On the Paradise Island of Koh Samui, a young English girl’s body is found posed looking out to sea on Bophut Beach. Her throat has been cut to near decapitation and Police Lieutenant Chai Son Sinuan of the Royal Thailand Police is handed the toughest murder case of his career. At the same time, Covid-19 has devastated Koh Samui's and Thailand’s tourist industry and the government is putting pressure on Son to solve the case to save face with the international community. Son is in a race against time to solve the murder, but with most businesses, hotels, massage parlours, restaurants and bars now closed and with many potential witnesses having already left the island to return to their home countries or provinces around Thailand there are very few leads to follow.  The investigation takes Son to Ko Pha-Ngan and to the Island of Phuket and then back to Koh Samui as he untangles a crime with links back to the notorious gangsters the Kray twins the most feared, most ruthless gangsters in London during the 1950 and 1960s.

 

* Authors note.

I started to write this book in April 2020 when I was in self-isolation after I contracted the coronavirus. For me, it was just like a normal dose of the flu but for millions of people around the world, they were not so lucky. Though I love the working-class people of Thailand I am not a great fan of the Thailand government, in fact, I am not a great fan of many governments. But credit must go to where credit is due and the Thailand government handled the pandemic better than most other counties. With a population of nearly 70 million people, Thailand recorded only 58 deaths compare that to my home country of the UK who have a similar size population but have to date recorded 47,000 deaths. While I was in lockdown and seeing the effect the virus was having on the world I decided to write a suspense novel that was centred on Covid-19 that would highlight the difficulties and frustrations that any police force would face when trying to solve a major crime during the worse pandemic in over 100 years, when most of the population, except for essential services were told by their governments to stay home to stop the virus from spreading.  The book is about a murder in Koh Samui here in Thailand with links back to the notorious Ronald and Reggie Kray the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in the East End of London during the 1950s and 1960s.  I hope that you enjoy reading it.