Benton is a widowed African-American intelligence analyst from Washington who retires to Thailand, hoping to escape the heaviness of his past. But Thailand is no peaceful retirement destination for him. When Benton meets Siri, a beautiful tribal singer, he is pulled into a world of hidden experiments and terrifying secrets. Siri had been speaking against the side effects of genetic drug trials conducted on her hill-tribe community. The suspense builds rapidly when Benton gets too close to the operation and crosses paths with Pierre, the doctor behind the trials. Pierre is an unstable, terrifying villain who completely believes in the righteousness of what he is doing. As the story unfolds, Benton himself becomes an unwilling subject of genetic manipulation, and soon life itself spins out of control, eventually inducing a pandemic!
Mani does a fantastic job of bringing Thailand to life with vivid, atmospheric details of food, temples, bars, and the lives of expats, Thais, and marginalized tribal communities. This is a Thailand that is much darker than anything one reads in guidebooks or Western thrillers. Yet the book is so full of lush, lovely descriptions of the country that I am tempted to buy a ticket!
Mimi, a young Thai-Australian muay thai boxer, enters Benton’s life halfway through the novel. Their relationship gives the novel some warmth, though it is not entirely comfortable. Their love story is set unsettingly against the backdrop of awful bodily transformation that spills into the botanical treasures of the Golden Triangle.
The novel reveals how innovation without ethics can turn deadly dangerous, and how easily the bodies of the powerless can be exploited by the powerful. Nature and human communitiesare both harmed by the same exploitative, extraction-oriented mindset.
At times, the novel seems to be following several ideas at once. Yet this complexity is what makes the novel more thought-provoking than other thrillers in this genre. Benton’s journey in Thailand becomes an internal confrontation with who he is and what he still wants from life. The novel connects personal identity with broader narratives of migration and multiculturalism, seen in the light of genetics. As Benton declares to a drunken Scotsman in a bar, “Under our skin, John, we’re nothing but a bunch of crazy mutts.”
For readers who seek excitement and challenge, and who are willing to be disturbed by what they have read, Toxic Spirits is the book to get.
Buy the book here:
https://www.amazon.in/Toxic-Spirits-Mani/dp/195977042X
Book synopsis (from Amazon):
Toxic Spirits is a highly atmospheric thriller set in Thailand, a playground for colorful expats, gorgeous women and limitless skullduggery. Narrated with insightful meditationson nature and biodiversity, interspersed with macabre violence and dark hilarity, the novel is also a brilliant, genetics-inspired take on multiculturalism and personal identity.
Benton, a widowed African-American intelligence analyst from Washington, retires to Thailand. At an expat bar, he is captivated by Siri, a beautiful tribal singer. When Siri disappears, he discovers that she had been speaking out about the side-effects from drug trials conducted on her hill-tribe. Benton’s investigations draw him uncomfortably close to Pierre, the seriously disturbed Indo-Cambodian doctor running the trials.
Becoming an unwilling guinea-pig in the trials, Benton is transformed by the genetically engineered drugs and falls in love with Mimi, a stunning and gifted young Thai-Australian muay thai boxer. As the genetic manipulations spiral out of control, spreading to the botanical treasures of Thailand’s Golden Triangle, the forces of tribal healing, high-tech medicine,and love battle to determine who will survive.
About the Author
Inderjeet Mani is a retired professor whose writing spans fiction, narrative science, and history. He is the an award-winning author of two novels, numerous short stories and translations of Indian poetry. His acclaimed novels Toxic Spirits and TheConquest of Kailash reflect his deep engagement with culture, politics, and philosophy. His non- fiction book Captain Mani’s War is an edited eyewitness account of India’s victory against the Japanese in WW2. His poetry book The Song of Love and Longing is a translation from the Sanskrit of Jayadeva’ Gita Govinda. A scholar of linguistics and AI, he has also authored nearly 100 scientific papers and the recent scholarly book Narrative and Generative AI. He has held positions at Georgetown, Yahoo, Cambridge, MIT, and IISc, and now divides his time between Thailand, India, and the US.
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