About This Book
THE GIRL FROM THE LAND OF SMILES is an exciting and unusual murder mystery, centering around the Buddhist belief that the dead are reborn as other forms of life. Taiella Motubaki, originally from a remote Thai village on the border with Laos, meets Luke Narland, a London business man. They fall deeply in love. Then Luke decides it is only proper to visit Taiella's parents in her village. Luke has been on many business trips to Bangkok, but nothing has prepared him for this visit to rural Thailand. So when the village beauty is found raped and murdered Luke, a farang - a Western foreigner - is immediately accused of the crime. Entangled in a web of suspicion in the village, nothing is as it seems. Taiella is quite sure that Luke is innocent and is desperate to free him, but she's in her twenties, unmarried, and with a farang boyfriend - a person of no account. Who will help Luke prove his innocence? Will it be his Thai business manager, Teng Japhardee, his wealthy investor, Howard Spelter, Taiella's older sister, Pi Sayai, or perhaps it will be ladyboy Panjim Narcoso, Taiella's best friend in Bangkok? The story's resolution is both exciting and unexpected. THE GIRL FROM THE LAND OF SMILES is not just a murder mystery, it is a fascinating journey through the real Thailand, hardly glimpsed by visitors to Bangkok.
