John Burdett's Bangkok Tattoo is a somewhat uneven, occasionally disjointed, but ultimately unforgettable tale set against the backdrop of Bangkok's sex trade. Buddhist Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep must navigate a maze of shifting loyalties, intergovernmental squabbles, and international geopolitics as he investigates the murder of a CIA agent who was found disemboweled and mutilated.

But the power of Burdett's narrative is that Sonchai is no innocent bystander or objective third party, nor does he make any pretense about the corrupt reality of Thailand politics. Sonchai helps his mother run a brothel called the Old Man's Club, originally designed to cater to the international "Viagra" crowd but which expanded its vision. Their silent partner is none other than Police Colonel Vikorn - Sonchai's hard-bitten boss. And the prime suspect in the murder of CIA agent Mitch Turner is Chanya, a tough yet tender working girl who is the star of the club's operation.

What Sonchai knows for certain is that Chanya left the club with Turner and returned covered in blood, smoking an opium pipe and saying something about killing him. He calls Vikorn, and the two men visit the scene of the crime, then return to Chanya's room, where Vikorn dictates her "confession" as an act of self-defense when Turner turned violent. When Chanya rouses from her opium-induced stupor the next morning, she agrees that the confession reflects exactly what happened.

Vikorn instructs Sonchai to quickly cremate the body and have Chanya disappear for a while until the heat from the CIA disipates. Meanwhile, however, Vikorn - a masterful political opportunist who represents a fascinating fictional construct in his own right - is working on several alternate plans if the CIA "sees through" the confession. When forensic technicians clear Turner's room, however, they discover a significant flaw in the story that Chanya stabbed Turner in the heat of passion (or a fit or rage, or whatever): namely, that the skin has literally been flayed from his back.

That means an exploration of "Plan B": namely, blaming the Muslims. Turner had been responsible for monitoring a number of Islamic fundamentalist groups, and it was certainly possible his death might have been tied into some sort of Islamic retaliation. As the complications multiply, Sonchai has to investigate CIA agents, Yakuza gangsters, Muslim fundamentalists, and more. He also has to deal with Vikorn's unstable rages and the ongoing feud between the police colonel and a corrupt army general who managed to avoid a court martial (Vikorn blames the general for the death of his son, and the two men have engaged in often violent hostilities for years). Not to mention his developing feelings for the most enigmatic person he knows: Chanya herself.