Axel Alywen is the proverbial 'Old Asian Hand'. A term most often used to denote a westerner who has enough experience in the inscrutable Orient to know that most things in Asia are not as they are designed to appear to be. The 'Old Asian Hand' is more likely to be watching the man behind the curtain create the smoke and mirrors to fool the ever present gullible westerner into believing something that is not. 'The Falcon of Siam' or the great epic trilogy of Thailand is a timeless tour de force from a master storyteller and 'Old Asia Hand' as he guides the reader down the rabbit-hole of a parallel universe and leaves everyone a little wiser for the journey.