The Suspect

When two high school graduates, Alex and Rosie head to Thailand for a gap year, they’re looking for fun, for escape from the pressures their suburban parents put on them. Yet they land in a seedy guesthouse. The girls go missing and British journalist Kate Waters is assigned to get the scoop on what happened.

Kate’s your average intrepid reporter and is gung ho about getting the story right and first. She’s married with two sons, one of whom dropped out of university and went off to Thailand to save the turtles. When the two teens disappeared, Kate volunteers to do the reporting hoping to make a side trip to the Thai island where her son is volunteering.

Alex and Rosie are found dead in the cold storage of a sleazy guest house. Kate’s world is further rocked when it turns out her son isn’t volunteering and never did. He’s implicated in the girls’ murders. He’s been floating around Bangkok doing drugs and working at the same guest house where these girls stayed.

While this was a quick read and I enjoy stories set in locales the world over, The Suspect’s characters didn’t appeal to me. Alex was rather whiny and should have parted ways with her travel companion early on. Kate’s son was a wimp and a waster, who was good at manipulating his mother. Mama, who owned the guest house was the stereotypical “Me speak English good” dodgy foreigner.

I pity anyone who hasn’t been to Thailand who reads this book. In my book club today a few people fell into that group and they were repelled by the idea of going there. Thailand has its seedy side like many countries, but that’s not all there is.