Green Curry and Caviar: The Mystery of Arash Asahvi is not a classic romance, and yet it is a love story, an extraordinary account of love on many levels.

Neither is it a cookbook, but it is a mix of savoury adventures steeped in the tantalising flavours of Bangkok, its foods, its markets, and its grand hotels. Nor is this a travel book, and yet for everyone it becomes a journey.

Brimming with colour and fragrance, the novel is spiced with curiosity, the perfume of jasmine blossoms, and the smoke of burning joss sticks.

We glimpse a Bangkok unknown to...