Bangkok Eight

SURREAL BANGKOK .City of temples and brothels, where Buddhist monks in saffron robes walk the same streets as world- class gangsters, where bodies and souls are for sale or rent, and where the way you die may be more important than the way you live.Inside a locked Mercedes, an African- American Marine sergeant is killed by a maddened python and a swarm of cobras. Two cops- the only two in the city not on the take- arrive too late. Minutes later, only one is alive. Sworn to avenge the death of his partner and soul brother, Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a fair- skinned Thai and a devout Buddhist, works his way through District 8. His tools are the forensic techniques of the modern police department; no less vital is his profound understanding of the mystical workings of the spirit world. Soon he is in a realm he has never before encountered: the moneyed underbelly of Bangkok, where desire rules and the human body is as custom- designable as a raw hunk of jade- and where Sonchai eventually tracks the killer, a predator of an even more sinister variety.