John Burdett Books in Order: The Complete Sonchai Jitpleecheep Series
All John Burdett Sonchai Jitpleecheep novels in order — from Bangkok 8 to The Bangkok Asset. The complete guide to the Bangkok detective series with Buddhist detective Sonchai.
The six Sonchai Jitpleecheep novels are among the most distinctive crime series in English — not because of their plots, which are competent thriller fare, but because of their narrator. Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai Police is half American and wholly Buddhist, and his Buddhist worldview reorganises every assumption that Western crime fiction makes: about evidence, about guilt, about what a human being is, about what death means.
Burdett’s Bangkok is the most immersive available in English fiction — rendered from the inside, with deep knowledge of the city’s spiritual life, its sex industry, its relationship with American power, and its daily texture of heat, spirit houses, traffic, and temple bells.
Start with Bangkok 8 — it introduces Sonchai and his world in a thriller plot compelling enough to read in one sitting.
The Complete Series in Order
| # | Title | Year | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bangkok 8 | 2003 | Amazon → |
| 2 | Bangkok Tattoo | 2005 | Amazon → |
| 3 | Bangkok Haunts | 2007 | Amazon → |
| 4 | The Godfather of Kathmandu | 2010 | Amazon → |
| 5 | Vulture Peak | 2012 | Amazon → |
| 6 | The Bangkok Asset | 2015 | Amazon → |
Series overview
1. Bangkok 8 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — Start here
An American Marine is murdered along with a colleague in Bangkok. Sonchai is assigned as the point of contact with the American investigation team — his dual heritage making him the bridge between two cultures that have completely different ideas about what a crime is and how it should be investigated. The finest entry in the series and one of the best crime novels set in Asia. Read the full review →
2. Bangkok Tattoo ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A CIA asset is found murdered with sacred Buddhist tattoos, implicating Sonchai’s mother’s establishment. The CIA-Thailand dynamic and the spiritual significance of sak yant tattoo culture are both rendered with precision. Read the full review →
3. Bangkok Haunts ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A snuff film drives Sonchai into the sex industry’s darkest recesses and his most searching meditation on karma and complicity. The most Buddhist entry in the series. Read the full review →
4. The Godfather of Kathmandu ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The heroin trade leads Sonchai from Bangkok to Nepal and to a Tibetan lama who is also a drug lord — a meditation on non-attachment and desire in their most destructive form. Read the full review →
5. Vulture Peak ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Human organ trafficking takes the series global — Bangkok, Dubai, Shanghai — with Buddhist teachings on the body as the framework for examining the commodification of the poor. Read the full review →
6. The Bangkok Asset ⭐⭐⭐⭐
American military black-ops and human enhancement programmes — the darkest and most politically angry Sonchai novel. Read the full review →
Also see
- Books About Thailand — where Bangkok 8 is the top recommendation for Bangkok visitors
- Where to Start with John Burdett
For the full John Burdett bibliography, reviews, and biography, visit the John Burdett author page on Editors Reads.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Do the Sonchai Jitpleecheep novels need to be read in order?
The series is best read in order — Sonchai's personal life (his relationship, his mother's establishment, his Buddhist practice under a specific teacher) develops across all six novels. However, each book tells a self-contained case and Bangkok 8 alone works as a standalone.
Who is Sonchai Jitpleecheep?
Sonchai Jitpleecheep is a detective with the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok — half Thai, half American (his father was an American soldier), and a devout Buddhist. His Buddhist worldview shapes every aspect of how he investigates crime, understands the criminals he pursues, and narrates his cases to a Western reader he addresses directly.
Is Bangkok 8 a good representation of Thailand?
Bangkok 8 and the Sonchai series give the most immersive English-language literary portrait of Thai Buddhist culture available in crime fiction. Burdett (a British barrister who lived in Thailand) treats Thai religious life, the sex industry's social role, and the collision of Western and Buddhist values with unusual intelligence and without simplification.
