Had Chris Tharp titled his fictional travelogue / prison memoir / food diary something along the lines of, say, Locked Up in Asia: A Journey to Hell and Back, or, conversely, The ESL Movement: A Continuance of Colonialism? it could very well have scraped the lower rungs of a 2025 bestseller list. From Midnight Express to Locked Up Abroad, everyone and their mother seems to love hearing about obnoxious Americans or Brits getting locked up for decades off the back of their bad behavior in foreign lands.