Banking on Bangkok

The folks at Knopf are pleased with early sales of its dark comic thriller Bangkok 8 by John Burdett. The book was announced with a first printing of 100,000, but the actual first run was 46,000; a second printing of 6,000 takes the total to 52,000. The book is doing very well at the independent booksellers, debuting at #11 on the Book Sense national bestseller list. A glowing review in the Wall Street Journal's summer reading feature kicked off lots of other reviews. Knopf v-p, director of publicity, Nicholas Latimer points out that since the book has lots of kinky sex and gratuitous violence, it's "perhaps a Potted Hairy for adults."