Spirit House (Vincent Calvino Novels)

Spirit House is the first book in Christopher G. Moore's internationally-acclaimed, prize-winning Vincent Calvino series. It introduces Calvino, a disbarred lawyer from New York, now working in Bangkok, as a private investigator. In Spirit House, a farang is dead and the Bangkok police have a confession the next morning from a teenager, a paint thinner addict from the slums. The teenager claims he killed the farang, an expatriate British computer expert named Ben Hoadly, but Calvino has his doubts. Shortly thereafter, Hoadly's father, who also questions the confession, contacts Calvino. Calvino takes the case, and soon thereafter, is asked to work for the other side, a beautiful friend, who runs a charity in the slums, is out to clear the addict's name. Calvino plunges into the dangerous world of addicts, dealers, fortune tellers, professional hit-men, oversexed foreigners and high-class bar girls.