The Corruptionist
Other novels
A Killing Smile
A Bewitching Smile
A Haunting Smile
His Lordship’s Arsenal
Tokyo Joe
Red Sky Falling
God of Darkness
Chairs
Waiting for the Lady
Gambling on Magic
Non-Fiction
Heart Talk
Vincent Calvino Readers Guide
ABOUT AUTHOR
Canadian Christopher G. Moore is the creator of the awardwinning Vincent Calvino Private Eye series and the author of the Land of Smiles Trilogy.
In his former life, he studied at Oxford University and taught law at the University of British Columbia. He wrote radio plays for the CBC and NHK before his first novel was published in New York in 1985, when he promptly left his tenured academic job for an uncertain writing career, leaving his colleagues thinking he was not quite right in the head.
His journey from Canada to Thailand, his adopted home, included some time in Japan in the early 1980s and four years in New York in the 1980s.
In 1988, he came to Thailand to harvest materials to write a book. The visit was meant to be temporary. Twenty years on and 21 novels and a non-fiction later, he is still in Bangkok and far from having exhausted the rich Southeast Asian literary materials.
His novels have so far been translated into Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, and Turkish. He is published by Heaven Lake Press in Thailand, by Grove/Atlantic in the United States, and Atlantic Books in the United Kingdom. His Vincent Calvino series has been optioned for a feature film.
For more information about the author and his books, visit his website: http://www.cgmoore.com/. He also blogs at International Crime Authors: Reality Check: http://www.internationalcrimeauthors.com/.
A KILLING SMILE
First in the Land of Smiles Trilogy
In 1957 Richard Mason's The World of Suzie Wong shocked the world with an exotic tale set in Hong Kong, then in 1973 Paul Theroux's Saint Jack followed with a powerful story set in Singapore, and in 1991 Christopher G. Moore's A Killing Smile has registered a tour de force with a haunting drama set in Bangkok.
A Killing Smile is a simple but deep story about the aftermath of events following the death of a successful Los Angeles attorney's wife. Lost, confused, and angry, Lawrence Baring, Esq. goes to Bangkok and confronts Tuttle--the man his wife, Sarah, had once loved.
The story follows the conflict and enveloping relationship of Baring and Tuttle in the underworld of Bangkok's Patpong, Soi Cowboy, and the late night meeting spot called HQ where spies, gangsters, diplomats, pimps, businessmen, writers, teachers, travellers gather along side the women they buy for the night. The novel is filled with twists and turns and atmosphere and absolutely fascinating characters shipwrecked in a society they vaguely understand.
“The whole effect is very real— particularly the revelation of those razor teeth back of the Smile.”
—Gore Vidal
“Moore is a master of detail ... a pioneer, daring and inventive.”
—The Nation
“I was knocked out by the sensitivity of the writing, the textures of the characters, the many levels of feeling. The outcome is one of the finest male bonding stories I have ever come across and I kick myself that I didn’t write this novel.”
—Stirling Silliphant, Oscar winner for In the Heat of the Night
“The portrait of Tuttle as an expatriate shipwrecked in an alien tropic brings to mind Theroux’s Jack Flowers.”
—The Japan Times
“In A Killing Smile Moore succeeds in translating for a Western audience the inside of how Thais think. Above all he describes with an objective, non-judgemental eye the raw pathos, the light and shadow of the world that never surfaces in the glossy tourist catalogues.”
—Fabio Novel, Thriller Magazine (Italy)
“Critically regarded as the best Western author today whose books focus on this country (e.g., A Killing Smile).”
—Bangkok Post
A BEWITCHING SMILE
Second in the Land of Smiles Trilogy
A Bewitching Smile is reminiscent of A Passage to India in the creation of a kind of psychological DMZ, another Shangri-la with its own ephipanies and perils. The tough-sensitive characterization, and the sharp, often aphoristic dialogue, and the irony, combine to create a powerful drama.
In this sequel to A Killing Smile, Richard Breach who is a magician, mystic and world-class card player teaches English in Bangkok. Crosby, his former student, has found an assignment for Breach's talents: a rescue mission. Snow is held hostage in a hill tribe village. Snow's plan to become Lahu godman has failed and his life is at risk. Breach has private reasons of his own -- a dying friend in England has requested a set of ritual shaman's.
As the journey progresses to the north of Thailand, another mission takes form: Breach is to play in a high stakes card game. The story is about magic, myth and the power to transform the self. A Bewitching Smile, the second A Land of Smiles trilogy -- confirms the novels of Christopher G. Moore are destined to become a Southeast Asia social chronicle of the 90s.
“Moore’s novels are breaking new ground in fictional writing about Thailand. ... He writes with gentle humor and a sensitive understanding of what it is to be lost.”
—The Nation
A Haunting Smile Page 32