"If you're thinking of reading a nice feel-good novel about Thailand to prepare for your forthcoming trip, this is not the book for you. A Field of Virgins makes very uncomfortable reading. This is not the Thailand I know, and I admit to having felt personally affronted by this negative portrayal of my favourite country. I suppose I've always been vaguely aware of this seedy side going on behind the scenes, but Ian Devey’s novel lays it all bare and slaps you in the face with it.

"Set in Bangkok, Pataya and northern Thailand's Mae Hong Son loop, it flips back and to between the fleshpots of Patpong and the tribal villages that provide the supply of young girls for the sex trade. Interestingly, it is written in the first person by no less than five of its main characters. In order to set the scene and provide some background information, this sometimes involved unlikely young men waxing lyrically about saffron robed monks and clear blue skies through a haze of alcohol and drugs. It didn't work for me initially, but the book's characters grew stronger and I even began to empathise a little – but not too much.

"The first few chapters had me ranting and raving about gratuitous sex and violence. However, I was missing the point. In fact the gratuitous sex and violence was the point. And more importantly, was the exposure of the hidden costs involved of foreign tourists partaking in these hedonistic holidays of sex and drugs without a thought of the consequences. This is not the conservative Buddhist Thailand of my experience. I've found it's really not too difficult to avoid those unsavoury areas one disapproves of, but that doesn't make it go away."

- Mo Lee-Raffery, English teacher and traveller