Eclectic crime fiction & informed, irreverent non-fiction from Asia & beyond
My publisher Next Chapter has released yet another blockbuster anthology of three of my novels thrown together as The Edge of Darkness. This collection includes my first novel, The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu, my most recent novel, The Green Panthers and the first part of my acclaimed Detective Maier series, The Cambodian Book of the […]
Continue Reading
Between 2013 and 2018, I published three crime novels featuring Maier, a former conflict journalist turned detective.Based in Hamburg, Maier solves crimes involving Germans who have gotten in trouble in Asia.The first two books in the series, The Cambodian Book of the Dead and The Man with the Golden Mind were published to great critical […]
Continue Reading
Cambodia’s once-thriving tourist town rises from the ashes of COVID-19. My latest story in Nikkei Asia. SIEM REAP, Cambodia — For nearly 20 years, the magnificent Angkor monuments in western Cambodia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, have been a magnet for millions of international travelers. As the tourists poured in, Siem Reap, the town closest […]
Continue Reading
A protected nature reserve was spared complete destruction when Cambodia’s prime minister stepped in after a public outcry. Replanting has begun to restore the forest – but with saplings that could be for a timber plantation. On 1 August, 2022, excavators began tearing down parts of the Phnom Tamao Protected Forest, an area of 2,300 hectares […]
Continue Reading
It’s hard picking just five best books on Cambodia. A lot has been written on the beautiful and troubled Southeast Asian kingdom. So here are a few favorites. Check out my selection of the Best Books on Cambodia. Happy reading.
Continue Reading
Cambodia, 2001 – a country re-emerging from a half-century of war, genocide, famine and cultural collapse. German Detective Maier travels to Phnom Penh, the Asian kingdom’s ramshackle capital, to find the heir to a Hamburg coffee empire. As soon as the private eye and former war reporter arrives in Cambodia, his search for the young […]
Continue ReadingA brand new edition of The Cambodian Book of the Dead, the first Detective Maier Mystery will be out soon with Next Chapter as ebook, paperback, large print and audio book. And here’s the new cover.
Continue Reading
Thanks to Kitty Lisha for a fair review of The Cambodian Book of the Dead, the first Detective Maier Mystery, originally published in 2013. This book….this book. Where to begin. It has a lot of facts in it. I didn’t fact check them. Didn’t really have the desire to if we are being honest here […]
Continue Reading
Very happy to have one of my short stories – Bag Times at the Blue Parrot – published in Face Masks and Hand Gels, a Covid-inspired literary anthology published by the Howl Literary Cooperative in Cambodia. Read Bag Times at the Blue Parrot here.
Continue ReadingI recently published The Name’s Maier – Welcome to the Far East, an essay on the world of my fictional detective and his latest mystery in The Monsoon Ghost Image, in Suspense Magazine. Here is an excerpt: Southeast Asia is a fascinating part of the world to live in and write about. The region is […]
Continue Reading