If BANGKOK 8 by John Burdett (Vintage, trade paperback $13.95) were a movie, the producers would be in negotiations with the ratings board trying to get the NC-17 knocked down to an R. It probably wouldn’t work. But it would still be a darn good piece of fiction.

BANGKOK 8 follows a Thai, Buddhist, son-of-a-prostitute cop with a shoe fetish named Sonchai as he goes about trying to find the person responsible (literally or karmic-ly) for the death of his soul brother and partner. The two of them had been assigned to follow an American marine through the clogged streets of Bangkok. When they finally came upon his car, the doors were jammed and the inside was full of crazed snakes, one of which was in the process of swallowing the American’s head. The snakes, not picky creatures, turn on the cops, too, killing the partner. It’s then Sonchai’s cultural responsibility to avenge him.

And now we’re off. Prostitutes, drugs, prostitutes, corrupt cops, prostitutes, transsexuals, transsexual prostitutes and the jade trade weave and swirl through this novel that, despite everything, is less of a mystery – although it’s a very good one of those – than a treatise on Western vs. Eastern culture, specifically as it applies to Thai Buddhism. Yes, seriously.

There are, however, two things that will hurt this book. One is cultural, the other artistic. (Not that Mr. Burdett should be all that worried. The book, published in 2003, has long ago reached bestseller status.) The cultural problem is all the things that would warrant an NC-17 rating. My mother, for example, should never, ever read this book. And I now know more about the inner workings of a Bangkok brothel than I ever expected to know. At first, this comes off as excessive and lurid. But as the book progresses and it becomes clear that this is a cultural commentary rather than just a novel, the exploration of “sin” – as defined by the West – becomes critical and unavoidable. Nonetheless, it’s still not a mom book.

Artistically, I have one complaint. Through the course of his investigation, Sonchai finds himself partnered with an American female FBI agent. Many men write women well. STEEL MAGNOLIAS was written by a man. So was the T.V. version of SEX AND THE CITY. But Mr. Burdett, while highly gifted in many other areas, should stick to male characters. His FBI agent in particular was not so much a woman as a man in drag, acting and speaking about sex in a more aggressive and frank manner than THE CITY’s Samantha ever did and doing it with a sort of rough masculinity that no woman I’ve ever known came close to. It was, frankly, unconvincing.

But her aside, BANGKOK 8 is remarkably well-crafted and well-paced. The characters and setting are fascinating, and the philosophical exploration of culture makes this worth reading whether you enjoy crime fiction in general or not. I recommend it.