Where the Heart Leads Book

HERE COME THE THAILAND BOOKS! I read all the books in this series while I was in Thailand, and besides the last one, I LOVED them. There's nothing better than being in a foreign country and reading a book SET in that country to live the flavor of both worlds more fully.

This is a mystery series starring a Buddhist cop who is half white/half thai, the son of a Thai prostitute. The cast is full of dirty and corrupt people you kind of fall in love with. It's violent and graphic and edgy and just really really fun.

The first book has a great mystery with a HUGELY crazy payoff (a specialty of this author as you get into the series) and it's a page turner, so be warned.

It definitely starts out slow, and there are long parts of Buddhist philosophy that might make the average mystery reader impatient, but that's kind of WHY I liked it. I thought about things I'd never thought about before, because of the book. The whole issue of prostitution in this series is a HUGE part of it, and a bit offputting a bit, because it's couched in a way that it's "liberating" for a lot of these women. It's a controversial and debatable issue, but the world view of the book did make me think about the issue more than I ever have and that's cool, when a book can do that to you.

Highly recc this book and the next two in the series. Not sure if it was because I've been to/was in Thailand, maybe that enhanced my enjoyment. But I'd urge you to try it out, and maybe travel there yourself later ;)