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Inderjeet Mani
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Toxic Spirits Kindle Edition

by Mani (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 out of 5 stars 8
See all formats and editions
For fans of John Burdett (Bangkok 8) and John Le Carre (The Constant Gardener): Toxic Spirits is a highly atmospheric thriller set in Thailand, a playground for colorful expats, beautiful women and limitless skullduggery. Narrated with insightful meditations on nature and biodiversity, interspersed with macabre violence and dark hilarity, the novel is also a brilliant, genetics- and AI-inspired take on multiculturalism and personal identity.
Toxic Spirits is the first volume of a TRILOGY dealing with the effects of unfettered venality on marginalized Southeast Asian communities. A teaser for the second book is included at the end. Advance Praise:
  • "A complex and enthralling international intrigue with a treasure of remarkable detail neatly packed into a short novel that dances on the edge of John le Carré territory. A rich read from start to finish." Frederick Barthelme, author of New Yorker stories and eleven novels including There Must Be Some Mistake.
  • "Mani writes Thailand beautifully with heart and a lot of souls." Colin Cotterill, author of The Coroner's Lunch, from the Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery series, and sixteen other novels set in Laos and Thailand.
  • "Toxic Spirits is a striking debut. Its prose, fluid, will tug you along; its dialogue, rendered gracefully, sparkles with authority; its plot is loaded with much to love, plenty to leave you in the kind of wonderment your soul has sought in books." Mark Wisniewski, Pushcart-prize winning short story writer and author of Watch Me Go.
  • "A fabulous writer whose sensuous and affecting prose both beguiles and transforms." Tom Vowler, author of story collection The Method and novel What Lies Within.
Synopsis: Benton, a widowed African-American intelligence analyst from Washington D.C., retires to Thailand. At an expat bar, he is captivated by Siri, a beautiful tribal singer. When Siri disappears, he discovers that she had been speaking out about the side-effects from drug trials conducted on her hill-tribe. Benton's investigations draw him uncomfortably close to Pierre, the seriously disturbed Indo-Cambodian doctor running the trials. Becoming an unwilling guinea-pig in the trials, Benton is transformed by the genetically-engineered drugs and falls in love with Mimi, a stunning and gifted young Thai-Australian. As the genetic manipulations spiral out of control and spread to the botanical treasures of Thailand's Golden Triangle, the forces of tribal healing, high-tech medicine, and love battle to determine who will survive.
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  1. Print length
    268 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    20 August 2019
  5. File size
    1149 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
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Product description

Review

"A complex and enthralling international intrigue..."

-Frederick Barthelme, author of There Must Be Some Mistake

About the Author

Mani is a writer, scientist, and professor who retired early from Silicon Valley to Thailand, where he volunteered in the Golden Triangle with the hill-tribe fictionalized in the novel Toxic Spirits. Born in India and educated across four continents, he studied creative writing at Penn (with Carlos Fuentes), at Bread Loaf (with Patricia Hampl), and at Harvard (with Paul Harding). Prior to working in Silicon Valley, he was based in Washington, DC, and Boston as a professor as well as a scientist at a not-for-profit think-tank advising the US government on advanced AI technology. His affiliations have included Georgetown University (Associate Professor), Yahoo (Senior Director), Cambridge University (Visiting Fellow), MITRE (Senior Principal Scientist), Brandeis University (Visiting Scholar), and MIT (Research Affiliate).Mani's six previous books (two of which have been translated into Japanese) include The Imagined Moment, on the computing of time in narrative, and other titles are from Oxford and MIT Press. His stories and essays have been published in 3:AM Magazine, Aeon, Apple Valley Review, Drunken Boat (Finalist for the Pan Literary Award, also one of Story South's Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2007), Eclectica, New World Writing, Nimrod (Finalist for Katherine Anne Porter Prize), PANK, Short Fiction Journal, Slow Trains, Storgy, Unsung Stories, Word Riot, and many other venues. Toxic Spirits is the first volume of a trilogy dealing with the effects of unfettered venality on marginalized Southeast Asian communities. The sequel is devoted to the looting of Asian antiquities and the final volume is set amid the devastation of reckless dam building along the Mekong River.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07WSXR5PM
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Calumet Editions (20 August 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1149 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 268 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1950743101
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 8

About the author

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Inderjeet Mani

Inderjeet Mani

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Mani (Twitter: @InderjeetMani) is the award-winning author of the thriller Toxic Spirits, widely praised for its beautiful writing and terrifying story. He has previously published nearly three dozen short stories and essays, in addition to six scholarly books. A writer, scientist, and professor, Mani retired early from Silicon Valley to Thailand, where he volunteered in the Golden Triangle with the hill-tribe fictionalized in Toxic Spirits. Born in India and educated across four continents, he also studied creative writing at Penn (with Carlos Fuentes), at Bread Loaf (with Patricia Hampl), and at Harvard (with Paul Harding).

Novel site: https://tinyurl.com/toxicspirits

FB: https://bit.ly/2lNWZav

Linked In: https://bit.ly/2lLVzgI

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4.3 out of 5
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David A. Wah
5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting Thriller - Fun to Read!
Reviewed in the United States on 8 September 2019
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A riveting, fast-moving thriller set in Thailand that interweaves the threads of East Asian cultural traditions within the imperious backdrop of Western popular culture, militiarism and technology. The protagonist, Benton, a brilliant African-American who has spent his life working as a cog in his native country’s military intelligence machine, suffering the usual racism all the while, retires to Thailand in the hopes of escaping his past, only to become embroiled in a tragic collision of traditional East Asian medicine and Western biotechnology. Mani is adept at creating fascinating characters, expats, Western-trained Asian intellectuals, tribal natives steeped in ancient medicine and mysticism, who represent the modern mishmash of Eastern and Western cultures.
2 people found this helpful
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annie zaenen
4.0 out of 5 stars Haunting
Reviewed in the United States on 4 October 2019
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After the death of his wife, Benton an African-American retiree with a background in intelligence retires to Thailand. His plans for a quiet life get quickly upended when he discovers an evil genetic engineering project that puts a hill tribe at risk. Benton is not jolly company and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between his nightmares and the real horrors that are described but the mix of expat and Thai characters is fascinating and the writing, which matches the luxuriance of the Thai landscape, makes for absorbing and disturbing reading. Recommended!
One person found this helpful
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Livia P.
5.0 out of 5 stars A unique and beautiful novel that takes the reader deep into the jungle that is the human soul
Reviewed in the United States on 2 September 2019
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“Toxic Spirits” is a complex novel that tells a strange tale of murder, cruelty and the grotesque, intermingled with healing, re-birth and love. The language and the story compel, repel, beg the reader to enter while refusing the reader entry, it is lush and frightening, restorative and dangerous, set largely in the jungle, it leads and misleads the reader on a dense, sometimes bewildering and often startlingly beautiful journey through the characters' minds and hearts, and too often lost and battled souls. A mystery or thriller like no other, unique and beautiful and unutterably sad. A must read.
2 people found this helpful
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Nargis
4.0 out of 5 stars Vivid and thrilling
Reviewed in the United States on 12 December 2019
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This book is written with brilliant insight into what is happening in the pharma world today. Mani has combined Eastern and Western cultures focuing on issues involving the mix of Expats, local Thais and the hilltribe communities. Mani has a good ear for the vernacular of the local community. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
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