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A review by vanessakm
The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill
4.0
This is the first in British author Colin Cotterill's series of mysteries starring Siri Paiboun.
Siri is a coroner but he is worlds away from the likes of Kathy Reichs or Patricia Cornwell. He's the state coroner for Laos, circa 1976-around one year after the Pathet Lao Communist Party takeover of the state. Siri is an upbeat, endearing guy despite a major bad luck streak in life. He went to medical school in France, where he was offered a job. Instead, he returned to Laos and joined the Communist Party because of a girl. Whom he married. Who ended up hating him. After spending years as a medic for the insurgency, he expected to retire in his 70's after the Pathet Lao gained control of the country in 1975. Instead, he was drafted as the state coroner despite having no training in pathology and only a French textbook from the 1940's as a guide.
Nevertheless, Siri makes a surprisingly good coroner. Here he investigates, among other things, the suspicious death of the wife of a Party higher-up (and an old nemesis of Siri's) and three Vietnamese bodies who were dumped in a reservoir. The first is a personal political minefield for Siri and the second is a potential international incident.
Siri also has dreams and visions where he communicates with the dead. Normally I'm not one to tolerate a deus ex machina but Cotterill makes it work and makes it funny. When in Laos, as the saying goes. Or should go.
I got a good feel for the culture of Laos from this book which is a big reason I read international mysteries. I really liked this book with its unusual hero and his sidekicks (a nurse who reads celebrity magazines and a mentally challenged morgue assistant.) I want to read more although I did have a few logical quibbles (how was the villain able to recall a conversation he wasn't present at? How could Siri possibly affect decisions made in Taiwan?)
Siri is a coroner but he is worlds away from the likes of Kathy Reichs or Patricia Cornwell. He's the state coroner for Laos, circa 1976-around one year after the Pathet Lao Communist Party takeover of the state. Siri is an upbeat, endearing guy despite a major bad luck streak in life. He went to medical school in France, where he was offered a job. Instead, he returned to Laos and joined the Communist Party because of a girl. Whom he married. Who ended up hating him. After spending years as a medic for the insurgency, he expected to retire in his 70's after the Pathet Lao gained control of the country in 1975. Instead, he was drafted as the state coroner despite having no training in pathology and only a French textbook from the 1940's as a guide.
Nevertheless, Siri makes a surprisingly good coroner. Here he investigates, among other things, the suspicious death of the wife of a Party higher-up (and an old nemesis of Siri's) and three Vietnamese bodies who were dumped in a reservoir. The first is a personal political minefield for Siri and the second is a potential international incident.
Siri also has dreams and visions where he communicates with the dead. Normally I'm not one to tolerate a deus ex machina but Cotterill makes it work and makes it funny. When in Laos, as the saying goes. Or should go.
I got a good feel for the culture of Laos from this book which is a big reason I read international mysteries. I really liked this book with its unusual hero and his sidekicks (a nurse who reads celebrity magazines and a mentally challenged morgue assistant.) I want to read more although I did have a few logical quibbles (how was the villain able to recall a conversation he wasn't present at? How could Siri possibly affect decisions made in Taiwan?)