The Paradise Eater

New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1988. BH5 - A first edition (complete numberline) hardcover book in very good condition in very good dust jacket. Dust jacket and book have some bumped corners, tanning and light shelf wear. Although not marked in any way, this copy comes from the personal collection of Otto Penzler, legendary editor and founder of the Mysterious Press, an award-winning icon in the genre. 9.5"x6.5", 270 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Critics have called him Graham Greene's successor, Joseph Conrad's "godson," and the "Voltaire of our time." He is also shockingly, compellingly readable, in the best sense of commercial fiction. The Paradise Eater is a black comedy. Wicked humor and blind violence clash against the absurdity of life in modern Bangkok. John Field is a sometime businessman, sometime journalist, sometime drunk who dabbles in the shady import-export markets of Thailand. It is a sleazy world of frighteningly young hookers, cheap (and expensive) drugs, murder, and intrigue. One more killing would not normally bother Field, but the gory deaths of his ex-lover and her husband start a chain of events that drags the unwilling Field into political and opium -infested quagmire - a nightmare from which there seems no escape. The city's exotic back alleys and wealthy mansions provide an unforgettable setting for this strongly moral tale of murder and expediency. The ironic settling of accounts between Field and his chosen paradise on earth makes Bangkok as much a central character as the protagonist himself. Saul's eye for detail and vivid characterizations brilliantly evoke a city of contradictions where its inhabitants daily live within a circle of violence, corruption, and rotting beauty.. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.