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Private Dancer
 
 

Private Dancer [Kindle Edition]

Stephen Leather
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)

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Review

Because of all its local wisdom, Private Dancer ought to be made available to every tourist at port entry. --Bernard Trink, Bangkok Post

Product Description

'I don't know if it was love at first sight, but it was pretty close. She had the longest hair I'd ever seen, jet black and almost down to her waist. She had soft brown eyes that made my heart melt, long legs that just wouldn't quit and a figure to die for. She was naked except for a pair of black leather ankle boots with small chrome chains on the side. I think it was the boots that did it for me.'

Thailand 1996. The Year Of The Rat. Pete, a young travel writer, wanders into a Bangkok go-go bar and meets the love of his life. Joy is the girl of his dreams, young, stunningly pretty, and one of the Zombie Bar's top earning pole dancers.

What follows is a roller-coaster ride of sex, drugs and deception, as Pete discovers that his very own private dancer is not all that she claims to be. And that far from being the girl of his dreams, Joy is his own personal nightmare.

'The best book regarding the relationships with bar girls that you can ever read. This should be compulsory reading for all first-timers to Thailand. Buy one for your friends' - Pattaya Mail.

Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series. You can find out more from his website, www.stephenleather.com

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 570 KB
  • Print Length: 358 pages
  • Publisher: Three Elephants (1 Sep 2005)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B003GXEJV4
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #8,479 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
54 of 56 people found the following review helpful
By Joseph Haschka HALL OF FAME TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
When I was young and single, I fantasized about visiting Bangkok's fleshpot buffet. But, even 11 years in the Navy didn't provide the opportunity as I never made it away from Stateside. Now that I'm older, married, and only marginally wiser, I doubt that my wife would let me go - even if I could imagine conjuring up the energy to carouse once I got there. And there is, of course, the sobering specter of AIDS. But, should any of you young studs embark on the tour, PRIVATE DANCER should be required reading before reaching the airport departure gate.

Pete is a freelance writer hired by a publishing house to edit a new cookery book/travel guide for Thailand. Once ensconced in Bangkok, Pete is introduced to the red-light district by friend Nigel, where Pete meets pole dancer/prostitute Joy in the Zombie Bar. Pete is smitten despite advice from the resident expats that it's best not to get emotionally involved with a bar babe. And despite all the evidence, some provided by a private detective, that Joy is simply using Pete as a cash ATM, that she's married to a Thai man, and that she has sex with other farang (foreign) customers when he's out of town, Pete remains enamored of his PRIVATE DANCER. He desperately wants to believe her excuses, lies, and proclamations of true love - "I love you and have you in my heart only one. Miss you all the time."

Author Stephen Leather takes an interesting approach to the story, telling it alternately from the viewpoints of Pete, Joy, Pete's farang friends and acquaintances (Nigel, Big Ron, Bruce, Jimmy), the private detective Phiraphan, Pete's employer Alistair, and a certain Professor Bruno Mayer, an expert on prostitution in Thailand and cross-cultural relationships between the sex workers and their customers. What results is a fascinating and informative parable on the perils of falling for a Bangkok hooker that's probably just as valid no matter what the city, country, or nationality of the working girl. Indeed, as Stephen describes the milieu of Pete's tragic experience, the reader perhaps understands that it's more of a culture clash than anything else. From Joy's perspective, her life and means of getting money for herself and her family back in their village are nothing unusual or immoral. For her, emotional love for, and the provision of money by, a man are two sides of the same coin. The problem for westerner Pete, a Brit, is that he necessarily separates the two. In the end, the open-minded reader can rightly attach no blame to either, but only marvel at Pete's foolishness in the face of good advice from his Anglo and Australian friends that are old Bangkok hands.

PRIVATE DANCER seemed, at times, a bit too long for the message. In an email correspondence with Leather, I asked if the tale was based on the experience of anyone he knew. With utter candor, the author implied that at least some of the story derived from his own youthful follies. Perhaps Stephen was driven to over-emphasize the lesson - "Don't let this happen to you!" In any case, the book is an engaging addition to the backpack as you set out to sample the neon-bathed, x-rated delights of Patpong, Nana Plaza, and Soi Cowboy.

