The new Thai government, installed by military coup last September, has had enough of foreigners setting up home in Thailand illegally and pushing up property prices.
Under the previous regime, rules were lax and loopholes could be exploited. Now property laws are being tightened and the maximum stay on a tourist visa is limited to 90 days in any 180-day period (see new rules, next page).
Thousands of semi-retired Western men, once able to live indefinitely in the Kingdom of Smiles simply by making 'visa runs' to Cambodia every few months, have had the smiles wiped off their faces.
All of which is bad news for that most bizarre of literary circles - the writers of hard-boiled Bangkok crime novels, who live legally in Thailand, some as teachers, some retired. Who will be left to read their work?
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Expats are having to cope with new rulings on life in Thailand, finds gary jones |
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Bookshops on the main tourist drag of Sukhumvit Road are crammed with titles knocked out by Western men enthralled by the manic metropolis. The neon-drenched streets, rampant prostitution and Bangkok's exhilarating sense of danger combine to seduce wannabe Raymond Chandlers into believing the book within them must see daylight.
Private Dancer, a fictionalised account of a Western man's tragic love affair with a bargirl, is decorated with a photograph of a young Thai woman hiding a cut-throat razor behind her naked back. The bargirl on the cover of Hello My Big Big Honey has, according to its writers, since died of a heroin overdose.
Authors invariably utilise a jaded farang (foreigner) anti-hero who drinks too much and prowls the city's fleshpots. Such titles include Skytrain to Murder by sexagenarian 
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