There’s a lot to like about this book: an engaging lead character, a tricky and well paced plot, some cross-cultural moral ambiguities, and a superb backdrop.

Sergeant William Bradley of the U.S. Marine Corp is murdered in his car in plain view in Bangkok, Thailand. The witnesses, however, are moonshine-producing squatters who aren’t exactly forthcoming with their memories. The murder weapons—several cobras and a particularly large python—are also an enigma: how did they get in the car and decide to attack their victim with such unanimity and purpose?

Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep and his partner and best friend Pichai Apiradee have been trailing Bradley. They’re the first on the scene. It falls to the detectives to kill the rampaging snakes, and Pichai is fatally bitten in the encounter. Pichai and Sonchai have been in and out of trouble together since childhood, and Sonchai vows to revenge the death of his “soul brother.”

Sonchai is a great lead character. In Burdett’s telling, he’s about the only honest cop in the Royal Thai Police Department. He’s a loyal Buddhist and isn’t reluctant at all to use religious principles like reincarnation and karma in his detective work. Sonchai is also the child of a Bangkok prostitute, now living in retirement, who may be somewhat unwilling to give up on her old life.

The FBI provide Sonchai some assistance in the person of Kimberly Jones. Her partnership with the Thai detective provides Burdett an opportunity to explore East-West differences. It’s interesting at first, but once the novelty wears off, Jones isn’t really a very intriguing character. In Burdett’s hands, she mostly just a plot device.

As Sonchai and Jones track their suspects around Bangkok, the city really comes alive. True, we’re mostly exposed to the seemier side of town, but it’s easy to be entranced by Burdett’s loving description of the city and its people. Few of his settings would be on my vacation itinerary, but he does a great job wrapping words around Bangkok’s vitality.

My major quarrel with the book is with the homiletic stance Burdett takes toward Western sexuality. To hear him tell it, the East has all the fun (and all the sexual wisdom), and Westerners are all uptight morons. Contrast his sexual sermons with his much more subtle and effective description of Buddhist spirituality.

In all, however, this is a superb police thriller: exotic, daring, engaging, and full of life.