in the main plot, he's a cypher and lover to one character. Then in the flashbacks, this character appears to be an unlikeable coward who would throw anybody under the bus. Instead that is a front, until it is revealed how deeply involved they really are to the situation at hand, what their true personality is, and where their loyalties lie.

Servitude is one of those terrifying Science Fiction books. Terrifying because we are standing on the edge of what could happen, so we can keep it from happening.

Weekly Reader: Murder of a Runaway (A Belfast Murder MysteryBook Five) by Brian O'Hare; Sheehan and Co. Are Back To Top Form In This Mystery Involving Human Trafficking

 

Weekly Reader: Murder of a Runaway (A Belfast Murder Mystery Book Five) by Brian O'Hare; Sheehan and Co. Are Back To Top Form In This Mystery Involving Human Trafficking

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Brian O'Hare's Murder by The Coven took a brief unnecessary trip into the supernatural with a case that involved a Satanic cult and demonic possession. This time with his fifth book, he brings the Belfast Murder Mysteries back to form with the police procedural novel, Murder of a Runaway

While Murder on the Dark Web still remains the gold standard of the entire series with its subversion of good and evil by making the murderer more understandable and even sympathetic than their so-called victims, the Murder of a Runaway is still a great volume in the series. Good and evil are more defined and there are less shades of gray between guilt and innocence. However, it is still a suspenseful piece of work that develops the characters into those who truly need justice and those who provide it.

The body of a young Chinese girl is found. She is identified as Cheung Mingzhu, a scholarship student from Shenzhen University to study at Queen's. Unfortunately, she was seduced and forced to join a human trafficking ring. Alina Balauri, A Romanian woman is similarly forced into prostitution, and plans her escape in alternating chapters with the murder investigation. Meanwhile, there's a mysterious character called The Shadow who oversees all of this and is someone that you don't want to cross.

One of the more interesting aspects to this book is how it details the human trafficking process. Alina's chapters and Mingzhu's backstory explain exactly how people are brought into this system of buying and selling human beings. Sometimes it's not just a simple process of avoiding strangers or turning down what appears to be a shady job request.

The recruiters are often very charming and know how to play on their target's weaknesses such as low self esteem or familial poverty. They promise the person a job or a trip with them and the next thing that person knows they are in another country, forced into hard physical labor or sex work, deprived of their passport, abused and isolated from all contacts except their handlers. According to statistics the average age of a trafficking victim is 27 years old and often fall between 19 and 33. Some are as young as 11 to 14 years. Not to mention the children born to trafficked victims creating another generation that is being exploited. It's a terrible world.

Despite Murder of a Runaway being a fictional novel, it is very realistic on how this problem is portrayed and how it affects those who are caught up in that world.

Thankfully as terrible as the trafficking world is written, there are people like Sheehan and his team that fight it. As I mentioned before, these are the type of police officers that you wish would exist in real life, but don't always. They are good people who are truly protective of the innocent and immerse themselves fully in a case until it is solved and the guilty are punished.

The stand out is Andrew Jones, a coroner who between this and Murder by the Coven seems to be gaining a reputation as the Team Romantic. In both books, he becomes involved with a woman who plays an integral part of the investigation. In this book, he gets some cute moments where he dates Mingzhu's friend, Lin.

Often the side plot romance in a mystery ends badly or is a distraction from the main plot. But here there is enough charm between the couple, that this Reader couldn't help but hope that their relationship continues into future volumes.

Murder of a Runaway is not as good as Murder on the Dark Web but is miles better than Murder by the Coven. That is a marked improvement.

New Book Alert: The Monsoon Ghost Image (Detective Maier Mysteries Book 3) by Tom Vater; Detective Maier Returns In Vater's Best Mystery Thriller Yet

 

New Book Alert: The Monsoon Ghost Image (Detective Maier Mysteries Book 3) by Tom Vater; Detective Maier Returns In Vater's Best Mystery Thriller Yet

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Once again Tom Vater is available to give his Readers a guided tour of the world's most dangerous and least scenic spots. After India and Cambodia, this time the author sets his sights on Thailand, mostly Bangkok a city known for its active nightlife and sex trade. 

In what is probably his best work yet, Vater provides an effective merge of setting and character to quite possibly end his Detective Maier Mystery series with The Monsoon Ghost Image.

