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Book Review: by Lang Reid
Diary of a Thai Escort
 Diary
of a Thai Escort came across the review desk (ISBN 978-974-13-7948-4, Heaven
Lake Press 2008) direct from the publishers. When I enquired at Bookazine, I
was informed this was the second impression, and it had previously sold very
well. The book also had credits from some heavyweights in the Thailand
writing stakes, with Christopher G. Moore, Stephen Leather and Dean Barrett
adding their opinions to the back cover.
The book begins in diary format with the lead character stating that she had
just serviced her first customer and she was in tears. She also collected
300 pounds for two hours and then compared that amount of earnings with that
of a teacher in Thailand who would take a month to earn that amount. She
justified her (horizontal) position by saying that she was only doing it to
build a house for her son and her mother.
As the diary unfolds, you are given a character list which includes the
Russian escort agency owner, his Thai girlfriend and several Thai escort
girls. You are also introduced to the man in Thailand to whom she was his
‘mia noi’ (mistress) who had said that his wife had found out about their
liaison, so she had to get out of the country.
She then has sex with the odd thousand males, gets punished by a Lithuanian
gang, but finally gets back to Thailand and her son unscathed, but with a
lot of money.
What seems to have been forgotten with this book is the publisher’s note.
“This is a work of fiction,” it says quite clearly, and as such is therefore
a product of someone’s imagination. However, the publisher’s letter to me
claims the book is “a first-hand account by a university-educated Thai woman
who was lured by easy money to work as an escort in London after having
escaped a painful and dangerous love triangle back home.” It goes further
claiming that it is written as a diary by the author who prefers to remain
anonymous, and indeed the book is credited to “Anonymous”.
Where I take exception to this book is the thought that the book will serve
as an object lesson “by every woman thinking of selling her body and by
every man thinking of paying for sex.” This book is fiction, and as such
does not have real-life significance.
The text was too perfect even for any university educated Thai woman, and
particularly one from Ramkamhaeng open university. It was repetitive for the
major portion of the book, and quite frankly I got to the stage of not
caring that she had another customer who wanted “doggy-style” sex.
The ending where the captor falls in love with her, shoots the boss, gives
her the money, returns her passport and visa, she drugs him, gets his
fingerprints on the murder weapon and she jumps on a plane back to Thailand,
where her friend, a drug dealer, is dribbling the eight million baht in
small amounts into her bank account is not credible. Oh if only I had drug
dealing friends that honest!
Cheap titillation for B. 399.
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