Jim
Newport is a writer with great skills in describing non-stop, hold your
breath action, and his latest book The Siamese Connection (ISBN
978-616-90861-0-9, Willat Publishing, 2011) has plenty of action, to make it
a true thriller. Add in the fact that the principal character in the book is
a 175 year old vampire Ramonne Delacroix, and you have the fear factor that
vampires engender.
This is the fourth book in the Vampire of Siam series,
and of course, with vampires that have always been notoriously difficult to
kill, you can always bring the anti-hero back again for another book.
A quick internet search will turn up methods to kill your
vampire including fire a silver bullet blessed by a priest into his heart
and drive an aspen, ash or white thorn stake through his heart with a single
blow. However, this will not work in the case of Ramonne Delacroix, as
author Newport states categorically that his vampire has no heart at all,
but there is a pump elsewhere in his body that circulates his vampire food.
Newport writes in the cinematic flashback style, which
sits well with his own background in the visual media; however, I must admit
that when reading this book I was getting confused as to what time scale I
was in. With visual stimuli it is easier to identify the era, without them,
it can be difficult.
In this particular vampire tale, Ramonne becomes involved
in a post WWII Japanese secret society, whose operatives become entangled
with the American OSS, which later becomes the CIA. Naturally the ‘good
guys’ are the Americans, aided and abetted by the vampire, who pulls the
Americans out of the fire many times. (In fact it would appear that the CIA
need Ramonne right now.)
Plenty of side sub-plots with an American sweating on the
results of an IVF pregnancy, a Thai lady for whom Ramonne had returned to
normal living after a period as a vampire, and even Ramonne himself flirting
with normal life and enjoying the odd daytime excursion, something he had
not been able to do for around 150 years, and a love tryst between two OSS
members.
As the excitement mounts, the full-scale war between the
enemy and the good guys escalates, but with the added problem that the other
side wouldn’t stay dead and kept on popping up again. Throw in a crooked
Thai senior policeman and go on from there.
Newport has mastered the art of ‘faction’ in his books (Chasing
Jimi, his book on Jimi Hendrix being a good example) and uses the ploy
of describing actual places and persons to lend an air of authenticity to
the plot. The usual disclaimer is in the front of the book, with references
to people and places living or dead, but this is totally ignored when you
use people such as Jim Thompson, the silk king and Kurt Wachtveitel (ex GM
of the Oriental Hotel) in the plot.
At B. 590 in Asia Books/Bookazine it is a captivating
read for those of ghoulish inclination. Me? I prefer my villains with the
heads on.
