I am not a reader of mysteries. There. I said it.
“Oh, but you MUST read this....” And they shove the latest cat/quilt/cookie/English village/whatever-themed whodunit across the desk. And I politely oblige.
And I get 20 pages into it and I could not care less whodunnit. Snore... cue the sound of me snapping book closed.
And then along came British author Colin Cotterill.
Dr. Siri Paiboun didn’t ask to be a forensic coroner. But as one of the last surviving medical doctors in post-war Laos, he really has no choice in the matter. More out of a sense of duty than anything else, Siri assembles a rag-tag band of helpers and starts work. Nurse Dtui certainly has more practical forensic skill, but as a woman, and a politically unconnected one at that, she, too, has little choice but to play the second fiddle. Add the slightly addle-brained but big hearted mortuary attendant Geung, liberally toss in absurd revolutionary socialist bureaucracy and rudely insistent ancestor demons, and you have a weird and wonderful setting for some of the most enjoyable books, and least mystery-like mysteries I’ve ever read.And if that’s not enough, proceeds from the now globally popular Dr. Siri series go towards sending books to Lao school children.
