Eclectic crime fiction & informed, irreverent non-fiction from Asia & beyond
“Camera traps have been smashed and stolen. We have caught hunting dogs. A logging gang started to build a road through the national park so our team watched them for three days, then stormed the camp and arrested 20 people. The following day, everyone was freed, but at least the road was not built.” Laure […]
Continue ReadingCambodia: Journey through the Land of the Khmer with photos by Kraig Lieb and my text remains a bestseller in Cambodia. The second edition came out late last year. There’s currently a great light display for the book at Phnom Penh airport.
Continue ReadingLaura Snook, Cambodia’s high priestess of punk, ace magazine editor, and a fantastic, sensitive and kind woman and all round Rocknroll lady. What a huge loss. I wrote the following text for her remembrance concert in Phnom Penh in March. Laura, I’d like to quote from a novel by John D MacDonald: I get the […]
Continue ReadingThe third updated edition of Moon Angkor Wat, my English language guide to the Angkor temples in Cambodia is out now, both in print and ebook format. Reviewer Janet Brown had this to say: I’m the kind of person who reads guidebooks to remember where I’ve been as well as to plan my next destination […]
Continue ReadingThe brand new third edition of my Moon Guide to the Angkor Wat temples is out now and it looks fantastic. Here’s my complete line-up of titles for Moon, a US based travel guide publisher. Get your copy here. Reader and fellow author Janet Brown wrote: I’m the kind of person who reads guidebooks to […]
Continue ReadingI am interviewed at Rainne’s Ramblings this week about my brand new novel The Monsoon Ghost Image, the Detective Maier Mystery series and about how I became a writer. Here’s a taster: How did your journey as a writer begin? I was living in a cheap room in a cheap guest house on Freak Street […]
Continue ReadingKraig Lieb’s illustrated book Cambodia: Journey through the Land of the Khmer, featuring my text, is currently Cambodia’s bestselling illustrated book. A newly revised, freshly edited, fantabulous edition with new images is out now!
Continue ReadingPatrick French reports on Drifters, Conspirators, and Noir in Cambodia’s Capital City for Crime Reads and writes… “Hard-boiled and noir is pretty much the only option on the menu when it comes to Phnom Penh crime writing. Tom Vater, a Bangkok-based writer and publisher, wrote The Cambodian Book of the Dead (2013) which sees German […]
Continue ReadingThe third edition of my guide to the Angkor temples, published by Moon in the US, is out October 2nd. Lots of changes around the Cambodian temples and in Siem Reap which is growing at an extraordinary pace. And lots of new hotels, eateries and other attractions in the new edition. Trip of a lifetime! […]
Continue ReadingFrom a punk rock collective in Borneo to European proto-colonies and ethnic minorities in India, rock stars and a circus from Cambodia, the scourge of development in Laos, female motorcycle taxi drivers in Thailand, Japanese entrepreneurs in France and my eye witness reports of the 2015 Nepal earthquake, the Asian Nikkei Review has published some […]
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