Hong Kong Magazine called Jake Needham "probably the best known American writer almost nobody in America has ever heard of." They might well be right. The four Asian crime novels he has published up until now (The Ambassador's Wife, Killing Plato, Laundry Man and The Big Mango) have sold nearly 150,000 copies in Asia, Europe and the UK, but not a single copy has ever appeared on any bookstore shelf in the US or Canada. His fifth novel, A World of Trouble, was published this week, but it won't be sold in the U.S. either.
Fortunately for readers who enjoy international crime novels, Jake's publisher has recently released all of his novels worldwide for Kindle, Nook, and iBooks. And, for the first time, Americans are beginning to discover Jake Needham, too. You can learn more about Jake and read excerpts from his books at his website.
Jake stopped by In Reference to Murder to take part in the ongoing feature "Author R&R" (Reference and Research), offering up these fascinating insights:
I write international crime novels set in contemporary Asia. They're filled with a collection of colorful rogues who range from the merely raffish to the downright scary: criminals on the lam, politicians on the take, intelligence agents on the grift, and hustlers on the scam.
Yeah, I know. You probably didn't realize there were any crime novels set in contemporary Asia, did you? You've read American crime novels, British crime novels, Italian crime novels, Scandinavian crime novels, and Russian crime novels, but…uh, Asian crime novels? I have to tell you, the few of us out there publishing Asian crime novels these days pretty much think of ourselves as the Rodney Dangerfield's of popular fiction.
Authenticity is important to me and I work hard at maintaining it in my books. Of all the reviews I've had over the years, both in the press and from individual readers, I am proudest of those that talk about the feel of my books and how real they make contemporary Asia seem for readers. "Needham certainly knows where some bodies are buried," Asia Inc Magazine said about my books. Darn right. I helped bury some of them.
I've lived in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangkok for nearly twenty-five years now so my research these days consists primarily of a lot of pretty energetic hanging out. Let me give you an example.
I've been thinking a lot about doing a novel set in Macau so a few weeks ago I flew to Hong Kong, took a hydrofoil across the Pearl River estuary, and checked into the Grand Lisboa on the edge of the old city in Macau. I've been going to Macau for nearly thirty years, but the place has changed so much – and continues to change every year with such terrifying speed – that I wanted to walk the streets again and renew my feel for it.
Now I know quite a few people in Macau, and they know a lot more people in Macau. Generally, I find people like to talk to novelists, particularly if we come recommended as reliable by people they trust. We're not journalists. We're not trying to dig some dirt and turn it into a front-page story that might make our career even if it ends somebody else's. What we care about is how things might be, not how they really are. After all, we write fiction. We make this stuff up, don't we?
So here are some of things I did in Macau…
A retired MI6 intelligence officer who is now involved with casino security operations bought me dinner at the Wynn Macau and told me stories about the Triads involvement in the gambling industry there. As we were finishing our steaks, a major figure in one of Macau's largest triads dropped by the table and had coffee with us.
I drank San Miguel with a retired CIA officer in a little bar down in the old waterfront district, although in this case I have my doubts about the 'retired' part. He told me quite a lot about the life of Kim Jong-Nam, the eldest son of Kim Jong-Il now living quietly in Macau. Early the next morning, we climbed a narrow dirt path along the bluffs in Coloane and looked down into the house where Kim Jong-Nam lives.
I walked the narrow streets of the old city from the Chinese border to the outer harbor with an Australian who is an old Asia hand if there ever was one. He knows more about what is going on under the surface in Macau than I have a hope in hell of ever using in any book.
I ate Portuguese food in a tiny restaurant near the ferry terminal with a Chinese lawyer who represents a lot of people I have absolutely no intention of mentioning. He told me the real story of the North Korean bank that had for a decade been laundering counterfeit American currency into the international banking system through Macau.
And one night I sat all by myself in a half-empty bar at the top of the Old Lisboa casino, shooing away Russian hookers and remembering when I had shaken hands with King Sihanouk of Cambodia in that very room some thirty-five years before, back in a time when the Khmer Rouge had taken over Cambodia and Sihanouk was running for his life.
That's what I mean by 'hanging out' and calling it research. Hey, do I have the best job in the world, or what?
My new novel, A World of Trouble, is about Thailand on the brink of a civil war, its wealthy former prime minister now living in splendid exile in Dubai, and his American lawyer caught between two worlds. It's now available worldwide for Kindle and Nook, and through Smashwords. It will soon be available for iBooks, too.
Please visit my web site and read my Letters from Asia for more about my books and my life along the fault lines of modern Asia.
