Eclectic crime fiction & informed, irreverent non-fiction from Asia & beyond
Mekong Shadows, the new anthology of fiction from and about Cambodia, published my Saraswati Publishing is not available in print from Monument Books in Cambodia. The story collection features and extract from The Cambodian Book of the Dead along with contributions from many local and ex-pat writers. Read a review in Thailand’s The Nation.
Continue ReadingCurrently in Siem Reap, Cambodia, to research the 3rd edition of the Moon guide to Angkor Wat. Just had a gloriously sunny day amongst the monuments, with few other visitors in sight away from the main sites. Adding a chapter on how to beat the crowds….
Continue ReadingGreat write-up by Paul Dorsey in today’s Nation newspaper for the Mekong Shadows anthology with praise for The Cambodian Book of the Dead. The anthology’s best episode, hands down, is actually a long excerpt from “The Cambodian Book of the Dead”, a taut and disturbing novel by Tom Vater (“Sacred Skin – Thailand’s Spirit Tattoos”). […]
Continue ReadingEarlier this week, Saraswati Publishing in Phnom Penh launched Mekong Shadows a new anthology of dark tales from Cambodia. Edited by British journalist Iain Donnelly, this collection includes both Cambodian and ex pat writers, both complete unknowns and widely published authors, including Kosal Khiev, John Burdett and James Newman. Feedback has been positive with coverage […]
Continue ReadingRoy Harper, who has escaped three times — twice from the State Penitentiary at Parchman —has written two crime novels now from his small cell there, editing each one on an illegal cellphone. Both ‘Shank’ and ‘Heist’ are out with Crime Wave Press. Jerry Mitchell reports for the Clarion Ledger. Read the full story. Here’s […]
Continue ReadingJust spent a mad week in Hong Kong, following ARTE correspondent Laure Siegel conducting interviews with ten residents on the imminent 20th anniversary of the city’s handover from the colonial Britishers to the Chinese, for ARTE TV. Check out the Hong Kong Dossier here. My portraits are in the vignettes of Témoignages : les voix […]
Continue ReadingCircus shows temple tourists another side of Cambodia – Creative training offers an alternative lifestyle for young performers SIEM REAP, Cambodia — It is a stiflingly hot Friday evening in Siem Reap, western Cambodia. The big top is packed, and there is an air of excitement as 300 or so spectators squeeze onto narrow wooden […]
Continue ReadingGerman photographer Ralf Tooten talks to me about his best selling photo book Bangkok Noir at sibylle.life. Read the interview here. Photograph by Laure Siegel.
Continue ReadingI am interviewed this week by crime writer Sonia Kilvington on all things Crime Wave Press and my two Detective Maier mysteries, The Cambodian Book of the Dead and The Man with the Golden Mind. I first came to Cambodia in 1995, illegally on a speed boat from Trat to Koh Kong. Someone wrote that […]
Continue ReadingActivists take on government over plans to transform culturally-rich area. My latest on the continued cultural impoverishment of Bangkok with Laure Siegel in The Nikkei Asian Review this week. BANGKOK — It is Friday night and Soi Nana is ablaze with lights. Most of the shop houses that line this 400-meter-long road in Bangkok’s Chinatown […]
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