Chilling Collection of Thai Horror and Noir Hits Bookshelves
To travelers the world over Thailand is one of the most exotic places on earth – naturally lush, deeply spiritual, and hedonistic. In The Phantom Lover and Other Tales of Thailand award-winning author and longtime Thailand resident Jim Algie taps into the country’s fascinating culture in a way that Poe and Lovecraft fans will love.
In these short stories and novellas, a photojournalist is literally haunted by the images of everyone he has ever failed or exploited while getting a story. A human trafficker on Khaosan Road tries to escape from his life of crime and debauchery. An executioner explores the nature of violence in a painful search for Buddhism’s “loving kindness”. The country’s most infamous serial killer, based on a true crime story, tries to conjure up the Black Tiger God.
In “Tsunami,” the grand finale, the author puts his extensive experiences as a journalist to good use when recounting the tale of the biggest natural disaster of the 21st century.
The Thailand that these characters inhabit is a place full of wonders and demons – some born of dark magic, others born of a dark past. The stories portray their attempts to deal with many different shades of darkness and salvage some hope. In these gripping and heart-wrenching tales, Algie warps the boundary between the conceivable and the bizarre, proving that sometimes the surreal can seem very real indeed.
STORY SUMMARIES
The Death Kiss of a King Cobra Show
Flashpoints in Asia
Wet Nightmares
The Legendary Nobody
Obituary for the Khaosan Road Outlaws and Impostors
The Phantom Lover
Life and Death Sentences
Tsunami
PRAISE FOR THE PHANTOM LOVER
“Many people write about Thailand these days, but very few have the depth and breadth of Jim Algie. With the persistence of a seasoned journalist and the skill of a born story-teller he takes us places and reveals truths that lesser authors cannot begin to match.”
– John Burdett, author of Bangkok 8
“Jim Algie’s elegant, clean prose style delivers the cultural goods inside Southeast Asia with a great deal of wit and charm. These memorable stories spotlight the frontiers inhabited by the supernatural, backpackers, killers, legends, bar girl dreams, and customer nightmares. The stories map the boundary line between the Thais and the foreigners who live, work and die among them. And Algie has the talent to breathe fresh life and meaning into the conflicts that arise when the inevitable misunderstanding happens and a foreigner steps over the line.”
– Christopher G. Moore, author of the prize-winning Vincent Calvino mystery series
“The Phantom Lover and Other Thrilling Tales of Thailand is perfect for those who want a fun crash course in the darker side of Thailand and its myths, superstitions and folklore. …Phantom entertains as well as informs, and is a great paperback for holidaymakers or indeed anybody who seeks some substance behind the Thai smile. ”
– The Bangkok Post
“The overall success of Phantom Lover cannot be denied, however. The book is at times intensely thought-provoking. What happens the rest of the time will guarantee every reader a few lost nights of sleep.”
– The Nation
“Thai expatriate Algie (Bizarre Thailand: Tails of Crime, Sex and Black Magic) reveals the seedy underbelly of his adopted country in this dark collection of erotically charged tales set in contemporary Bangkok and environs. Dispelling any doubt that Thai sex trade is flourishing, many of the stories describe how poverty and lack of education leave local women with no other way to earn a living.”
– Publishers Weekly
“Asian horror fiction is an expanding, yet still relatively unknown genre. Its rise follows the trend for Southeast Asia noir, and an increasing number of movies that use Bangkok’s sultry streets as a backdrop for tales of crime and the supernatural. But Jim Algie’s short-story collection, The Phantom Lover and Other Thrilling Tales of Thailand, aims to go further, tapping into the deep vein of superstition that runs through Thai society and blurring the line between precarious reality and a disturbing dream world.
– South China Morning Post

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