The Bangkok Asset by John Burdett, the sixth entry in the Royal Thai series.

There are five previous novels in John Burdett‘s Royal Thai series featuring Bangkok police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, and every one of them is strange. The detective is a devout Buddhist (a former monk) and prey to the supernatural fantasies so common in Thailand. In some of the books, he becomes caught up in delusions about demons and other spirits that many rational Western readers are likely to find annoying. I did. (I persisted because the mysteries were otherwise quite good.) But in his latest entry in the series, The Bangkok Asset, Burdett outdoes himself. The plot in this off-beat murder mystery takes readers into the realm of science fiction. The two genres don’t mix well here.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

This sixth entry in the Royal Thai series opens with a gruesome murder that cannot be explained as the work of any human being. (Take my word for this. You don’t want to know details.) It doesn’t take long for Sonchai to discover that, in fact, no human did commit this crime. The perpetrator was a transhuman known as the Bangkok Asset. Now, just in case you’re unfamiliar with the term, here’s what transhuman means in this context: a human being has been “enhanced” in numerous ways through genetic manipulation, drug therapy, and a brain implant to increase his cognitive abilities and physical strength to extraordinary proportions.

The Bangkok Asset (Sonchai Jitpleecheep #6) by John Burdett (2015) 322 pages ★★★☆☆

Achievements of this sort are the stuff of science fiction. Although research in neuroscience, artificial intelligence and genetics points to the possibility that some of this may be realistic several decades in the future, it’s not today. Currently, the “enhancements” we observe are limited to such things as prosthetic limbs, primitive gene therapy, and contact lenses. Research into transhumanism today tends to involve questions of ethics and religion at least as much as science. The Pentagon is having wetdreams about creating super-soldiers much like the Bangkok Asset. I’m sure the military in other major world powers is as well.

Familiar characters

Folded around this fantasy is a suspenseful mystery story involving several of the characters familiar to readers of the Royal Thai series:

  • Colonel Vikorn, Sonchai’s boss and “one of Asia’s richest kingpins and a feudal baron of the old kind”;
  • Sonchai’s wife, Chanya, a former prostitute with a Ph.D.; and
  • his mother, Nong, the madam who owns a brothel called the Old Man’s Club.

And unfamiliar ones

Burdett introduces a suite of new characters in The Bangkok Asset:

  • Joseph George Goldman, a corrupt, retired CIA officer who controls the Bangkok Asset;
  • Dr. Christmas Bride [sic], the British scientist who pioneered the use of LSD in the CIA’s MKUltra mind control program;
  • Inspector Krom, a gorgeous young Chinese-Thai police officer who is tattooed from head to foot and a lesbian; and
  • a Chinese professor with a taste for young transgender Thai men.

You see what I mean? This is a very weird book. It’s hard to know how Burdett will be able to continue the Royal Thai series. Where can he possibly go from here?

If you want to read good science fiction, check out Top 10 great sci-fi novels.

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