Go to any bookshop here and you will find a shelf full of guides to Thailand, many penned by farangs, several with lovely scenic photos. They cover much the same ground. The Thai people are nice in every respect, yet they have quaint practices you are expected to heed. But what can you expect? It's a foreign land, a third-world country, that needs catching up. Give it another century or so.
Amazing Thailand By Brad Walker Asia Books 276pp Available at Asia Books and leading bookshops 525 baht
The guidebooks gloss over the drawbacks, chuckling at them. As long as you don't point with your feet and learn to say "mai phen rai" at every mishap, you'll get by. Oh, and smile when you are doused during Songkran. Smiles go a long way. Friends smile. Enemies smile. Psychologists have yet to explain what is behind the Thai smile.
Nine years in the land of Smiles, 11 years short of being "an Old Thailand Hand", Yank Brad Walker presents what he has experienced and researched about his adopted country. The expat lives in the village of Kedon in the province of Surin in Isan.
A surfer in California, a garment manufacturer in Hawaii, an English teacher now. He likes marrying local women — in Hawaii, Indonesia, Thailand. He has done his homework for Amazing Thailand which took six years to write. No pictures apart from a tuk tuk on the cover.
Walker's target audience is people contemplating relocating here. No whitewash, he tells it like it is. What businessmen need to know, what marriage here entails, red tape, types of visas, documents required, medical services, transportation. Likely scams and rip-offs. Pretty much the works.
Readers who know next to nothing about this Southeast Asian land will most likely take everything in the 275-page guide as fact. However, residents will take exception to its chapter on national politics. It is his firm belief that Thaksin Shinawatra was Thailand's best prime minister ever. According to Walker, Thaksin was the first to care for the common man, his money improving their lives as never before. Corrupt, but which of his predecessors wasn't? He should be allowed back to continue his improvements. His well-meaning sister may have been his clone, yet was popularly elected in the democratic tradition.
The family was brought down by the entrenched Bangkok Establishment and Suthep who had it in for the Shinawatras and the military.
Amazing Thailand is an amazing guidebook in more ways than one.
Rain On The Dead By Jack Higgins HarperCollins 344pp Available at Asia Books and leading bookshops 595 baht
Taking vengeance too far?
Ever since 9/11 Muslim terrorists have been the favourite whipping-boy of Western thriller novelists. And rightly so because of the mayhem they've caused globally. There is, however, confusion as to how al-Qaeda, Taliban, IS, Sunnis and Shi'ites differ. The simple solution is to use them interchangeably.
Generally overlooked is that Muslims aren't the only terrorists. Activists of every denomination cause acts of terror, including planting bombs, downing planes and poisoning subway stations. Explanations range from the excesses of the Crusaders to the horrors of modern warfare.
Contemporary authors don't condone terrorism, but may give the terrorists' point of view. To be sure vengeance is legally and morally unjustifiable. However the soft-hearted might find it not entirely reprehensible. Popular British writer Jack Higgins brings this to mind in Rain On The Dead.
A single assassin or team of them is killing government officials on both sides of the Atlantic. Enter the author's perennial cast of carry-over characters. Retired Brigadier Ferguson has put together a top secret team responsible to the prime minister at 10 Downing Street.
A handful of the best of the best men and women in the UK, with a license to kill, their task is to identify, track down and end the danger. Plus to safeguard the US president on a visit to London. A difficult job because of all the likely culprits: Arabs, Iranians, Chechens, non-Muslims with a grudge.
It is apparent early on that Ferguson's plans are known and thwarted by his mysterious adversary. Indeed, his team are targets. A car bomb wounds some. They learn that their arch-enemy calls himself the Master. While he commands hitmen, he isn't above doing the killings himself.
The Brigadier recognises talent and recruits those on opposite sides — prison the alternative to the offer they can't refuse. An example is Sean Devlin. From IRA enforcer, he is now Ferguson's lieutenant, whose son was butchered in Afghanistan and wife who took her own life in grief is the cause of it all.
Jack Higgins, who made his mark with The Eagle Has Landed is one of the best thriller novelists around. He doesn't pad out and lays out his credible plots in circa 350 pages.
