Thailand, as I write this, is stepping back from major civil unrest. And Canadian author Christopher G. Moore has been blogging frontline dispatches from his home in central Bangkok.
Thanks to a monetary windfall, Moore's long-running series character Vincent "Vinny" Calvino was able to give up ad hoc investigations and now works as a "consultant." In "The Corruptionist," Calvino matches wits with a stunningly beautiful and very smart Thai female investigator named Tanny. Adopted and taken to the U.S. while in infancy, Tanny has been dispatched to Thailand to dig up information that her employer hopes will prevent a rich, obnoxious American entrepreneur from concluding a business tieup with a rich, eccentric Thai partner.
As it turns out, other forces are also at work to thwart the arrangement. The intrigues are ratcheted up a few notches after the Thai partner is mauled to death by his own pet lions.