John Burdett has 10 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 3 ratings. The most-rated is Bangkok 8.
Bangkok 8
Summary
A thriller with attitude to spare, Bangkok 8 is a sexy, razor-edged, often darkly hilarious novel set in one of the world’s most exotic cities. Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz. Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep - a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I. - is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones and captures her heart in the process. In a city fueled by illicit drugs and infinite corruption, prostitution and priceless art, Sonchai’s quest for vengeance takes him into a world much more sinister than he could have ever imagined.
©2003 John Burdett (P)2011 Random House Audio
Bangkok Tattoo
Summary
From the author of the best seller Bangkok 8, a head-spinning new novel that puts us back in the company of the inimitable Royal Thai Police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep. We return to District 8, the underbelly of Bangkok's underworld, where a dramatically mutilated dead body is found. It's bad: he was CIA. It gets worse: the murderer appears to be Chanya, a tough, sweet working girl who's the highest earner at The Old Man's Club, jointly owned by Sonchai's mother and his boss, Police Colonel Vikorn. Alerted by Sonchai, Vikorn quickly concocts a cover-up that involves Al Qaeda and Thailand's porous southern border where, since 9/11, the CIA has been an obviously covert presence. But the truth will be harder to come by, and it will require Sonchai to find an ever-more-delicate balance between his ambition and his Buddhism, while running the gamut of Bangkok's drug dealers, prostitutes, bad cops, worse military, and the pitfalls of his own melting heart (Chanya!), most of which he can handle. But even Sonchai is not prepared for what he discovers at the end of his investigation. Piercingly smart and funny, densely atmospheric, and, as we already know to expect from John Burdett, packing a surprise at every turn, Bangkok Tattoo is sensational.
©2005 John Burdett (P)2005 Books on Tape, Inc.
The Godfather of Kathmandu
Summary
John Burdett writes darkly inventive fiction with a comic twist. In The Godfather of Kathmandu, Royal Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is called to a grisly murder scene that could make or break his career, but he’s more worried about impressing Tietsin, his new Buddhist guru. However, Tietsin would rather use Sonchai to help him broker a heroin deal worth 40 million dollars. Left with no easy way out and plenty of moral conflict, Sonchai will have to decide between saving his soul and saving his career.
©2009 John Burdett (P)2010 WF Howes Ltd.
The Bangkok Asset
Summary
Sonchai Jitpleecheep is back! The Royal Thai Police detective, our wily, sometimes madly bold guide through the author's previous acclaimed Bangkok novels, is this time on the trail of an American conspiracy and once again - and closer than ever - on the trail of his American father. With Sonchai on this case is the young female inspector, Krom. Like Sonchai, she's an outsider on the police force, but unlike him she is socially savvy and a technological prodigy. When they're called to a demonstration - in the midst of a typhoon - of the deadly, superhuman strength of an American man who is seemingly controlled by a CIA operative, they have no idea what they're actually witnessing or why. Their reliably obtuse and unequivocally crooked boss, Colonel Vikorn, explains some of it, but the most telling questions remain unanswered: Could the Americans have figured out a way to create a physically and psychologically enhanced super soldier? Are they testing him - or it - on Thai soil? And why is everyone, from the Bangkok police to the international community, so eager to turn a blind eye?
©2015 John Burdett (P)2015 Recorded Books
The Bangkok Asset
Summary
Sonchai Jitpleecheep - the brash and beguiling Royal Thai Police Force detective who has been our guide through John Burdett’s five previous acclaimed Bangkok novels - is back. The former monk and devout Buddhist, forever battling to protect his karma from the assaults of morally compromising cases, is now faced with the most horrifying technological innovation to make its way to the streets of Bangkok and a conspiracy of almost unfathomable reach. With Sonchai on this case is the young female Inspector Krom. Like Sonchai, she’s an outsider on the police force, but unlike him, she is socially savvy and a technological prodigy. When they’re called to a demonstration - in the midst of a typhoon - of the deadly, superhuman strength of an American man who is seemingly controlled by a CIA operative, they have no idea what they’re actually witnessing or why. Their reliably obtuse and unequivocally crooked boss, Colonel Vikorn, explains some of it, but the most telling questions remain unanswered: Could the Americans have figured out a way to create a physically and psychologically enhanced supersoldier? Are they testing him - or it - on Thai soil? And why is everyone, from the Bangkok police to the international community, so eager to turn a blind eye? Searching for the answers to these questions, Sonchai and Krom find themselves in a remote Cambodian jungle compound for aging American ex-soldiers, where they will discover just how far a government will go to protect its worst secrets - both past and present. But the case will also have much more personal repercussions for Sonchai, shaking his world to its very foundation and perhaps finally forcing him to confront his long-lost American father.
