Charles father, a tailor, abandoned Song, Charles mother, and young Charles when he found out that she was pregnant with his child. Between 1972 and 1976 it is believed that Charles Sobhraj killed between 12 to 24 people according to New York Times. I would have given this book five stars but it was a little too long, maybe too much background on people who end up dying pretty quickly once they meet up with Charles. You are not entirely sure whether you want him to be hanged or you want him to have a good life, leave it all behind and settle somewhere. As always, I immediately downloaded the most popular book about the case and reviewed it for vivalabooks.

Then suddenly in 2003, Sobraj, who was probably bored and sick of his growing anonymity, travelled to Nepal and was arrested there for the murders of two tourists he had killed years before. It's the story of an international sociopath, a combination of the worst serial killers and a Houdini. He later published hundreds of articles in national general-interest magazines and wrote 25 Western novels, including “Range Drifter,” “Shadow of the Butte” and “Bitter Water.

I had friends who were traveling the world at these exact times in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in many of the very countries and cities Charles Sobhraj was finding his prey. My favorite parts were where he escapes police custody twice and PRISON twice (in Greece and Afghanistan). as the author hints that the sociopath has his sights on the USA when he breaks out, to continue his trail of deceit and murder. Brillant bandit des grands chemins, champion de la manipulation et de l'extorsion qui arrive à s'évader de prison comme on sort de chez Starbuck. The cold case soon turns interesting as the team connect the seemingly unbelievable coincidences to discover that most characters are not who they seem.

The book is a much more linear and is easier to follow than the BBC/Netflix mini-series is and has terrific in-depth character and location descriptions. Morally bankrupt, unbelievably resourceful in a time when Interpol might as well have been a local council for the good it did and unscrupulous. The facts describe a likely loser: a mysterious woman found with a bullet in her head in a torched Cadillac that has overturned on infamously treacherous Mulholland Drive. I give the mini-series a break on the constant skipping forward and backward because keeping up with all this maniac Sobhraj's movements around the planet, always using pseudonyms and usually the passports of the victims he and his thug crew have just viciously, murdered, it's virtually impossible to keep it all straight.An utterly villainous and sickening story of a man who has/had (jail permitting) the power and the potency to fool anyone of us.