Book Title: Bangkok Burning
Author: Robin Newbold
Publisher: The Conrad Press
Cover Artist: Charlotte Mouncey
Release Date: January 2021
Genre: Gay Thriller
Tropes: Coming out story
Themes: Good against evil fight
Length: 80 000 words/305 pages
It is a standalone book and does not end on a cliffhanger.
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How far would you go to get what you want?
Blurb
Bangkok Burning is a brilliantly unsettling thriller about the dark side of desire. It is also something of a warped love letter to a place teeming with a rogues’ gallery of characters, for this is not just about one man’s struggle but a portrait of a whole city on the brink.
Closeted forty-year-old Graham Floyd, trapped by anxiety issues and an abusive marriage, finally escapes, running away from his lifeless existence on a smile and a whim, swapping dreary south London for the brutal chaos of Bangkok. He soon finds himself prey not only to Natasha, the transsexual nightclub schemer he loses his heart to, but in thrall to the slimy American millionaire Svengali who owns her. In a place where Graham is at last true to himself, will he triumph in a fight to the death to get what he really wants?
‘I need to find someone… a girl.’
‘A girl, eh?’ said Nigel, stroking his stubbly chin. ‘And who might she be?’
‘Natasha.’
‘Ha, bullseye,’ he shouted above the din of the warbled bars of Whitney. ‘But she ain’t no girl. Very pretty mind.’
‘So?’
‘And I, eeee-I, will alwayssss love you…’ came the racket from the stage as if to mock Graham, the ladyboy’s eyes boring directly into his, while Nigel had gone back to concentrating on his real interest, the drink in front of him.
‘Very popular that one,’ the old man replied finally, as the seemingly infernal noise from the stage ceased, a mischievous smile lighting up his face. ‘I’d talk to Mark if I was you.’
‘Who the hell is Mark?’ he said, familiar knot of pain across his shoulders, arms trembling.
‘Mark, babe, is the owner of this fine establishment… I told her to engage with the fucking audience, why is she looking at the floor?’ he said, pointing at the ladyboy nominally on stage, for she clearly wasn’t interested, Nigel slamming another empty glass down on the counter.
‘What’s it gotta do with you exactly?’
‘You’re speaking to Nigel Monroe of the Nigel Monroe Dancers fame, West End impresario and choreographer,’ he said, the boy refilling his glass, ushering away another empty bottle of whisky from the scene like an embarrassment.
‘The Nigel Monroe Dancers?’
‘Those big telly shows in the seventies and early eighties. The glitz was personified by the Nigel Monroe Dancers. Even made it on Top of the Pops once,’ he said, spreading his hands as if to reveal a name up in lights but there was only a dark emptiness.
‘I see,’ he said with a tight smile.
‘I’m creative director here.’
‘How about Mark? When can I speak to him?’ he said, want-
ing to get back to the topic but wondering how someone barely able to raise a glass to their lips through the fog of alcohol could possibly direct anything.
‘He’s around. Probably out back getting hammered again. 14
But he’ll be back. Where else would ‘e be?’ said his companion, patting Graham’s knee.
‘I don’t even know what I’m doing here. What the hell am I thinking?’ he said, though he thought back to when he’d first seen Natasha – her ample, perfectly symmetrical breasts spilling out of a skimpy basque top, crimson lipstick accentuating the lure of her mouth, unruly shock of blonde hair hinting at sexual abandon. Before ‘seduction’ was just a word from the crossword puzzles he obsessed over to distract him from the paucity of his life.
‘Go on then, what’s your story?’
‘Story? There’s no bloody story,’ Graham said above the thumping disco beat, mimicking the palpitations of his heart he’d been suffering the last awful three years, since that day, that bloody day, the bastard day of the accident that changed everything. ‘I made the mistake of coming over here earlier this year with the missus on my fortieth birthday, didn’t I. Natasha, she was giving me the eyes… I couldn’t help myself. We kissed. I can’t stop thinking about it. My life back home in England, it’s so empty.’
‘What about the wife? Kids?’
‘Kids? I don’t even wanna go there, Nige. Another time. But my wife, Sheila, she hates me. We haven’t touched each other in years, bloody years. I sit driving my cab through the night, those cold London nights, rather than go home. It’s freezing on those winter nights with the pissheads getting in, throwing up, running off but I prefer it to her cold, hard back. So bloody cold.’
‘And where you meant to be now?’
‘Told ‘er I was going to Canada to see my brother for a week.
He emigrated there years ago but he’s got terminal cancer. All the nonsense about life being too short but it really is.’
‘I know, babe. I know.’
‘Every chance the wife gets she tells me how crap I am, how I don’t amount to anything. She blames me for everything. Is it any wonder I’m having a breakdown? Doctor gave me these pills but I haven’t taken ‘em yet. I feel enough of a bloody failure,’ Graham said, waving the packet of happy pills in the air, defeatedly chucking the box down on the bar, shoulders slumping, blinking back tears, again.
‘Dear, it’s the way it works I’m afraid. Life I mean,’ Nigel said, holding up a placatory hand as he did so. ‘Not being funny but look at yourself in the mirror, look at me… no, go on, I mean take a fucking good look. What could you or I have that could possibly be of interest to these twenty-year- old visions of beauty? It’s not our looks, it’s not our sense of humour, it’s not even our great personalities.’
‘I know but…’ he said, looking out at the lithe bodies on stage, then catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the bar, the image Nigel had warned him about – and he took in the thinning blond hair only partially disguising the pathetic balding pate, the craggy forehead lined with twenty-plus years of worry, the length of his marriage, the darting, desperate eyes.
‘Graham, ain’t it. You need to hear this and we’re only going to have this chat once. After this, like all of us, you’re on your own,’ said Nigel. ‘It’s a so-called playground for white men, a paradise if you like, but we’ve created a monster. Look around you. I know for a fact most of these boys have several different foreign boyfriends all unaware the other exists, all under the illusion they are paying for little Johnny to go through university or save his dad’s buffalo herd from foot and mouth.’
‘How about the girls then?’
‘Girls? They’re not girls. Don’t kid yourself. You’re down here in the gutter with the rest of us. If that’s what you like, though, do yourself a favour and be honest. Sounds like you done living a lie.’
‘I’m not gay,’ he said, feeling like he was going to vomit out his insides, head swimming, hating having to even utter the word, that bloody word.
‘Love, no one’s judging you. Try to let it go,’ said Nigel, placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘Be careful though, the lady- boys are the worst of the lot, they have the accoutrements of women, yet they think like men, they’re dogs when it comes to sex, like us. But just enjoy it, if that’s what you really want.’
‘So what you saying?’
‘Sorry for the lecture but in a roundabout way, I’m saying it’s even worse being alone, if you crave the touch of another, tenderness, any kind of contact, what we all need. If you’re alone, you’re just swimming with sharks,’ he said, watery eyes looking older than time.
‘You had someone?’
‘I had someone and I was the one that ruined it. I ate up all the ridiculous temptations like sickly sweets, I kept fucking around and he couldn’t take it anymore. Now all I ‘ave is this,’ he said, wrenching the glass from the table, whisky slopping down the sides. ‘I can’t get involved in the game now. It’s too late for me.’
Robin Newbold is a Hove-based journalist and freelance travel writer, having returned to England after six years living in the Far East. His work has appeared in Time Out, the South China Morning Post, Bangkok Metro and Gay Times. This is his third novel. Bloody Summer was published in 2012, while Vacuum-Packed came out in 2014. He is a Crystal Palace fan.
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