©2015 John Burdett (P)2020 Random House Audio
Bangkok Haunts
Summary
Sonchai Jitpleecheep, the devout Buddhist Royal Thai Police detective who led us through the best sellers Bangkok 8 and Bangkok Tattoo, returns in this blistering novel. Sonchai has seen virtually everything on his beat in Bangkok's District 8, but nothing like the snuff film he's just been sent anonymously. Furiously fast-paced and laced through with an erotic ghost story that gives a new dark twist to the life of our hero, Bangkok Haunts more than lives up to the smart and darkly funny originality of its predecessors.
©2019 John Burdett (P)2019-2100 Random House Audio
Vulture Peak
Summary
Nobody knows Bangkok like Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, and there is no one quite like Sonchai: a police officer who has kept his Buddhist soul intact - more or less - despite the fact that his job shoves him face-to-face with some of the most vile and outrageous crimes and criminals in Bangkok. But for his newest assignment, everything he knows about his city - and himself - will be a mere starting point. He’s put in charge of the highest-profile criminal case in Thailand - an attempt to bring an end to trafficking in human organs. He sets in motion a massive sting operation and stays at its center, traveling to Phuket, Hong Kong, Dubai, Shanghai, and Monte Carlo. He draws in a host of unwitting players that includes an aging rock star wearing out his second liver and the mysterious, diabolical, albeit gorgeous co-queenpins of the international body-parts trade: the Chinese twins known as the Vultures. And yet, it’s closer to home that Sonchai will discover things getting really dicey: rumors will reach him suggesting that his ex-prostitute wife, Chanya, is having an affair. Will Sonchai be enlightened enough - forget Buddha, think jealous husband - to cope with his very own compromised and compromising world?
©2012 John Burdett (P)2012 W.F. Howes
Vulture Peak
Summary
Nobody knows Bangkok like Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, and there is no one quite like Sonchai: a police officer who has kept his Buddhist soul intact - more or less - despite the fact that his job shoves him face-to-face with some of the most vile and outrageous crimes and criminals in Bangkok. But for his newest assignment, everything he knows about his city - and himself - will be a mere starting point. He’s put in charge of the highest-profile criminal case in Thailand - an attempt to bring an end to trafficking in human organs. He sets in motion a massive sting operation and stays at its center, traveling to Phuket, Hong Kong, Dubai, Shanghai, and Monte Carlo. He draws in a host of unwitting players that includes an aging rock star wearing out his second liver and the mysterious, diabolical, albeit gorgeous co-queenpins of the international body-parts trade: the Chinese twins known as the Vultures. And yet, it’s closer to home that Sonchai will discover things getting really dicey: rumors will reach him suggesting that his ex-prostitute wife, Chanya, is having an affair. Will Sonchai be enlightened enough - forget Buddha, think jealous husband - to cope with his very own compromised and compromising world? All will be revealed here, in John Burdett’s most mordantly funny, propulsive, fiendishly entertaining novel yet.
©2012 John Burdett (P)2019 Random House Audio
The Godfather of Kathmandu
Summary
Sonchai Jitpleecheep - John Burdett’s inimitable Royal Thai Police detective with the hard-bitten demeanor and the Buddhist soul - is summoned to the most shocking and intriguing crime scene of his career. Solving the murder could mean a promotion, but Sonchai, reeling from a personal tragedy, is more interested in Tietsin, an exiled Tibetan lama based in Kathmandu who has become his guru. There are, however, obstacles in Sonchai’s path to nirvana. Police Colonel Vikorn has just named Sonchai his consigliere (he’s been studying The Godfather on DVD): to troubleshoot, babysit, defuse, procure, reconnoiter - do whatever needs to be done in Vikorn’s ongoing battle with Army General Zinna for control of Bangkok’s network of illegal enterprises. And though Tietsin is enlightened and (eerily) charismatic, he also has 40 million dollars’ worth of heroin for sale. If Sonchai truly wants to be an initiate into Tietsin’s “apocalyptic Buddhism,” he has to pull off a deal that will bring Vikorn and Zinna to the same side of the table. Further complicating the challenge is Tara: a Tantric practitioner who captivates Sonchai with her remarkable otherworldly techniques. Here is Sonchai put to the extreme test - as a cop, as a Buddhist, as an impossibly earthbound man - in John Burdett’s most wildly inventive, darkly comic, and wickedly entertaining novel yet.
©2019 John Burdett (P)2019 Random House Audio
Bangkok Haunts
Summary
Critically acclaimed, nationally best-selling author John Burdett has earned starred reviews for the fast-paced action, snappy dialogue, and gritty realism of his thrilling tales starring Royal Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep. In this vibrant and witty novel, devout Buddhist Sonchai relies on his karma to guide him through the seamy underbelly of Bangkok as he pieces together the scattered clues of a complex mystery.
©2007 John Burdett (P)2007 Recorded Books