Bangkok Haunts is a 2007 novel by English novelist John Burdett.
Contents
Plot
Detective Sonchai, of the Royal Thai Police, is a former accessory to murder and a former Buddhist monk. A video is mailed to him anonymously. It is a snuff film of Damrong, a woman he once loved obsessively. It turns out Damrong has masterminded her own death, and the recording of it, with proceeds going to her brother, a Buddhist monk.
Themes
Revenge is one of the novel's themes. Damrong takes revenge on her father by informing the police about one of her father's burglaries. The police in the countryside orchestrate her father's death, via the "elephant game" (the victim is placed into a spherical cage, of a type that elephants tend to start kicking, and thereafter stomp on when the sphere gets wedged into the corner of the arena). Damrong has prepared for her father's murder by bringing a camera with an expensive zoom, so that she can take detailed pictures of the execution.
Inspiration for the novel
In the novel's afterword, the author acknowledges inspiration from the following sources:
The Damage Done, by Warren Fellows
Corruption & Democracy in Thailand, by Pasuk Phongpaichit
The Dhammapada, edited by Narada Thera
The Funeral Casino, by Alan Klima
Guns, Girls, Gambling and Ganja, by Sungsidh Piriyarangsan and Nualonoi Treerat
The Sandhinirmochana Sutra, as translated by Thomas Cleary (Buddhist Yoga)
Very Thai, by Philip Cornwel-Smith
Welcome to Hell: One Man's Fight for Life Inside the Bangkok Hilton by Colin Martin
Welcome to the Bangkok Slaughterhouse, by Father Joe Maier
Bangkok Post, newspaper
Kum Chat Luk, a Thai daily newspaper