Eccentric, jaded and fading expats populate Harlan Wolff’s debut novel, Bangkok Rules, but before you say ‘another cliché-driven exposé of Bangkok life,’ (phew!) read on. The journey may well be worth it.
At the centre of this crime novel is Carl Engel, a private eye on the edge of destitution, who scores an apparent lucky break when he is hired to track down a long-forgotten missing person.
Facing a mid-life crisis of broadening chest and shirking options, Wolff’s protagonist is a man who, despite numerous foibles, understands the ‘rules’ for living and working in the ‘city of smiles’.
In fact, early on Carl seems to understand them so well that you have cause to wonder why his life has come so unstuck. That is until you see he’s his own worst enemy, squandering money, love and opportunity in the pit of his own vices.
While reading, I recalled memories of another book that explores the darker sides of an Asian city, Paul Theroux’s Saint Jack. Like Wolff’s lead, Jack is a long-term resident, this time of Singapore, with a similar understanding of the norms and codes that are necessary for surviving and working across the fringes of that city.
However, while Theroux avoids exploring the darkest corners of Singapore life, Wolff heartily embraces the noirish alcoves of Bangkok’s streets, sois and bars.
Plot wise, at the centre of Bangkok Rules is a serial murderer on a killing spree, sadistically making his way through the shadows and prostitutes of Bangkok’s underside. Carl’s investigation quickly intersects with the killer’s case as the two become one.
Or do they?
In the noir world of smoke and mirrors, nothing is as it seems. Carl’s case and life spiral out of control as the thin ice he’s built his existence on starts to crack.
Throughout, the reader is served up characters and images with which many an expat living in Southeast Asia, especially those of the male persuasion, will be familiar. Yet Wolff’s ability to engineer a phrase and breathe new words into old stereotypes gives them fresh life and meaning across the evolving plot of his novel.
Undoubtedly, Wolff, a long-time resident of Thailand and a private investigator, has dedicated time to new ways of writing about these things, with one or 50 stake-outs providing the time and opportunity to neatly tailor his phrases and metaphors.
Thus we are served weary ex-Vietnam vets; retired CIA spooks, overweight and sunburned sex tourists and corrupt local officials, all combined in a tale that becomes increasingly intertwined as it barrels towards its climax.
Clichéd? Formulaic? Sure! But Wolff’s debut will also give some readers pause for thought as the ‘mirror moments’ that he conjures yield reflections of themselves. The opportunity for such introspection is just one of the reasons for placing Bangkok Rules in your reading pile.
Bangkok Rules, by Harlan Wolff, is available from Monument Books at $14.
