Eclectic crime fiction & informed, irreverent non-fiction from Asia & beyond
Charles Sobhraj (born 6 April 1944), also known as the Bikini Killer, is a French thief, fraudster and serial killer. He preyed on Western tourists throughout Southeast Asia during the 1970s. He was nicknamed The Splitting Killer and The Serpent. Sobhraj allegedly committed at least a dozen murders. He was convicted and jailed in India […]
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The film rights for my first novel, The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu, originally published in 2004, have been bought by 108 Media. In 1976, four friends – Dan, Fred, Tim and Thierry – are on a bus along the hippie trail from London to Kathmandu. But everything is not going according to plan. After a […]
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The Hard Hat Book Site has a wonderful review of The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu/ Thanks! Young hippies growing old! As if it is not bad enough that we lose our youth and can’t go back, we also have to cope with the fact that our youth still reserves the right to hang around and […]
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David W. Berner published a wonderful and erudite review of The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu at Medium. Hippies, drugs, a road trip, and crime. What could go wrong? Not much, in terms of literary missteps. The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu by author Tom Vater is a throttle to the floor story. It’s a crime novel, […]
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This was a wild read! There is a lot of excitement that kept me wondering what would happen next. Although there are quite a few humorous parts, I had two favorites: where the four stopped the bus and found water to take a swim in, Fred excitedly jumps in and announces that he forgot that […]
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An intriguing new review of The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu. “The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu tells the story of four men during a fateful trip in Asia that culminates 25 years later as each faces the repercussions of their initial trip and choices. Broken up into 6 parts that time jump between the initial trip […]
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wildwritinglife reviews The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu! …Beyond the very loaded action line, which appeals to the action-thirsty reader, The Devil´s Road to Kathmandu by the author and journalist Tom Vater has very fine human observations and a well-tempered timeline. The idea of coming back and forth from a period of time to another is a frequent […]
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I was invited to select 5 of my favorite books on Nepal. I picked the five books I feel will introduce Nepal best to a first time visitor. Tiger for Breakfast by Michel Peissel The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer Video Night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer Kathmandu by […]
Continue ReadingMy latest story with Laure Siegel in the Nikkei Asian Review on how highways, bridges and dams flow from Chinese infrastructure bonanza in Nepal. A hard truck ride to the Nepal/China/Tibet border, the proverbial end of the world. Some 140 km to the north of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, China’s “Belt and Road” infrastructure plan is in […]
Continue ReadingMy piece on my return to Nepal three years after I was caught up in the devastating earthquake of 2015 and the journey to overcome my sense of trauma is published in the Mekong Review, Southeast Asia’s literary journal, next month.
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