I'm a frequent visitor to Thailand on business, so I avidly devour any books about the 'Land of Smiles'. A friend, who's also a Thai fan recommended this novel to me. I'm glad he did.



I really cannot comprehend the previous reviewer Jack Ralley's negative comments; with respect, perhaps they say more about him than about Last Seen in Bangkok? I enjoyed every page and found it hard to put the book down. I read it in 3 days, almost non stop, and I'm usually a one-novel-per-month man. When I did put it down, I did so mostly on purpose, to avoid finishing it too soon and ending the pleasure. The tautness of the strong plot, which is handled skillfully from start to finish and throws up quite a few unexpected twists, impressed me. It is not a story that anyone could have concocted. Woven into the plot, descriptive passages are insightful and vivid. The episodic vignettes in Thailand, from limp-wristed service in an airport bar to crusties on Khao San to dashing for the bog in a Sukhumvit go-go, are marvelously accurate, well-observed, and wryly narrated. Very few authors can have me laughing out loud and thence re-reading sections repeatedly in order to roar with joy again (Charles Dickens, Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis, Irvine Welsh, Evelyn Waugh, not many more), but Last Seen In Bangkok had my sides splitting at regular intervals.



Beyond the central Thai settings, Bangkok, Pattaya, Chaweng, observations of UK office and pub life are equally incisive and wittily rendered. The hero's love-hate relationship — will he end up shagging her? Does he even want to? — with a female office worker is one of many highlights, as is the scamming of a luckless company director. Authorial tone is, by turns, ribald, bathetic and, at times, poetic (the chapter titles are wonderful). The ultimate niggling sense of nihilistic moroseness that seeps through the initial veneer of liberating hedonistic fever that the central character feels during his Thai sojourn is beautifully and subtly managed. The book moves from being initially titillating to a genuinely moving final section. There is much food for thought here. It's all delicious, but there's a hell of a deliberate bitter aftertaste to a lot of the issues served up.



Personally speaking, had I been this book's editor, I would perhaps have suggested shortening some sections and lengthening others — though riveting, the ending did strike me as perhaps a little hurried — thereby making it a different novel, and not necessarily better. I would also have spotted and corrected the typographical errors, of which there are a fair few.



But that's just me: pedant and smartarse perfectionist. At the end of the day, I could not have invented the plot of this book nor could I have sustained the level of prose that ferries the events along from chapter to chapter. Knowing this kind of autobiographical-travelogue-debut novel, and having read the "trainspotting meets The Beach" blurb on this website, I expected the book humorously to express a keen and perceptive sense of the ex-pat-cum-sex-tourist Thai experience (and indeed it does that). What I didn't expect is it to convey the strong impression that here is a man who could write a novel about any number of topics and make them interesting. Contrary to what Mr Rally says, Dominic Lavin is an accomplished writer and a rare wit. Last Seen In Bangkok is not simply a book about Bangkok, not just a fictitious diary of a thrill seeker’s tragic self-induced fall from grace (though it is both those things as well) There’s more breadth and depth to it than that. That was an unexpected delight. I will gladly pay to read anything Dominic Lavin publishes from now on.

Excellent read enjoyed this book.