Essential to understanding Southeast Asia in the 21st century, Hello, Shadowlands reveals a booming underworld of organised crime across a region in flux-a $100 billion trade that deals in narcotics, animals and people-and the staggering human toll that is being steadily ignored by the West.
From Myanmar's anarchic hills to the swamplands of Vietnam, jihadis are being pitted against brothel workers, pet thieves against vigilantes and meth barons against Christian vice squads. Hello, Shadowlands takes a deep plunge into crime rings both large and small. It also examines how China's rise and America's decline is creating new opportunities for transnational syndicates to thrive.
Focusing on human stories on both sides of this crime wave, the acclaimed Bangkok-based broadcaster and journalist Patrick Winn intimately profiles the men and women of the region who are forced to make agonizing choices in the absence of law.
"Brilliantly crafted and thrilling to read. This is a page turner with soul - an evocative tour through places that are too often ignored.'"
Tom Vitale, director of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown
"Avoiding both sensationalism and moralizing, Patrick Winn takes his reader with somber elegance into Southeast Asia's criminal underworld - and from more interesting perspectives than the usual drug dealers and traffickers. Here is a world as rich, contradictory and strange as any that one could think of.'"
Lawrence Osborne, author of Beautiful Animals and Bangkok Days
"In Hello, Shadowlands, Patrick Winn writes in a vibrant, readable style, uses years of hardcore field reporting and adds thought-provoking analysis to expose a side of global crime that we all need to better understand. His vivid descriptions take you deep into surreal and at times heartbreaking worlds but he also steps away to give wider meaning to these tales and their place in the economic and
Ioan Grillo, author of El Narco and Gangster Warlords
