Jimm Juree

Jimm Juree was a crime reporter for the Chiang Mai Daily Mail with a somewhat eccentric family. When she is forced to follow her family to a rural village on the coast of Southern Thailand, she's convinced her careermaybe her lifeis over. So when a van containing the skeletal remains of two hippies is inexplicably unearthed in a local farmer's field, Jimm is thrilled. Shortly thereafter an abbot at a local Buddhist temple is viciously murdered. Suddenly Jimm's new life becomes somewhat more promisingand a lot more deadly. And if Jimm is to unravel the inexplicable events, it will take luck, perseverance, and the help of her entire family.

How do you respond when you wake up to find a severed head on your resort-front beach in the morning? If you're frustrated ex-crime reporter Jimm Juree, you take action. With her former cop grandfather as back up, she sets out to discover how the poor fellow ended up where he didand why. On their journey, with the rest of their disjointed family in tow, they uncover gruesome tales of piracy and slavery, violence and murder in the Gulf of Thailand. Are the authorities uninterested because they're involved, or because the victims aren't Thai? Whatever the reason, Jimm and her team are going it alone and their lives are under threat. And who exactly are those two elegant women in cabin three and why has the engine number of their car been filed away? Airport hostages and hand grenades, monkeys and naked policemen, once more the sublime and the ridiculous clash at the Gulf Bay Lovely Resort and Restaurant.

Since Jimm Juree moved, under duress, with her family to a rural village on the coast of Southern Thailand, she has missed her career as a journalist. In Chiang Mai, she was covering substantial stories and major crimes. But here in Maprao, Jimm has to scrape assignments from the local online journal, the Chumphon Gazette. This time they are sending her out to interview a local farang (European) writer, Conrad Coralbank, who writes award-winning crime novels. At the same time, several local women have left town without a word to anyone, leaving their possessions behind. These include the local doctor, Dr. Sumlak, who never returned from a conference, and the Thai wife of the aforementioned Conrad Coralbank. All of which looks a little suspicious, especially to Jimm's grandfather, an ex-cop who notices Coralbank's interest in Jimm with a very jaundiced eye. And now a major storm is brewing. Who knows what it will blow in for Jimm and her family?