Mike is spending the summer working for a magazine in Hong Kong when Christopher Dorr, a brilliant journalist, goes missing in Thailand. Mike's editor decides to send him to Bangkok to report on the drug-tourism crackdown, but Mike's real mission is to find Dorr, who is also an old friend of his parents. This is the beginning of a vertiginous journey that propels Mike into fast and seedy nights in Thailand and back to New York, to a home wrecked by violence.

The Third Brother moves with the speed of a bullet to portray a young man - and a family - shattered by lies and by excess.