#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
When the Norwegian ambassador to Thailand is found dead in a Bangkok brothel, Inspector Harry Hole is dispatched from Oslo to help hush up the case.
But once he arrives Harry discovers that this case is about much more than one random murder. There is something else, something more pervasive, scrabbling around behind the scenes. Or, put another way, for every cockroach you see in your hotel room, there are hundreds behind the walls. Surrounded by round-the-clock traffic noise, Harry wanders the streets of Bangkok lined with go-go bars, temples, opium dens, and tourist traps, trying to piece together the story of the ambassador’s death even though no one asked him to, and no one wants him to—not even Harry himself.
'Nesbø never lets a page go by without making characters and situations vivid.'
...'Satisfyingly twisty. . . . A compelling, hard-edged thriller.'
...'Excellent . . . the most popular among [Nesbø’s] earlier novels and one that casts a cold eye on the reality of expatriate life of some Europeans in Asia.'...
'The picturesque seediness of Bangkok and Thailand turns out to be Harry Hole’s natural element...'
...'It’s the magic Nesbø works with the genre’s tropes that matters... [He] might be my favorite of the lot.'
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