Eclectic crime fiction & informed, irreverent non-fiction from Asia & beyond
Great 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 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 ReadingCambodia: Journey through the Land of the Khmer , photographed by Kraig Lieb, with my text, is doing well in Siem Reap bookshops. Blurb: Cambodia: a Journey through the Land of the Khmer throws the doors to this small Southeast Asian kingdom wide open and invites both visitors and armchair travelers on a trip through […]
Continue ReadingAsia, mon amour. Every time I go out in the street in my adopted continent, I see something that, by the central European standards I grew up with, is outrageous, logic defying, irresponsible, shocking or at the very least unusual. Sometimes it is terrible, at other times beautiful. Sometimes it is trivial,sometimes sublime, at other […]
Continue ReadingTHE CAMBODIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD is featured in this week’s writer’s round-up at Paul Brazill‘s this week: What Goes On? Vater, Bird, Tomlinson, Miles. I share Paul’s virtual stage with Nigel Bird, Katherine Tomlinson and Maritetta Miles. Here’s what I had to say…. I’ve just republished THE CAMBODIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD, the first in […]
Continue ReadingI am very pleased that The Cambodian Book of the Dead, the first Detective Maier novel, originally published by the now defunct Exhibit A, is out in a new Kindle edition, with a brand new cover, with Crime Wave Press. The second Maier Mystery, The Man with the Golden Mind, may well follow suit in […]
Continue ReadingI have been busy promoting the new second edition of Moon Angkor Wat, published by Avalon Publishing in the US, which is out now. Some of my thoughts on community tourism, gay and lesbian travelers, volunteering and travel photography in Cambodiacan be found here.
Continue ReadingI was interviewed a while back in Korean Inflight Magazine Morning Calm by Marco Ferrarese for his article Celestial Dancers on the Apsaras, the celestial dancers of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Marco’s story runs from pages 74 to 79.
Continue ReadingTom Vater has a dream job: as a travel and guidebook writer, he constantly explores Asian roads to get the details right and inspire others to start their own adventures. Writer Marco Ferrarese, author of seminal punk rock novel Nazi Goreng, recently interviewed me about my early travel exploits in Asia. Read the full story […]
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