Eclectic crime fiction & informed, irreverent non-fiction from Asia & beyond
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 […]
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My latest story in Nikkei Asia follows a Canadian/French couple who set out to walk from Europe to Australia to remind the world that travel is more than a commodity. They sometimes walked up to 14 hours a day, got lost in the jungles of Laos and were involved in a fatal bus crash in […]
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A museum tells the history of one of Bangkok’s notorious districts – Patpong has hosted artists, spies, serial killers and sex workers. “There’s a lot more to Patpong than sex,” Michael Messner says. The district lies east of the Chao Phraya river in Thailand’s capital city; two parallel streets host night markets, bars, clubs and […]
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In the 1990s and 2000s, I recorded & documented disappearing musical traditions from South and Southeast Asia for The British Library. British Library Audio Project Cataloguer Jim Hickson has written a wonderful article about one of my recordings from India – music performed not only in a temple, but also on a temple. The Shri […]
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Was Stanley reviewed Kolkata Noir this week. Thanks! At 148 pages in paperback, 150 pages in hardcover, and an estimated 208 swipes on your favourite eReader, Kolkata Noir is anything but a lengthy read. When picking up the book, I had only intended to read part one, then return to it later, for parts two […]
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Coming soon – A Blackthorn Book Tour of: The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu ‘Acid trips, border crossings, road weariness, the adventurous optimism of youth and the limitations of middle aged wisdom…’ Buy The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu here.
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Writer Isobel Blackthorn dropped a wonderful review of The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu. The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu is as much an atmospheric and absorbing read as it is fast-paced entertainment. It’s 1975, and four young men in an old Bedford van pull up in the Hindu Kush on the Peshawar-Kabul road to follow through […]
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The Audio Book edition of The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu is out!! 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 drug deal goes wrong, the boys barely escape with their […]
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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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