I had seen positive reviews for Peter May and this one attracted me as I know Thailand and Cambodia very well having lived and worked in both. I imagined that May was one of those writers that builds action stories around well-researched facts, but that is clearly not the case. Alongside some dreadfully cliched depictions of Thais and Thailand, there are a string of factual mistakes. Examples: In December and January the climate in Thailand and Cambodia is pleasantly warm, with cool evenings. It is neither humid nor ‘crucifyingly hot’. In Thai Khao phat muu is fried rice with pork, not fried rice with shrimp. If one is in Angkor Wat, the Tonle Sap is not an obstacle to getting out, it is many km away and the whole town of Siem Reap lies between Angkor Wat and the Tonle Sap. To get from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh one does not take a southwesterly route across the Tonle Sap. Phnom Penh lies beyond the southeastern end of the Tonle Sap. The Tonle Sap river meets the Mekong just south of the city centre in Phnom Penh. There is no way one could be on the Mekong about an hour upstream of Phnom Penh. All facts that could be checked very easily, and would not really affect the story. But on this basis I could not believe anything written in any of his other novels.