James A. Newman

I was provided this audiobook at no charge by the narrator in exchange for an unbiased review via Audiobook Blast.

3 stars: 4 stars for the writing, 2 stars for the narration.

Pretty easy to describe this one. It’s obviously Thai noir, it’s obviously hardboiled mystery, and it’s obviously violent. There are some distinct James Ellroy-esque tones in the book that seem to work well as the author describes Pattaya (“Fun City”) and the dark, dank, dreariness found in its underbelly. The writing is pretty good, and captures the scenes well. His description of the murder at the beginning was gruesome, to say the least.

The Audible narration was extremely hard to follow. It took a few “back up and repeat that section” to understand what was going on. The narrator’s accents were off-putting and hard to follow, and didn't seem to fit the characters. That was a problem for me.

I may go back and read this one as an ebook instead.… (meer)