Chang Mai, the Thai northern capital, a relaxed city, dusty used bookstores, chic coffeehouses, French bistros; a methadone clinic rests sedately beside a Buddhist temple. Mountain people with tired, twisted legs chatter and cough out clouds of cheap tobacco as backpackers trundle past like drugged terrapins under the weight of their unnecessary loads.
It is here that we meet Tom Terrence, reporter for Lannalife, a writer who displays the prerequisite attributes essential to the trade: alcoholism, drug abuse, a cynical and observant nose for a story, a fictional manuscript gathering dust in a drawer, a leaning towards strange sexual experimentations and the reading of obscure philosophers – for fun.
A poisoned batch of methamphetamine hits the city and Tom naturally buys a bag, smokes it, spends a weak in a coma and comes around to discover that others weren’t as lucky. Three tourists die from an overdose and this attracts the attention of a nearby BBC News crew who take on Tom as their guide, translator and general fixer to investigate cause of death. The overdose of a police officer using the same batch suggests dark politics are also at play in the seemingly peaceful tourist city.
Metaphors Of Death, by Dick Holzhaus, is a dangerous ride, twisting and turning around the dark streets of Chang Mai and up into the mountains. The prose is assured and thoughtful:
“I like sitting in the dark on this mountainside next to someone who is new here and looks at it with different eyes, that really makes me belong here. Then I realise my confidence is backed by the cabin behind me. However familiar as a view, at nightfall the jungle becomes alien territory. This world turns pitch black for a change of shifts, pieces of bark and soil move and lifeforms that can see in the dark appear. Distant fires flicker through the canopy, not spreading their light, just glowing pinpricks in a black vacuum.”
Holzhaus pulls no punches with this work. The book challenges the crooks that run the Northern drug trade, uncovering the cover-ups, examining the dysfunctional relationships between politics, media and crime. His protagonist questions the criminal status quo, lending a hand, no doubt, to the nation’s current military campaign to end corruption. There is even time for romance in Tom’s pursuit of truth.
“Again her power amazes me. I feel like watching the pacing tiger in Leeds zoo. I was so scared of the irritable monster I couldn’t tear myself away from its cage. My fascination for its fierceness causing illusions of the thick iron bars disappearing and only reappearing when my heart stopped as the animal pounced.”