Product Description

This is an engrossing thriller about relationships with bar girls by a bestselling crime author. It is set in Thailand in 1996, the year of the Rat. Pete, a young travel writer, wanders into a Bangkok go-go bar and meets the love of his life. Joy is the girl of his dreams: young, stunningly pretty and one of the Zombie Bar's top earning pole dancers. What follows is a roller-coaster ride of sex, drugs and deception, as Pete discovers that his own very private dancer is not all that she claims to be and that far from being the girl of his dreams, Joy is his own personal nightmare.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84978 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
"Because of all its local wisdom, Private Dancer ought to be made available to every tourist at port entry." - Bernard Trink, Bangkok Post"

About the Author
Stephen Leather is also the author of 16 thrillers (published by Hodder & Stoughton) that have been translated into more than a dozen languages, including The Tunnel Rats, The Solitary Man and, more recently, Soft Target. Two of his novels, The Bombmaker and The Stretch have been filmed for television in the UK and he has written for TV shows such as London's Burning and the BBC's Murder in Mind. He resides in Dublin, Ireland.

Customer Reviews

Hey ,Joe! Me love you long time.
When I was young and single, I fantasized about visiting Bangkok's fleshpot buffet. But, even 11 years in the Navy didn't provide the opportunity as I never made it away from Stateside. Now that I'm older, married, and only marginally wiser, I doubt that my wife would let me go - even if I could imagine conjuring up the energy to carouse once I got there. And there is, of course, the sobering specter of AIDS. But, should any of you young studs embark on the tour, PRIVATE DANCER should be required reading before reaching the airport departure gate.

Pete is a freelance writer hired by a publishing house to edit a new cookery book/travel guide for Thailand. Once ensconced in Bangkok, Pete is introduced to the red-light district by friend Nigel, where Pete meets pole dancer/prostitute Joy in the Zombie Bar. Pete is smitten despite advice from the resident expats that it's best not to get emotionally involved with a bar babe. And despite all the evidence, some provided by a private detective, that Joy is simply using Pete as a cash ATM, that she's married to a Thai man, and that she has sex with other farang (foreign) customers when he's out of town, Pete remains enamored of his PRIVATE DANCER. He desperately wants to believe her excuses, lies, and proclamations of true love - "I love you and have you in my heart only one. Miss you all the time."

Author Stephen Leather takes an interesting approach to the story, telling it alternately from the viewpoints of Pete, Joy, Pete's farang friends and acquaintances (Nigel, Big Ron, Bruce, Jimmy), the private detective Phiraphan, Pete's employer Alistair, and a certain Professor Bruno Mayer, an expert on prostitution in Thailand and cross-cultural relationships between the sex workers and their customers. What results is a fascinating and informative parable on the perils of falling for a Bangkok hooker that's probably just as valid no matter what the city, country, or nationality of the working girl. Indeed, as Stephen describes the milieu of Pete's tragic experience, the reader perhaps understands that it's more of a culture clash than anything else. From Joy's perspective, her life and means of getting money for herself and her family back in their village are nothing unusual or immoral. For her, emotional love for, and the provision of money by, a man are two sides of the same coin. The problem for westerner Pete, a Brit, is that he necessarily separates the two. In the end, the open-minded reader can rightly attach no blame to either, but only marvel at Pete's foolishness in the face of good advice from his Anglo and Australian friends that are old Bangkok hands.

PRIVATE DANCER seemed, at times, a bit too long for the message. In an email correspondence with Leather, I asked if the tale was based on the experience of anyone he knew. With utter candor, the author implied that at least some of the story derived from his own youthful follies. Perhaps Stephen was driven to over-emphasize the lesson - "Don't let this happen to you!" In any case, the book is an engaging addition to the backpack as you set out to sample the neon-bathed, x-rated delights of Patpong, Nana Plaza, and Soi Cowboy.

Too true!
I bought this book after several days in Bangkok, staying in a hotel bang on Nana Plaza. After hearing some sob stories from the westerners (Farangs) I came across in the bars it rings very true. Anyone who has been to one of the bars feels that the girls only have eyes for them when in fact a high proportion see the men as horny fools. The book captures this perfectly through the eyes of the girls and the guys, a rivetting read which I agree should be read by any man hoping to save any of the Gogo dancers from their life of sleeze. Top marks.

Bang on the button.
I bought this book, basically, to confirm that I knew it all already. I first went all over S.E.Asia in the early sixties, helping the USA. get a foothold (not for very long) in Vietnam. Also went to BKK before the Nana Plaza and the Nana Hotel were there. Patpong was kicking off then and I had a good time all of the time!!. I drifted back over there in 1989, mostly in Singapore, where I met up with a lot of Thai girls working in the remaining (few) night-clubs off Orchard road. They were, and still are, the same, and any old man who thinks these girls actually prefer the company of them to a man of their own age is in serious trouble. When I was 20 years old, the thought of having a 50yr. old girlfriend would never have been considered, let alone to happen. So, already being wise to these little beauties, prancing arouind shiny poles on a stage about 3 feet above the floor,some naked, some not, reinstated that it was business as usual. I spent a lot of time until 2004, during which I met and heard about old, and some young men, losing the whole lot to these 'bar girls'. whilst I was rotating to BKK from various oilfield (my occupation) locations for R & R as the Yanks called it. We called it I & I, intercourse and intoxication, preferably in that order. I almost got hooked once in ,01, falling a little bit overboard with a stunner from the Rainbow One bar, in Nana Plaza. I introduced her to a pal of mine who lived in BKK. and he was my 'Private Detective'. I was'nt away for more than a month or so and he confirmed that they dont go back home 'up country', as they call it. She had come with me to the airport when I left, already having in her hand a Thai Airways ticket,( I got it), for her return to Udon Thani to go home to Mama!. In fact, she was back in the bar that same night!!. So, I know the book contains 100% truth in the whole scenarios that crop up. I've seen them with scarred wrists and arms, drunk and /or spaced out and finding out from other girls what made them do it. Good thing is ; if you look upon the whole deal of taking them for a weeks holiday out of the bar after a one nighter, generally, they are damn good company as well as sating each other's natural needs. Some of the girls deserved oscars when I used to take them back to BKK and give them the NRB., (not required back)!!. So guys, and gal's (yes, women can buy men too), remember, the book is a must for a tourist to read prior to a trip to the Big Mango.