This book is much better than the previous book, Cambodian Book of The Dead which was very descriptive in setting but lost something in the plot. Dare I say it, I even liked it better than last year's Kalkota Noir which combined Kalkota's setting with tributes to drawing room mysteries, noir literature, and science fiction. The Monsoon Ghost Image has a mesmerizing setting and believable characters inside a plot that is not only well executed with suspense and tension but pushes those characters beyond their endurance.

In this third go round in the adventures of Detective Maier, things have changed considerably. Maier seems to have recovered from the events in The Cambodian Book of The Dead (which I read) only to be left traumatized by the events in The Man with The Golden Mind (which I have not.) In his last mystery set mostly in Laos, Maier slept with his stepsister, was nearly killed by his father, and lost a couple of fingers in a Vietnamese prison camp ambush. On the plus side, he befriended Mikhail, a large Russian man who serves as Maier's bodyguard and sidekick. Well he no sooner is getting some much deserved rest in which he should consider never leaving the house let alone accepting any job that takes him out of the country, then what does his boss want him to do? Accept another job that takes him out of the country.

Emilie Ritter, a former girlfriend of Maier's, reported that her photographer husband, Martin, is missing and presumed dead. Even though his funeral is in Hamburg, Emilie is convinced that Martin is still alive and that he is on the run. She sees sinister unknown figures that seem to scream government ops. Not only that but she receives a letter from someone dubbed "The Wicked WItch of the East." The letter informs her that Martin is alive and well in Bangkok and is "involved in the crime of the century." All of this implies that Martin got involved or uncovered something dangerous and with far reaching implications. It seems to involve a photograph of various prominent individuals. So off Maier and Mikhail go to Bangkok with two sinister agents following close behind.

Vater's gift for setting is definitely at play and is even heightened more in this book than any of his previous works. With Kalkota Noir and The Cambodian Book of the Dead, Vater combined real setting with a sense of unreality. The Cambodian Book of the Dead mixed the reality of a country still living with the scars of the Khmer Rouge dictatorship and the supernatural of traditional ghost stories to create a comparison of disruptions in the physical and spiritual worlds of Cambodia. Kolkata Noir borrowed heavily from various genres like film noir and science fiction to create a three part mystery that reads like a Hollywood film, set in India.

What is particularly sinister about The Monsoon Ghost Image is aside from tropes that could be found in murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, and political suspense novels, there is no sense of fantasy. The setting is very real and somehow made even more dangerous. Some of the more horror elements are a bit over the top, such as the appearance of a surgeon who specializes in torturing people for financial rewards, political gain, and for his self pleasure. However, in this context and as we know in our history books and the news, there were and still are people who are that sadistic and brutal. 

We see the sex trade industry but not as some enticing glittery thing where people can go abroad to fill their deepest desires. Instead, it is seen as something dark and depraved, showing the people who get involved in it were drawn by needing money, feeling devoid of any self worth or validation, or believing the empty promises that sinister adults gave them. They have since grown into hardened individuals who survive this harsh uncaring existence the only way that they can. They do anything for money and inflict the same pain that was given to them, continuing an endless cycle of abuse and human trafficking.

Maier goes through a lot of development and mental stress in this book, surprisingly even more so than in the previous books where his struggles were more personal. Without spoiling too much there are several points where Maier is left alone without contacts, allies, and with multiple enemies after him. Just like many of the victims that he encounters and tries to protect and find justice for, he realizes that he is likely to die because of others' schemes and manipulations. 

In fact it becomes clear that Maier, The Ritters, Mikhail and many other characters are manipulated by outside higher forces. These forces don't care who they are or who has to be hurt or killed. Maier is just simply another person for these forces to step on and remove, no more important to them than a small insect.

There are various chapters in which Maier is held captive. It's very rare in a mystery novel when the detective is left in such a vulnerable position where they are imprisoned during their investigation and subjected to physical and psychological torture for a long time, for a period of months it seems. Considering the physical and mental abuse inflicted on him in the last couple of books, Maier's experience in Thailand during his imprisonment and the realization of him being manipulated could be the final push to send him completely over from the justice seeking law abiding citizen to the tortured empty lawless. The protective light that Maier shines over the innocent could dim forever and never return. 

This may be the final book in The Detective Maier Mystery Series. If it is, Vater definitely saved the best for last.