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Book Review: by Lang Reid
The Risk of Infidelity Index
 Author
Christopher G Moore must have been to a speed writing class. The dust has
barely settled following the September 2006 coup in which the Royal Thai
Army took a restive Bangkok from the odium of a government tainted with
corruption, and now in January 2007, Heaven Lake Press has released Moore’s
latest Vinny Calvino book, set in the pre and post coup capital featuring
assorted assassinations, double dealings and dark influences.
In this series, Vincent Calvino is an ex-New York lawyer, working as a
private investigator in Bangkok. Perennially insolvent, Calvino has allowed
a basic regard for what is good in humanity to get in the way of his making
millions muck-raking. Not that he isn’t seen raking around in it. And he
doesn’t come up quite smelling of roses either. Calvino does have a friend
in the police, however, and with the arrival of Colonel Pratt and his
Shakespearian quotes, the reader of the series is given reassurance that the
old team is back on the job.
In this book, Calvino becomes embroiled in some fairly nasty work in a large
company of lawyers, which finally results in two of them being unable to
arrive at work on Tuesday to pick up their torts. One with a heart attack
under strange circumstances and the other simply beaten to death.
Like all of this series, the book fairly gallops along, and by page 28 we
have one dead lawyer and one dead massage parlor attendant who is found
exsanguinated in the seedy premises below Calvino’s equally seedy office.
This time, Calvino finds that there is much more than coincidence linking
his murder victims. There is a group of middle-aged American women, whom
Calvino describes as “Cheerleaders for a game that ended twenty years ago”,
ostensibly tracking their errant husbands, one of whom turns out to be
lawyer number 1. There is also a rather well-known Chinese-Thai businessman
(no, not him!) who wields great influence in official circles, including the
police. So much so that he has Colonel Pratt transferred to an inactive
post. But does our businessman get his just desserts?
For me, some of the reasons that Vinny Calvino is so plausible are that
author Moore uses the ‘real’ Bangkok as the setting. Nana Plaza is Nana
Plaza with all its in-your-face women (and katoeys) battering the senses.
Sukhumvit 33 is Sukhumvit 33 with its expensive dead artist member clubs,
and its cheaper bars on the other side of the street that Vinny Calvino (and
I) can afford. Forget ‘reality TV’, this is ‘reality writing’. Calvino is
also a real human being. Unlike other celluloid and paperback heroes,
Calvino bleeds, he is getting older, and repeated trauma has produced
arthritis in his shoulders. I can relate to Vinny and sympathize with him.
This new Calvino book is just as good as the others, and at B. 595
represents exciting, enthralling and entertaining writing. If you have read
the others, add this new one to your collection. If you haven’t read
Christopher G Moore’s books before, it is not too late to start your own
collection today. Get it.
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