I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve read all the novels in the Time, Blood and Karma series by John Dolan and have enjoyed them enormously. I read many genres, but I am quite partial to mystery/thrillers. And these ones have a very special protagonist, David Braddock, and amateur detective (or rather a not professionally recognised and trained detective, but he is pretty good and gets paid for his efforts) and again a non-professional therapist, a British man but who lives in Thailand, an amateur philosopher who regularly visits an old Buddhist monk (his best friend), who has interesting an complex relationships with many women and a past full of ghosts.

Whilst the third book in the series, A Poison Tree explored and explained David’s back history and his life in the UK, Running on Emptiness continues with the adventures of Hungry Ghosts where we, the readers, were privy to some information that left us hanging and waiting for disaster to strike. We have a gangster determined to avenge his brother’s death (the only meaningful thing he has left to do in life), a dying woman who before ending her life in her own terms (remaining in charge of her meaning) reveals a dangerous secret, another woman who after losing her job realises she’s been living a lie and tries and find meaning by coming clean, an old man who, disappointed by his children, decides to revisit a shady past he thought he’d left behind to do the right thing. Each chapter is told from a different point of view, and that includes the characters whom we might think of as the good guys (but nobody is blameless, honest and truthful in this novel, at least none of the characters whose points of view we follow), but also the gangsters, corrupt policemen and killers. The action takes place in England (we start with a wedding and we end with a funeral) and Thailand, we have political unrest, and there is also a murder case to solve with magic trickery thrown in, where Braddock (and Dolan) follow on Agatha Christie’s footsteps and pull off a brilliant piece of sleight-of-hand engineering.

The story is told at a good pace, the writing is impeccable and lyrical at times (particularly on the parts from David Braddock’s point of view. He is witty and forever quotable), I must confess I cheered at a point towards the end (but I’ll keep my lips sealed as I don’t want to spoil it for anybody), and in the end, although there are some questions and unresolved issues, I felt we’d reached the end of an era. The complex and alternative life Braddock had built for himself, in an attempt at escaping reality, comes crushing down around him, taking no prisoners.  By the end, although Braddock might not know everything, he’s lost a lot and learned a fair deal about himself, about the people he cares about, about his friends, and about life itself.

I recommend this book to lovers of thrillers and mystery stories with great main characters, those who have a penchant for philosophy and reflections on the nature of life, particularly if you’re intrigued by Thailand, and in general those who love good and memorable writing. But, do read the whole series in the right order, because the sum of its parts is much greater than the individual novels. Congratulations to John Dolan on his epic series. I won’t forget Time, Blood and Karma any time soon. And I’ll be waiting eagerly for more of novels, in the same or other series.

Counselling, politics and detection in Thailand
Everyone Burns is a detective novel. And although it lives up to many of the detective novels expectations (David Braddock, the detective protagonist is a somewhat cynical man who has seen everything, is a bit of a womaniser, smokes, has a bad opinion of the local cops, and keeps us entertained with a sometimes insightful, sometimes clueless, but always entertaining internal dialogue) it is by no means your usual run-of-the-mill detective novel.
What makes it different? For one, its setting. This is not New York or a big city. This is Samui, an island part of Thailand, where sexual tourism is rife, politics and the local police are corrupt, and foreigners (Sarangs) have to live in the outskirts of society following unspoken but very strict rules. The author managers to paint a vivid image of Samui, a place of contrasts, with very wealthy patrons, gangsters who control everything and everybody, and extremely poor individuals who can’t pay for a cataract operation. But what I found personally fascinating was the deep understanding of the functioning of such society, where gross corruption can be offset by an appearance of outward morality and normality.
David Braddock, despite the many recognisable traits he shares with your favourite detective, is anything but a common guy. He has no known qualifications for the job he does. He is a triumph of vocational approach to training. He does the job because he can. In the same manner that he offers (mostly to foreigners like him) his skills as detective, he also offers counselling (that he seems to have mastered via some courses, ample reading and a generous dose of common sense) to natives. To handle these two strands of his business he has two rooms in his office and will show (or his pregnant secretary will) his clients to the East or West office. His fees also vary according to the clientele. He is married, but his relationship with his wife is mysterious from the start and although he is deeply in love with her, she seems to be a very rare presence in his life. He has a housekeeper who is a character and steady influence, he visits a Buddhist monastery and the novel is peppered with Buddhist wisdom and Braddock’s attempts at applying it to his investigations. He has a number of female friends, some married, and he is receiving what appear to be blackmail letters that seem to come from somebody in the know about his relationship with the wife of the chief of police.
He is British but has lived in Thailand for a number of years, although his standing appears to be still uncertain. We don’t know much about his background but this is a man who can quote the classics, speaks Thai, is well informed on local, international and current affairs and is a deep thinker with a peculiar but internally consistent sense of morality. This being a first person narration I was left wanting to know who he really is. If the many cases he gets involved in get solved in some fashion (foreign men get killed and burned in a spot where years back a young man killed himself by setting himself alight), I felt there were more questions left unanswered than fully satisfying answers.
I loved this novel. Although I’ve read a few detective novels and seedy settings are not uncommon, the degree of local knowledge, understanding of customs and familiarity with procedures (and I understand from reading about the author that Mr Dolan spends a fair amount of time in Thailand) goes well beyond what I expected and rather than a filler to justify some elements of the story, I felt it was integral to it and fascinating to read for the insights it provided. The cases were interesting and the first person narrative, like in many of the most loved classic detective novels, allowed you to test yourself, look for clues, and try to find the elusive connections that you knew existed but couldn’t quite work out.
The characterisation not only of Braddock but of most of the important secondary characters was vivid and rang true. How reliable a narrator Braddock is, is something that you’ll have to decide. I can say I was surprised at a particular point in the novel, because although something had not made much sense to me (and I won’t spoil the plot) when I realised why I still wasn’t sure if it was the way the scenes were set or my own lack of acumen at points.
My feeling and opinion is that this series will be a five star series, but I wanted more background, more story and more development in some of the characters. I believe that all will come together as a whole and can’t wait to read the rest of the novels. If you like detective novels and want to try something new, don’t waste any more time and read Everyone Burns.

