Word: sobhraj
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...what a story it is. Thompson's subject is Charles Sobhraj, alias Charles Gurmukh, alias Charles Gurmukh, alias Alian Passaint, alias Lobo, alias Alain Gauthier. Conceived in Vietnam and raised in France, the young Charles is shuttled back and forth from his native Asia to the French countryside. As a youngster, he learns the tools of his trade quickly, throwing the blame for his own plots on others and magically convincing those around him to do what he asks. By the age of 24, Sobhraj is a man disowned by both father and nation, befriended only by a lone Frenchman...
...Sobhraj files, hikes, and drives all over the world: from the Hinterlands of Katmandu to the baccarat tables of Macao's casinos to the terror of Turkish prisons. "I am a thief," he tells his brother while priming him for the trade, but Sobhrai doesn't do himself justice. Accompanied by two or three of his gang--a strange Pakestanian named Ajay, a marvelous Melanesian named May, an oafish Belgian named Hugey and a 30-year-old Canadian farmer's daughter who throws away her sedate life for the promises of a man she met once in Bangkok--he roams...
This is also the story of an apartment in Bangkok, and tourists lured there by a pleasant Frenchman, a beacon of polite familiarity in an unfamiliar continent. Thompson describes how one by one, couples and lone tourists fell prey to the magic of Sobhraj. Sobhraj's powers are almost impossible to fathom--as even the author admits--but the naivete of those who fall into his trap is even harder to understand. "Months later," Thompson writers, "an Interpol detective in Paris, would study the case and wonder why in the name of God these poor people didn't figure...
...Dehli jail cell. Thompson writes about his future. He required "a country in which he was neither known nor wanted by police, one in which riches abounded, one whose borders were easy to traverse illegally, one whose residents were generous with attention--and applause." The author concludes Sobhraj's destiny will lead him to the United States...
This is the stuff that sells for seven figures in paperback. But the book's commercial value is an added bonus, not something for "serious readers" to turn up their noses at. Thompsons' latest work is psychobiography, whodunit and courtroom drama tied into one, and fused by the enigmatic Sobhraj. The author says he is now at work on his first novel. One can only hope his imagination yields a subject as gripping as the real world...