Morally bankrupt, unbelievably resourceful in a time when Interpol might as well have been a local council for the good it did and unscrupulous. Serpentine, a fantasy novella by Philip Pullman, is set after His Dark Materials and before the second book of The Book of Dust series. To those of you not terribly interested in reading after getting an overview, I can’t say I blame you. Two of his most famous associates were Ajay Choudhry, an Indian career criminal who disappeared in 1976 and Marie-Andree Leclerq, a Quebecoise who he had seduced and who became his "wife" and partner in crime.

Detective Milos Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware work together on a complex case that leads them to a set of bizarre locations and suspicious characters. Thompson first wrote Western stories for pulp magazines in 1940 after stints as a sailor, a nightclub entertainer, a secretary and a furniture salesman. Because he was a master of disguise and a purveyor of fake passports and because the Thai government, especially, did not want bad publicity or trouble from tourists, his crimes were ignored.Over the following years I read several news articles of Charles Sobhraj amazing escapes from prison. I marveled at Thompson's true crime novel-esq dialogue, but 'they were my family' Sobhraj utters when some of his employees see the writing on the wall and do a moonlight flit, in much the same way Sobhraj had spent his life doing, of course with the trail of destruction behind him, and the employees, their lives, but only just. Journeying back and forth over half the globe - from the boulevards of Paris to the slopes of Mount Everest to the underbellies of Bangkok and Hong Kong - Sobhraj left in his wake a trail of baffling mystery and inexplicable horror. It was difficult to tell if I was reading about a cohort of the serial killer or one of his victims. One thing that neither the book or the mini-series can capture is all that has happened after 1977 when Sobhraj and lover, Marie-Andrée Leclerc, are finally captured and jailed.

Sobraj often surrounded himself with needy or vulnerable people who he used snd cajoled into helping him commit his crimes. Philip is currently writing the final book in the Book of Dust trilogy which he hopes will be the last book in Lyra's story, saying: "I don't want to go on and on and on with it. During this period, bodies have been found slain, their corpses strangled and stabbed and burned and drowned, from the paradise beaches of Thailand, through to slopes of the Himalayas and besides the river Ganges.Instead of a Manson LSD indoctrination, this was a roofing-first, lose your sum possessions after and then be led on the wave of the Sobhraj sale. I still can't believe that this one person was capable of so much evil and wickedness and yet was able to outwit his captors for so long. At times it seems he is deep within Charles to see his weaknesses, that seems to elude almost everyone, except Charles and Thompson. But in the end Sobraj outdid himself and remains in prison, a victim finally of his own hubris and voracious appetite for publicity and gain.

It was kinda like your rambling grandpa telling about an experience in his childhood and then running out of steam near the end and dropping the long details to end the story before he goes to sleep.Jonathan Kellerman features his most prominent writing traits in Serpentine including his excellent ability to paint a picture of a crime scene and lure the reader into a sense of false security as the crime develops into a race against time.

Written by Thomas Thompson, the author of "Blood and Money", this book is a bit longer than it maybe should have been, and the prose is a bit flowery.I applaud this book for the exceptional attention devoted to the victims, as it seems the author went to extraordinary lengths to interview family members, friends, colleagues, neighbors and construct faithful biographies showing the hopes, dreams and futures that eventually got extinguished by this selfish man looking for a quick buck. But still, I soldiered on because I was reading a brilliantly written account of one of the most sociopathic, self-serving and evil conmen and murderer that’s ever walked this earth.