Top ten mysteries set in Asia

Barry Lancet's Japantown, an international thriller, won the prestigious Barry Award for Best First Mystery Novel, and was selected by both Suspense Magazine and renowned mystery critic Oline Cogdill as one of the Best Debuts of the Year. His second book, Tokyo Kill, was a finalist for a Shamus Award for Best P.I. Novel of the Year and was selected as a must-read for Asian leaders by Forbes magazine. The third entry in the Jim Brodie series is Pacific Burn. One of Lancet's top ten mysteries set in Asia, as shared at The Strand Magazine:

Bangkok 8 by John Burdett

The first entry in an ongoing series, Bangkok 8 captures the steamy sensuality of Thailand’s capital with empathy and heart. Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a devout Buddhist and son of a local bar girl and a long-gone American soldier, is assigned to protect an African-American marine, who is soon found dead of snake bites inside a locked Mercedes Benz. Sonchai’s investigation takes him careening through all levels of society. The novel is a great dense stew of a story—at various times surreal, tongue-in-cheek, and piercingly honest—a description that could neatly sum up Bangkok itself.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue