Others who have read this book have remarked how “impressed” by this pseudo-real life Hannibal Lector they are. Being well-read, psychologically overpowering and a self described “Übermensch” and all. There is a sentence, near the end of the book: "The trial had long since become mired in tedium, a play with no end, its performers trapped." I found it ironic. One thing that neither the book or the mini-series can capture is all that has happened after 1977 when Sobhraj and lover, Marie-Andrée Leclerc, are finally captured and jailed. Once Interpol took the case things began to pop. They were wanted in various cities in at least six countries simultaneously. Descriptions and pictures, witnesses began to appear.

For any of you that have had parents warn about the dangers of traveling to Asia you’re contemplating, alone or maybe with friends or someone you’re dating, this guy was the worst of worst nightmares come true. Don’t tell them this guy existed because, while an outlier and extremely rare, his actions from 40+ years ago still make for an effective boogey man today. Basically, someone who a screenwriter or murder mystery novelists couldn’t even conceive of in their own minds. He was born in Texas and graduated from the University of Texas in 1955. He then worked as a reporter and editor at the Houston Press.

The payoff of the upstairs neighbour and the civil servant, who through pure efficiency final nail a truly desperate (and by then fairly stupid) Sobhraj to the post is great reading. The sentence as the epilogue is a joke of giant proportions. One of the best ever true crime books I've read. How this author managed to know so much about this case is beyond me but the way he writes is so great. I loved everything of this book. It is so exiting and he brings you to another world,and you are never bored. This book is totally evolutionary in its style. The author has such an omniscient style of adding sharp jabs of morality intermixed with a hands-off 'this happened - what can be added by stating anything other than the sordid facts' manner of writing. Charles Sobhraj is a character that exists outside of the nuclear family sphere, and the author nicely links his early obsession with the tragic (his mother as a virgin/whore and his father as a respectable business/monster without a heart figure) as the means in which Charles hardens. It's a long book and almost everyone mentions this, however, with some minor editing of the trial worth considering I don't know how you could omit any of the detail - from the killer charm Charles had with what can be only be viewed as seriously lost women, to his grandiose pomposity and successful boasts that he could master any subject in the space of an afternoon, finishing with the constant betrayal of his French brothers and sisters in a way that seems motivated by Charles' obsession with score-settling and to punish those who succeeded legitimately. According to Thompson's 1982 obit: "The lanky writer had been in a coma for several days and died at 3 a.m. in St. Vincent's Hospital, a hospital official said. At his bedside were Robert Lantz, his agent of 15 years, and his two college-age sons, Kirk and Scott. Thompson received the National Headliner Award for investigative reporting. He was also the 1977 Edgar Award winner for Blood and Money.

Thompson seems to be Charles Shobhraj's shadow during this entire episode of Charles' life. At times it seems he is deep within Charles to see his weaknesses, that seems to elude almost everyone, except Charles and Thompson. This book is the perfect accompaniment to the smash-hit BBC true crime drama and paints a portrait of a master manipulator psychopath who still resides in jail to this day. I struggled with the monotonous and matter-of-fact writing style which did not veer far from direct speech and few dispersed descriptions. I realise that this is the preferred style of the author however it didn’t suit many of the adrenaline filled scenes and often read too much like a movie or play script. This murder warrants an immediate call. Milo’s independence has been compromised as never before, as the department pressures him to cater to the demands of a mogul: a hard-to-fathom, megarich young woman who is obsessed with reopening the coldest of cases—the decades-old death of the mother she never knew. He knew he was very ill, but he was absolutely determined to beat it," Lantz said. "Thank God it was very fast."

Written by Thomas Thompson, the author of "Blood and Money", this book is a bit longer than it maybe should have been, and the prose is a bit flowery. However, this is a pretty solid true-crime read. Thompson paints a vivid portrait of Sobhraj. Serpentine boasts a set of delightful characters and an impressive plot. It kept my interest until the very end with a surprising reveal and promise for more action in the next book in the series. Sobraj often surrounded himself with needy or vulnerable people who he used snd cajoled into helping him commit his crimes. Two of his most famous associates were Ajay Choudhry, an Indian career criminal who disappeared in 1976 and Marie-Andree Leclerq, a Quebecoise who he had seduced and who became his "wife" and partner in crime. Like his wife, Leclerq, or "Monique" as she was known, provided Sobraji with a veneer of respectability, and like many of his minions, she was loyal and desperately in love with him. He often hosted parties in his Bangkok home, where he met with the potential victims he had befriended. He had an unerring eye for weakness or vulnerability. Finally in 1976 Sobraji was arrested and sent to prison in India for seven years, where by all accounts he lived a happy existence as he had money and gemstones to bribe his captors. He deliberately got himself resentenced to prison there after trying to escape, so he could not be extradited to Thailand. Finally in 1996 he was set free and returned to France where he lived for several years.