A
Haunting Smile, the final novel in the Land of Smiles Trilogy,
is a sharply observed picture interweaving documentary film technique
and montage to convey the psychological horror, personal anguish and
despair of the Black May of 1992 when students, workers, along with
mobile phone carrying yuppies were massacred by the military on the
streets of Bangkok.
Robert
Tuttle and George Snow, running at break neck speed down the back alleys,
hope to find a safe passage out of the nightmare of killing. The ghosts
from old battlefields wander the waterholes of Patpong mingling among
the drifters, demimonde arms dealers and journalists. Together they
enter a matrix where massacres are a way of life, and the survivors
bringing back tales of midnight secret executions.
Praise
“Courageous
. . . someone to watch.”
—Peter Carey
“A
Haunting Smile is disturbing. Moore jars the senses with discordant
juxtapositions of his now familiar HQ, an all-night coffee shop where
stereotypical ‘hardcore’ (read ‘cured of romance’)
farang hang out, indulging in a never-ending cycle of alcohol and sex,
with the shattering events of Rachadamnoen Avenue, and what! Virtual
reality?”
—Bangkok Post