"A first rate mystery, beautifully crafted, fast-paced, and populated with the most vivid (and at times seamy) characters… A bravura debut!" --Douglas Preston, #1 bestselling co-author of the Pendergast series of novels
A nail-biting debut mystery that plunges readers into the seamy side streets of late-90s Bangkok and across the untamed mountains of the Lao-Vietnam border, hot on the heels of an alluring woman who's officially dead – unless she's masterminded a half-million-dollar life-insurance scam
An expertly crafted debut, A GOOD DEATH introduces Sebastian Damon, a sharp-witted though struggling Boston PI who catches an intriguing case. Linda Watts is a beautiful, talented Southeast Asian refugee with a promising career in finance―or she was, until she turned up dead, the victim of a heroin OD, in a cheap Bangkok guest house. Her death seemed straightforward to the Thai authorities, but her insurance company isn't buying it. They send Sebastian halfway around the world to investigate―where he finds himself confounded and completely out of place chasing faint leads through the broken, bewildering streets of Thailand's teeming capital.
An award-winning journalist with decades of experience traveling in and reporting on Southeast Asia, Christopher R. Cox takes readers on a vibrant journey through a corrupt police bureaucracy, a network of steamy Bangkok nightclubs and grimy hostels to a place where you can you feel the humid air and smell the stir-fried street food. Along the way, Sebastian finds romance as he falls for a captivatingly mysterious woman and camaraderie with his father's wise-cracking old Special Forces wingman -- an expat who can navigate Bangkok's chaotic underbelly and the wild mountains of Laos with equal aplomb. For Sebastian, it's the assignment of a lifetime, a chase that will lead him to a long-buried truth at the heart of all the dark lies, a quest that will change him forever in this richly imagined, compelling debut perfect for fans of John Burdett.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
An award-winning journalist, CHRISTOPHER R. COX has written on and traveled extensively through Southeast Asia for more than 20 years. His work has appeared in The Boston Herald, Reader’s Digest, Conde Nast Traveler, Audubon, Men’s Journal and ESPN: The Magazine. His books include Chasing the Dragon and A Good Death.
*Starred Review* Cox’s first novel sneaks up on the reader. It begins with PI Sebastian Damon winning an assignment to investigate the death in Bangkok of a Laotian refugee who made her way to the U.S. and ultimately became vice president of a Boston bank. Her life insurer thinks the claim is fishy and sends Damon to find her. Against long odds in teeming Bangkok, and with the help of Sam Honeyman, an American Vietnam vet expat, he does. But the woman, Linda Watt, explains to them that her father was a U.S. pilot during the Vietnam War and that he may still be alive in the wild Laotian mountains. Her life-insurance scam was to finance buying his freedom. So begins a story that channels Conrad, Kipling, and Francis Ford Coppola. Damon, Honeyman, and Watt, pursued by a crooked Bangkok cop who helped Linda fake her death but then blackmailed her, begin a perilous odyssey to a region few westerners have seen since the war. Simply workmanlike at the outset, A Good Death becomes an insightful, transcendent adventure. Cox, who has traveled Asia for three decades, creates a vivid sense of place, ties his characters’ rich backstories to the tragic war, and illuminates the current plight of Laotian hill tribes. A Good Death is another example of the only positive to emerge from the Vietnam War—fine writing. --Thomas Gaughan
Excerpted from A Good Death by Christopher R. Cox Copyright © 2013 by Christopher R. Cox. Excerpted by permission.
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Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. First edition, first printing of the first novel by Cox. In fine / fine condition. Seller Inventory # 23346
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Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. first edition first printing of a fine hardcover in a fine dustjacket. Featuring Sebastian Damon, a Boston MA USA, P.I. who catches an unusual case to look into the death of a woman in Bangkok Thailand, before a large insurance payout is issued. Finalist for the 2014 Shamus award for best first P.I. novel. Seller Inventory # 491
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