Binging Colin Cotteril and Siri

Colin Cotterill’s Dr Siri Piboumn Series

Book                                                                 Published           Read

The Coroner’s Lunch                                  2004                    July 2024

Thirty-Three Teeth                                         2005                    Aug 2024

Disco for the Departed                              2006                    Aug 2024

Anarchy and Old Dogs                               2007                    Aug 2024

Curse of the Pogo Stick                              2008                    Sept 2024

The Merry Misogynist                                 2009                    Sept 2024

Love Songs from a Shallow Grave          2010                    Sept 2024

Slash and Burn                                             2011                    Sept 2024

The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die                2013                    Dec 2024

Six and a Half Deadly Sins                        2015                    Oct 2024

I Shot the Buddha                                        2016                    Oct 2024

The Rat Catcher’s Olympics                     2017                    Nov 2024

Don’t Eat Me                                                  2018                    Dec 2024

The Second Biggest Nothing                    2018                    not yet! Dec 2024?

The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot      2019                    not yet! Jan 2025?         

This reader got a recommendation for an interesting mystery series from a friend, and this reader has been truly binging the series.  This reader is reading the series in order and has now repaired skipping book 9 by mistake.    Unfortunately the series does end…

Why does this reader read this series?

• Interesting setting:
  • the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in the 1970’s and early 1980’s.  The French have left, and the monarchy has been overthrown and replaced by a bureaucratic communist regime with close ties/oversight by neighbor Vietnam and Mother Russia. 
  • the characters live and work in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, which is just across the Mekong River from Thailand
  • the stories take place in various parts of Laos
  • This book gives a view of this time and place with which this reader was previously unfamiliar.
• Great characters:
  • Dr Siri Paiboun, He’s in his seventies and has spent much of his career as a surgeon in the jungle during the war meant to drive out a monarchy and replace it with a communist state.  He became a party member while a medical student in Paris because the girl he hoped to marry (and did) was a party member.  Now that the war is over (and his wife has passed) he had hoped to spend a quiet retirement doing little.  However, the party had other ideas and required him to be the national coroner despite his total lack of experience in this discipline and no interest in the job.  Fortunately for the reader, being a coroner means there are interesting deaths to understand and thus mysteries to solve.  
  • Drui, his assistant; a sassy, intelligent, multi-lingual nurse who Siri says is a better coroner than he is
  • Mry Gyuv, a young man with Down’s syndrome who works with Siri and Drui, providing indispensable help and often interesting insights
  • Sivaly, a friend of Siri’s since their days in college in France and who has been a high-ranking member of the Lao communist party for a long time
  • Phosey, the local police inspector
  • Madame Daeng, a ferocious freedom fighter for the Laos in her younger days and now the proprietress of the best noodle shop in the world. 
• Great writing that’s quite witty
  • Beautiful descriptions of the environment
  • Sentences that are very enjoyable to read and savor
  • Siri and Sivaly don’t take the government run by the Lao communist party very seriously and their language reflects this.  They also share a love of wester movies.  Their conversations are often quite hilarious in a very dry humor sort of way. 
• Interesting stories
  • Always some sort of mystery for Siri and his gang to solve—and not always related to an autopsy! 
  • Generally some kind of dilemma or difficult situation for some/all of the characters to overcome which can provide some action
  • Always interesting perspectives on the times and politics.
  • An interesting look at the spirits that roam the region and interact with some of the characters at times. 
• Great reader for the audiobooks—Clive Chafer reads the entire series. 

I will be certainly sad when I complete the series but perhaps that will enable me to better keep up writing and posting!  Check out the series and enjoy!