By Yigal Zur, translated from Hebrew by Sara Kitai. This thriller, recently translated into English, features former Israeli security operative Dotan Naor, whose firm has something of a specialty of rescuing Israelis who find themselves in tricky situations abroad. In his new case, a pretty young woman named Sigal Bardon, age 26, has gone missing in Bangkok, and her family wants her back.
Naor is a cynical narrator, intimately familiar with that southeast Asian city, having spent time there off and on for two decades. If he had to guess, he would chalk Sigal’s disappearance up to a drug overdose—heroin, Bangkok gold. There are a lot of bad ways that story can end, and he knows most of them.
Once in Bangkok, Naor takes a room in the heart of Patpong, a nexus of unsavory activity, and a district where information about Sigal, or the woman herself, is likely to be found, traded, or bought. On a sweltering day he takes a ride in an air-conditioned cab. The driver offers the usual drugs and girls, and he also has passports belonging to Sigal Bardon and someone named Micha Waxman. Naor buys both, plus the information that the driver drove them to the train station. This encounter is too much of a coincidence, and Naor wonders who’s trailing him, who recruited this driver, who’s anticipating his mission.
The complicated plot involving a diverse cast of Israeli expats, drug kingpins, and Thai Tourist Police moves along briskly. Sigal herself remains something of a cipher, but the colorful supporting characters—monks, fortune tellers, whore mistresses, and Naor’s old Shin Bet acquaintances, troublesome though they may be—are vivid.
Throughout the story, Naor hears echoes of his past and the scandal that ended his special forces career. Old companions lurk in Bangkok’s dark corners, but are they allies or adversaries? He takes the pessimistic view: “The past surged up and flooded over me like a sewer that had overflowed.”
Every clue that Naor tracks down solidifies his initial impression that drug dealing is at the center of Sigal’s disappearance. But is she still alive? Her sister thinks so, but says little. The drug lords she doublecrossed think so and want her themselves. Waxman thought so, but he’s dead.
Zur’s rich descriptions of Bangkok permeate every scene and engage all the senses. This isn’t a story that could take place anywhere else, and by the time you turn the last page, you may feel like you’ve been there. And you’ll be glad to have made the trip from the comfort of your reading chair, out of danger and chaos.
Zur’s previous thriller Death in Shangri-La was also fun!
Photo: cegoh for Pixabay
