Jim Thompson

It's wrapped around the base.

Um, and the original library belongs to Jim Thompson, who was the Thai silk king.

Um, that sent me down a rabbit hole.

[laughs]

Yeah.

There's a museum in Bangkok, his house.

Um, what was Jim Thompson to your family?

It's still a bit of a mystery, so it's one of those unknowns.

She's been telling me how the project came about.

When I was nine years old, I helped my father build a replica of intelligence officer Jim Thompson's living room in our home.

Jim had, you know, disappeared while my dad was working for the US government in Thailand.

I mean, I never really thought to ask much about it, and by the time I actually dug in to think about it all and investigate it all, my father had Alzheimer's, and I couldn't get his story.

It was really the back of beyond.

There was a pretty small expat community dominated at the time and, and into the 1960s by a guy who you'll certainly be familiar with, and some listeners may be as well, Jim Thompson, who was one of these great mid-20th century characters.

He was a spy.

Uh, he'd come out of the OSS, the forerunner to the CIA; was sent to Thailand to kind of secure it as a post-war American ally.

He then starts selling.

You know, he becomes a dealer.

Uh, then in 1967, Jim Thompson famously disappears without a trace.

You know, goes for a walk in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, never comes back.