Bangkok Beat – Paperback – June 8, 2015

Authored by Mr Kevin Cummings 

Authored with John Gartland, Thomas Hunt Locke
Photographs by Eric Nelson, Alasdair McLeod, Jonathan van Smit
Introduction by James A. Newman
Cover artwork by Colin Cotterill

Bangkok Beat is a compilation of short stories, interviews, literature reviews and author profiles, plus the previously unpublished history and pictures of the iconic Bangkok cabaret nightclub, Checkinn99 located on Sukhumvit Road. In reading Bangkok Beat you will get up close with many well-known and not so well-known expats and characters staying in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Between the covers of Bangkok Beat you will get to know: champion male and female Muay Thai boxers, a surfing historian, a legendary mamasan, Chris Coles – noted expressionist artist of the Bangkok night, and a gold chain snatching ladyboy. You’ll also encounter the inside of Baccara Bar on Soi Cowboy, an Australian front man for a Khmer band, a smiling waitress named Mook, a spirit house for a Hollywood screenwriter and producer, and the biographer for Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix. Plus world class musicians including Jason Mraz. In addition you’ll find interviews and profiles of many well known novelists living in and writing about Thailand and Southeast Asia. (Contains 54 black and white photographs.) This book of non-fiction is ably assisted with an introduction by Bangkok pulp fiction author, James A. Newman, a short story by T Hunt Locke titled The Beauty of Issan and a chapter of noir verse written by the poet noir, John Gartland. Many of the 54 black and white photographs found in Bangkok Beat were taken by professional photographers Eric Nelson, Alasdair McLeod and Jonathan van Smit. There is something for everyone to be found on the pages of Bangkok Beat.