When the renowned American businessman, Jim Thompson, disappeared on Easter Sunday 1967 in mysterious circumstances, the legend of this extraordinarily gifted designer and entrepreneur began. During a period of two decades, he had developed silk making from being a static village craft into a dynamic textile industry providing exquisite silks for both the Thai domestic and international markets.

Graham Byfield is an English watercolorist who lived and worked in Asia for many years. In preparing this book, he spent a considerable time talking to the people who knew Jim Thompson, visiting the sites in Thailand that were part of his story, and researching the process of both traditional and industrial silk making. William Warren knew his compatriot Jim Thompson well, and is the author of Jim Thompson: The Unsolved Mystery. He has written widely on Thai society and culture, and has lived and worked in Bangkok for several decades.