Serpentine

By: Thomas Thompson

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

Length: 24 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

There was no pattern to the murders, no common thread other than the fact that the victims were all vacationers, robbed of their possessions, and slain in seemingly random crimes. Authorities across three continents and a dozen nations had no idea they were all looking for the same man: Charles Sobhraj, aka "The Serpent".

A handsome Frenchman of Vietnamese and Indian origin, Sobhraj targeted backpackers on the "hippie trail" between Europe and South Asia. A master of deception, he used his powerful intellect and considerable sex appeal to lure naive travelers into a life of crime. When they threatened to turn on him, Sobhraj murdered his acolytes in cold blood.

Between late 1975 and early 1976, a dozen corpses were found everywhere from the boulevards of Paris to the slopes of the Himalayas to the back alleys of Bangkok and Hong Kong. Some police experts believe the true number of Sobhraj's victims may be more than twice that amount.

Serpentine is the "[G]rotesque, baffling, and hypnotic" true story of one of the most bizarre killing sprees in modern history (San Francisco Chronicle). Edgar Award-winning author Thomas Thompson's mesmerizing portrait of a notorious sociopath and his helpless prey "[U]nravels like fiction, but afterwards haunts the reader like the document it is" (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland).

©1979 Thomas Thompson (P)2018 Tantor

real storry that seems like fiction

Was a facinating listening. I thought it was fiction at first, and then realised this was based on real people/events.

Fantastic book - horrible narration

What a great read - I had to read most of the book though as the audible version was just terrible - the book itself - with all the narrations and well researched background of all the different people who came across Charles Sobhraj and especially also the wonderful descriptions of all the places made me feel like I was traveling truly the world again. I enjoyed this book tremendously even though of course the subject matter is very dark. But I don't understand Audible or whoever is in charge to choose narrators - the squeezed voice and poor performance of the narrator made it very hard to listen to. Such a pity!

Good but Exhausting

This is one long book. Overall I liked it but it was way too long.
If you want to know what became of the title character do a Google search.
The ending was rather abrupt so I followed up on my own.
I thought the narrator did a fine job.

Gripping story

Took a minute to get past the narrator’s voice- reminded me of David Cross as Tobias Funke. Couldn’t put it down once I was engrossed with the story. Well written, and compelling.

Good Story / Weak Narration

I listen to quite a few audible books. I'm normally not all that fussy with narrators but this book needed one with significantly more voice acting skills.

This story is unbelievable but true

This story is unreal and I kept pausing the book to do research because it all sounds too strange to be true. Didn’t love the narrator at first but he grew on me after the first few chapters. This book kept me hooked until the very end.

Fascinating.

The characters are well developed. Charles’ life is almost unbelievable and the entourage he collected to support his criminal empire is a real clown show. Excellent narration also

interesting story

narrator had atrocious pronunciations for the French words and Indian words. Once able to adjust to and ignore that, the story itself was very interesting. Not particularly well-written or well-performed, but the happenings themselves were truly incredible.

Captivating story bogged down by relentless detail

Don’t get me wrong, the book is good—but it’s 26 hours long and could have really benefited from a good paring down.

I had some pretty significant heartburn over Thompson’s accounting for thoughts, opinions, etc from the 70s. I know he was well researched, but there are some details that simply had to be supposition presented as fact.

In the grand scheme of things, the book is worth a listen just to learn about Sobranj (SP?), but a good editor would’ve really done wonders for the tome.

Chamberlain’s narration was decent but not compelling.

Remarkable story - great setting.

If you mostly read comic books and bumper stickers - you’ll probably find this too complex and too long. But if you IQ breaks the middle double digits, you shouldn’t have a problem keeping up.

I can’t believe I never heard of this guy before - what a scam artist. The book is really well written and the time period really comes through. A very interesting story, and I loved the writing style.