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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Bang on the button. 14 Nov 2007
Format:Paperback
I bought this book, basically, to confirm that I knew it all already. I first went all over S.E.Asia in the early sixties, helping the USA. get a foothold (not for very long) in Vietnam. Also went to BKK before the Nana Plaza and the Nana Hotel were there. Patpong was kicking off then and I had a good time all of the time!!. I drifted back over there in 1989, mostly in Singapore, where I met up with a lot of Thai girls working in the remaining (few) night-clubs off Orchard road. They were, and still are, the same, and any old man who thinks these girls actually prefer the company of them to a man of their own age is in serious trouble. When I was 20 years old, the thought of having a 50yr. old girlfriend would never have been considered, let alone to happen. So, already being wise to these little beauties, prancing arouind shiny poles on a stage about 3 feet above the floor,some naked, some not, reinstated that it was business as usual. I spent a lot of time until 2004, during which I met and heard about old, and some young men, losing the whole lot to these 'bar girls'. whilst I was rotating to BKK from various oilfield (my occupation) locations for R & R as the Yanks called it. We called it I & I, intercourse and intoxication, preferably in that order. I almost got hooked once in ,01, falling a little bit overboard with a stunner from the Rainbow One bar, in Nana Plaza. I introduced her to a pal of mine who lived in BKK. and he was my 'Private Detective'. I was'nt away for more than a month or so and he confirmed that they dont go back home 'up country', as they call it. She had come with me to the airport when I left, already having in her hand a Thai Airways ticket,( I got it), for her return to Udon Thani to go home to Mama!. In fact, she was back in the bar that same night!!. So, I know the book contains 100% truth in the whole scenarios that crop up. I've seen them with scarred wrists and arms, drunk and /or spaced out and finding out from other girls what made them do it. Good thing is ; if you look upon the whole deal of taking them for a weeks holiday out of the bar after a one nighter, generally, they are damn good company as well as sating each other's natural needs. Some of the girls deserved oscars when I used to take them back to BKK and give them the NRB., (not required back)!!. So guys, and gal's (yes, women can buy men too), remember, the book is a must for a tourist to read prior to a trip to the Big Mango.
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Too true! 22 Feb 2006
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I bought this book after several days in Bangkok, staying in a hotel bang on Nana Plaza. After hearing some sob stories from the westerners (Farangs) I came across in the bars it rings very true. Anyone who has been to one of the bars feels that the girls only have eyes for them when in fact a high proportion see the men as horny fools. The book captures this perfectly through the eyes of the girls and the guys, a rivetting read which I agree should be read by any man hoping to save any of the Gogo dancers from their life of sleeze. Top marks.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Private Dancer
I read all the way through the book but on reflection the story could have been told in half the time and in places was very repetitive.Private Dancer
Published 4 days ago by BB
Do not underestimate the power of this book!
After 30 years of living in Bangkok, I can attest that this is THE definitive book on the bar scene!
In fact it's more of a manual than a novel. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Bazza
Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful
Long winded to say the least, repetitive and an absolutely dire look at ex Pats and their behaviour - not to mention the Thai people engaged or otherwise in the sex business. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mr. N. J. Farmer
I really enjoy this book
already two times to read this book so really enjoy it but sometime annoying with Pete, Not surprise why this book got award
Published 6 months ago by TY
Great read.. Hard to put down
What can i say.. I dont read books very often, in fact the last one i read back to front was written by another ex-pat which i bought in bangkok airport on the way back to london... Read more
Published 6 months ago by John Oneill
Great Read
This was my first Stephen Leather novel. This is a book that you really can't put down. An interesting style, written in the first person, it works well. Read more
Published 6 months ago by martart
Not Leather's best
Interesting style in that it is written as a series of diary entries by the players and observers of the action. Read more
Published 10 months ago by At the end of the Earth
a must read book if you ever plan to go to thialand
on a recent visit to thailand i was given this book to read on my return ( i brought this copy just to refer to )
the experiences i had in bangkok were all much the same as... Read more
Published 12 months ago by disco
couldnt put it down!
Fantastic book! I simply couldnt put it down.

This is not my first Stephen Leather novel and like his other books of various genres he hasnt let me down. Read more
Published 12 months ago by weelorrie
Distasteful, confusing and boring. Yawn.
I disliked this book immensely.

Distasteful probably sums it up best. Both the subject matter and the author's attitude towards it. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Bibilofilia
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