These are four short stories about Vijay, a perennially broke translator in Bangkok who occasionally resorts to private detective work to help pay the bills. They were first published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine between 2005 and 2011. In “On Soi Arab” a member of the US embassy in Bangkok tells Vijay about Ning, a Thai co-worker he likes, who has started behaving strangely. And has come into money. Surely she’s not stealing embassy secrets? In “Under Sapparn Phut,” Oot buys a valuable Buddha amulet for a low price in a night market. But since then, he tells Vijay, someone has been following him. In “The Farm in Ratchburi” a businessman called Nop wants to know why his company is failing. He doesn’t have money to pay Vijay, but brings along a 10,000 baht fighting cock as deposit. Nop’s life will turn out to be far more complicated than Vijay imagined. In “The Calculator” a human calculator from England goes missing in Bangkok, having drawn the attention of some powerful people. Read more