I met John Dolan on twitter, his tweets are consistently entertaining. I figured a guy with such wry wit might actually be able to write. It was a good guess. Mr. Dolan authored a highly engaging, entertaining, and at times hilarious novel.

The setting is exotic, slightly erotic, and filled with all the third-world Thai corruption you can handle. A great place to get down and dirty with a murder mystery.

His characters are fully three dimension, lively and perfectly imperfect in all the ways they should be. My hat's off to John Dolan. A very good read indeed.

Hungry Ghosts (Time, Blood and Karma #2) by John Dolan has done what was not possible, or so this reader assumed. The author's first book Everyone Burns was perfection personified and could not be equalled. But Hungry Ghosts sent this reader into a rush of retrospective detective drama ecstasy, not since seen since Robert Mitchum donned the white suit and sent shivers down Jane Russell's bra not invented by Howard Hughes in Macao.
This detective thriller set on an island off Thailand oozes nuances galore, tight, gritty dialog, vicious gangs, dubious coppers, mythical monk spouting poetic reasons to live, even more dubious clients and even even more dubious family members all interwoven into a plot Dashell Hammett would have been proud of.
The star of this steamy film noir is seedy detective David Braddock who so reminds this reader of Robert Mitchum, a guy not afraid to break the law and suffer the consequences in so many great films of this genre.
And genre is the word that so describes this awesome novel that will I am sure set the big screen on fire one day soon. So without further delay or you might find strange footsteps stop at your door, download and read this FIVE STAR detective thriller that I cannot recommend enough.

Hungry Ghosts (Time, Karma and Blood Series Book 2) by John Dolan. Family secrets, family feuds, betrayals and ghosts.
‘The spirits of the dead are all around us, but it is we, the living, that are the true hungry ghosts.’ I could not agree more with the reflections of David Braddock, the detective-cum-philosopher and therapist who is the protagonist of Hungry Ghosts, the second book in the ‘Time, Karma and Blood Series’ by John Dolan. I read the first book in the series Everyone Burns and when I reviewed it I mentioned that I thought this would be a five star series but the first book left me wanting more and with too many questions pending. Be reassured, Hungry Ghosts delivers on all the promises of the first and more, and although, of course this being a series everything could be resolved, it answers many of the questions, whilst opening new avenues for enquiry and intriguing plots.
‘Sometimes I come across as superficial. Of this I am aware. However, you may be confident that inside my head I am forever plumbing new shallows, finding novel ways to express the obvious, reheating old jokes.’
David Braddock, one of the most peculiar detectives I’ve met in fiction (and I am aware all famous detectives have quirks and characteristics that make them memorable) is back with a vengeance. Or rather, he is the intended victim of a revenge attempt. Vending the rules, although it appears to be the standard MO in Thailand, does not come without consequences, even there. People die, lives are destroyed, and strange alliances are made and broken. Not your standard day at the office.
If Braddock still retains many of the characteristics we’ve come to expect of most males detectives (he has an array of love interests, two of them married, one related to him by first marriage…), we get to see more of his soft/emotional side. His strange relationships with his first wife (now dead), his daughter (away in England), his housekeeper (not his maid, as he insists throughout the whole book. She is clearly much more than a housekeeper, as signalled by the fact that they have never had sex), his mother-in-law, and crucially, his father. Family secrets abound, not only those of the Braddock family, but also of other families. Fathers and sons with troubled relationships are mirrored on both sides of the law (although the lines are very fine and there is no black and white here, rather different shades of grey), and even Braddock’s Zen master, the Old Monk, has sons who are on opposite sides of the law.
The author shows his talent by using a variety of points of view throughout the novel that allow us to understand better the events and the motivations behind the actions of the characters. We share in the murderer’s frame of mind, the Chief of Police of Samui and his wife (and Braddock’s lover), the detective’s sister in law, the gangsters… We might side with Braddock but we are privy to the thoughts and feelings of others and are a step ahead. That is why the twist at the end is even more effective. We should have seen it coming but we were too taken by the action and the story, and rooting for the flawed hero to realise that…
John Dolan treads carefully and manages to recap enough information to allow somebody who has not read the first novel to enjoy and make sense of this one, whilst at the same time not boring somebody who has recently read ‘Everyone Burns’, and just nudging their memory (especially with the unfamiliar names) along.
David Braddock is fast becoming one of my favourite detectives. Although an amateur at both detective work and psychology (or therapeutic interventions), he has a natural flair for both. I couldn’t help but think that he might make an interesting team with Mary, the psychiatrist who gets involved in all sorts of crimes in my stories. It’s a thought.
Hungry Ghosts has gang-warfare, police corruption, revenge, murders and violence, secrets and revelations, honey traps and meddling employees, witty repartees and reflections (‘I need to simplify my life so far as women are concerned. Maybe I should get castrated and have done with it.’), ghosts and padrinos (Thai style). I, for one, can’t wait to see what happens next and what will come of the sudden epiphany Braddock experiences in this book. As he observes: ‘We are the artisans of avoidance, the fabricators of falsehoods. We sell ourselves snake-oil and we call it medicine.’ I’m sure there will be more revelations to come and I suspect the author might take us in unsuspected directions. I am getting a ticket for the next trip. Are you?