The Girl Who Threw Stars by Peter Alexander

The Girl Who Threw Stars

Book Review

By Joan Cassell

When I saw the title I thought of Stieg Larsson (“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). When I started reading and found that the heroine was a Bangkok prostitute running from a murderous lover, I thought, ah, it’s one of those steamy Thailand sex and violence novels. But then when a feisty eleven year old upcountry Thai girl starts talking to angels, I thought of Guillermo Del Toro’s movie “Pans Labyrinth,” thick with blood and gore offset by a child’s escape into a spirit wonderland.

In terms of genre, my comparison to “Pan’s Labyrinth” probably comes closest to the incredible thriller and uplifting otherworldly adventure that Peter Alexander has devised. The primary villain, a Thai police officer who likes to be called Duke from his days at the police academy in L.A., is as brutal and bloody as most you will find in crime literature these days. However, as we discover early on, it’s not really all his fault.

Three very dead and disparate spirits have entered his body through injuries to his aura, and they inhabit his being and influence his actions, usually for the worse, although the spirits themselves are seldom of the same mind. Each has his or her own agenda, even though they are disincarnate.

Duke’s ex-wife is 25-year-old Kanthida, usually called Kan, a gorgeous gal from the northeast who was sold by one of her mothers to a Bangkok brothel. In Kan we have a soul mate for Lisbeth Salander of Stieg Larsson fame, the most iconic kick ass heroine in literature today. Kan is tall, smart, dumped Duke soon after she had his child, little Noi (a daughter, now 6), married a Norwegian sex customer, lived in Norway until she tired of snow, studied martial arts, returned to Bangkok, her main squeeze becoming Hiro a market rep for Isuzu cars in Southeast Asia.

When they are not enjoying one another’s sexual charms, Kan and Hiro practice the art of shuriken- throwing stars with blades.

Duke tracks down his long absent ex-wife and tries to force sex on her after he handcuffs her to the pipes in her bedroom. She punishes him with a very creative weapon usually relegated to bathrooms.

Being a ‘good Buddhist,’ she refuses to kill Duke when she has the chance, but escapes to Isaan country in northeast Thailand, traveling to where her daughter is sheltered by a cranky aunt.

Revitalized by the spirits who have made him their bodily sanctuary, Duke seeks revenge, racing to the small village of Phayu were Kan was born. He has also been assigned by his master, a leading Thai politician, to work with a Chinese company seeking control of valuable natural resources under the ground in Phayu.

In advance of Duke’s arrival in Phayu, Duke has hired an assassin to murder Piya, a local schoolteacher who has been organizing the townspeople against the Chinese. The murder of Piya, beloved teacher of eleven-year-old Ae, a precocious, fearless local girl, proves providential, altering the balance between Heaven and Earth.

Piya, it turns out, was an angel on Earth.

Ae begins to hear her teacher’s gentle voice providing insights and guidance. At his funeral, only Ae can see his spirit standing there, grinning at her.

As Duke searches for Kan and his daughter and carries out his business for the Chinese, he amasses a double-digit body count. Some of the deaths he causes are horrendous and startling, which drives the townspeople eager to sell their properties. Duke’s spirits entrance a spooky, introverted servant girl to assist him in his murders, with whom Duke also enjoys weird sexual pleasures.  

Kan manages to protect her daughter, narrowly avoiding Duke’s search for her, ultimately coming in contact with Ae, whom she saves from the machete wielded by Aun, the bewitched servant. The moonlight battle between the two women would make a scintillating movie scene.

Ultimately this amazingly imaginative story by Peter Alexander set both in the Heavens and a desolate Thai landscape becomes a scorching battle between Good and Evil in both higher and lower dimensions.

Recommended by Joan Cassell