Cold Hit: A Novel

Vincent Calvino #6

by Christopher G. Moore

Why have five tourist died. Drug overdose victims or a serial killer? Calvino's nose tells him a serial killer - stalking tourists in Bangkok. The Thai cops, including Colonel Pratt, don't buy his theory. Death threats are made against an LA businessman Calvino has agreed to guard. Is he the next tourist to die in the City of Angels? In Christopher G. Moore's latest private-eye novel, Vincent Calvino, an American PI, teams with LAPD Officer Jessada Santisak on a bodyguard assignment as hidden forces pull them through swank shopping malls, rundown hotels, the slums of Klong Toey and the bars inside the Comfort Zone. The Internet world of the Cause whose members flock to the Causeway bars in search of pleasure smashes into the Old World Order, and as the bodies start to be shipped home, the secret of the serial killer is revealed.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery

330 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Christopher G. Moore is a Canadian author who has lived in Thailand since 1988. Formerly a law professor at the University of British Columbia and a practicing lawyer, Moore has become a public figure in Southeast Asia, known for his novels and essays that have captured the spirit and social transformation of Southeast Asia over the past three decades.

Moore has written over 30 fiction and non-fiction books, including the Vincent Calvino novels which have won including the Shamus Award and German Critics Award and have been translated to over a dozen languages. Moore’s books and essays are a study of human nature, culture, power, justice, technological change and its implications on society and human rights.

Starting in 2017, the London-based Christopher G. Moore Foundation awards an annual literary prize to books advancing awareness on human rights. He’s also the founder of Changing Climate, Changing Lives Film Festival 2020.

Reviews

[Bryan Thomas Schmidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another really strong entry in the series although I have to say the LAPD cops is kind of a waste of character who really doesn’t add up to much in the long run. Other than a couple of minor plot points of the story, could function well without him. But again there’s well drawn characters here, and interesting twists. Nice to see the slime bucket sex tourist gotta comeuppance time again. A very good read. Highly recommend it.

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another quality work from Moore. This time Calvino starts off innocently enough delivering a birthday card to a prostitute. She erupts and her boyfriend bloodies Calvino's nose. From there, it's a steady descent into an international sex club run by Wes Naylor, an LA lawyer and sex addict. Somehow Calvino also finds himself on the payroll as Naylor's bodyguard. Members of the sex club turn up murdered. An international drug ring is responsible. And Naylor is in their sights, too.

That's roughly the outline of the story. Along the way, Calvino meets up with a Thai-American LA detective, a priest doing duty in one of Bangkok's biggest slums, corruption at the American embassy, and a few cases of personal redemption. As complex as it sounds (usual for Moore), the pace never lets up, except for a sort of draggy passage about criminals back in Los Angeles. Naylor, meanwhile, does double duty as an exemplar of the worst sort of sleazy, degenerate sexpat, while also making for some comic instances. Frankly Naylor's irritation, anger, and verbal harassment of the US embassy personnel is something I've silently given over in my own mind a few times. Moore describes Citizens' Services to a tee, security, pathway, and waiting room.

Again, I do wonder how someone unfamiliar with Bangkok responds to these novels. I've been here fourteen years, and I'm even lost at times. Anybody outside of the city know the significance of Foodland versus Villa Supermarket (there's more farang stuff, including Fritos, at Villa, which you pay for, but there's more access and better prices at Foodland, just in case anyone wants to know)? Meanwhile, the road map Moore uses once he's outside the Comfort Zone (Nana Plaza) also does for a few twists and turns. Good to see he finally gets to the Thonburi side of things, here, in Cold Hit. Things have changed a lot since the setting of this novel, late 1990s, but there is still enough of a connection so that current visitors can sniff them out if they want.

[Kai · Rating 1 out of 5]

Selected because set in Thailand, relevant to holiday but pretty poor storyline. Waste of time.

[Adrian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was hard work. A real mess of a story lost in 'how much I know of Thai culture etc'
Shame I liked his other books always a few humour gems in them.