The great Bangkok novel

16 May 2001

Lately there has been a fad for novels set in Thailand. It looks easy. Chang Noi is thinking of writing one too. Here’s the outline of chapter one.

The scene opens on a Bangkok street. A pick-up has stalled. A policeman goes to investigate. The driver seems nervous, so the policeman looks inside the truck. To his surprise, he finds a bundle of money. Within a couple of pages, the police have raided the driver’s apartment and found more bundles. Millions and millions of baht. They realise they have stumbled on the money-laundering operation for the cross-border drug trade.

We switch to a newspaper newsroom. The crime journalist has talked to his police contacts and acquired the list of companies found in the money launderers’ apartment. He slips into his computer a CD with the registration details of all Thai companies, and starts to search. The first company is managed by the wife of the former commander of the army unit which guards the border where the drugs come across. The boards of other companies on the list are stuffed with other officers from this army. Names of other important people appear. Then — bingo — the chairman of the senate. The journalist reaches for the phone.

We switch to an office in the senate. The chairman is a blocky man who moves stiffly like a robot needing oil. He is talking into the phone. Yes, he is acquainted with the army commander. No, he did not know he was a director of the named company. He puts down the phone. His face is bathed in a light sweat. But not because of this phone call. This new problem is a fleabite compared to his other troubles. The Election Commission is threatening to cancel his senate seat for electoral malpractice. His deputy has just been accused of sex with under-age schoolgirls. One of his advisers is being accused of soliciting millions of baht in bribes from candidates for a commission that will control the telecommunications industry. Some say this adviser had faked his educational qualifications and changed his own name 34 times.

On a TV screen in the corner of the room, this adviser is being interviewed about his relationship with the senate chairman: "I was just like a flower to him. He picked me, adored me for a while and finally threw me away. There are many interesting stories I will tell next week. I’m the type who likes collecting dirt. I will have an eye for an eye." The telephone rings. It is another journalist asking about the chairman and his adviser. The chairman replies, "Yes, he was my adviser. But I never asked him for any advice."

The office door opens. The man who enters has a military bearing. He looks like a cross between Peter Cushing and Hannibal Lector. Although he is only an ordinary senator, he seems to treat the chairman like a subordinate. He is not sympathetic to the chairman’s troubles because he has worries of his own.

A dead governor has been found in a downtown hotel. Now, governors are like gods. They are very, very rarely found murdered. They are never found brutally shot and stabbed in a hotel room. Moreover, the room opposite was booked in the name of one of Hannibal’s former military aides. The governor’s blood is all over this room and the aide’s car. According to reports, the aide and his friends arrived at the hotel after a gambling session, and ordered up some girls from room service. The aide has already come under criminal suspicion three times for murder, for running a protection racket, and for setting fire to a shopping mall. Hannibal was implicated in the protection case, but somehow all the charges failed "for lack of evidence". Hannibal’s brother was recently picked up on suspicion of trading arms near the border. Some people have called Hannibal a "dark influence". Times are bad.

We go back to the newsroom. For the next few pages, the novel follows the paper’s crime reporter. The police have picked up a young woman. She was the governor’s girl friend. By some accounts, she was also the military aide’s girl friend. Under interrogation, she confesses to murdering the governor. She says it was the only way she could think of ending the affair. But the police are doubtful. They can think of other ways to end an affair. They don’t believe such a slight female could inflict such a brutal murder on such a big man. Plus there’s the blood all over the car and the other room. They interrogate her again. Now she denies it. But she does admit she was present. That means she must know who did it. The police seem surprisingly reluctant to talk to Hannibal’s military aide. Instead, they summon the girl friend again. In the middle of questioning, she slips out to the toilet in the police, leaves a note with a confession, and tries to hang herself.

Whew! How are we doing? We haven’t got to the end of chapter one and already we have drugs, murder, money-laundering, bribery, gun-running, corruption, protection rackets, pedophilia, arson and attempted suicide. What are we going to do for a climax? What shall we call it? What about "The Senate"? It has a good Grishamesque ring. But it’s already been used.

On reflection, all these recent novels are set in Thailand, but they are not really about Thailand. You can see why. Any novel about Thailand would have to compete with reality.