REVIEW: The Risk of Infidelity Index by Christopher G. Moore

February 12

You don't hear a lot about the Thai coup any more, have you noticed that? For two days last year you couldn't pick up a newspaper or turn on a television without reading or a report about the army on the streets or hearing a tourist debating the merits of staying in the country or heading for the airport.  But suddenly, as is its way, the media moved on to something different and the Thais were left to  their military leadership in peace.

Christopher G. Moore's fine novel, The Risk of Infidelity Index, the ninth in the Vincent Calvino series set in Bangkok, does not concern itself with September's bloodless coup, but it does conjure a  dark and vivid picture of a society in which power resides with money and where that money can buy the status quo it needs to continue making money. And in those circustances, coups are never terribly far away. (Thailand has now had 18 since 1932, although last year's was the first in 15 years.)

Into this volatile cocktail, Moore mixes corrupt foreign businessmen, ex-pat wives looking to keep tabs on their cheating businessmen husbands and the ubiquitous sex trade that constitutes so much of Bangkok's profile overseas.

Stirring the mess is Vincent Calvino, an idiosyncratic American private eye, who opens the story hoping he has made enough cash and credibility on his most recent assignment, an investigation into the illegal reproduction of pharmaceuticals, to be able to apply for an investigative job with the  WHO and return to New York City to care for his elderly mother.

But even before he has had a chance to celebrate his good work, Calvino finds a dead masseur in the parlour his agency a building with, and then within a few hours his client collapses and dies in a hotel bathroom. The law firm employing the dead man turns its back on Calvino and his investigation, leaving him out of pocket and little choice but to pursue the case independently.

The avenues his enquiries take him down reveal the seedier side of Thai society: the world of yings and katoeys, the masseuses and hostesses who throw temptation in the way of western businessmen, throwing their wives into lonely lives of paranoia; of policemen accountable not to the people they are hired by the state to serve, but to the men lining their pockets with bribe money; and finally to an underworld of financial malpractice and ruthless amoral businessmen.

These are big themes, but Moore handles them skilfully,  rooting them in society by showing the devastating impact they have on small lives. Calvino himself is an intersting character, very difficult to read on this showing, as I suspect a great many more of his layers are revealed in the previous eight books in the series. But in this outing, he shows himself to be brave and honourable, while also vulnerable and  stubborn.

He is certainly an engaging guide through the unfamiliar streets of Bangkok, and as the story raced towards its unpredictable conclusion, I had already decided that there was more than enough here for me to want to come back for more.