Rating: 4* of five The Publisher Says: In Vientiane, a booby-trapped corpse, intended for Dr. Siri, the national coroner of Laos, has been delivered to the morgue. In his absence, only Nurse Dtui’s intervention saves the lives of the morgue attendants, visiting doctors, and Madame Daeng, Dr. Siri’s fiancée. On his way back from a communist party meeting in the north, Dr. Siri is kidnapped by seven female Hmong villagers under the direction of the village elder so that he will—in the guise of Yeh Ming, the thousand-year-old shaman with whom he shares his body—exorcise the headman’s daughter whose soul is possessed by a demon, and lift the curse of the pogo stick. My Review: Dr. Siri Paiboun is my role model for growing older. I want to be as cantankerous and unafraid as he is, and as forgiving and tolerant as he is, and marry someone I'm in love with like he does.Who am I kidding? I'd like any of those things NOW, except the marriage thing, which no thank you, I remember that too well. So this is the fifth book in the series, and the action takes place late in 1977 into 1978. Siri's seventy-three. The reason I'm reviewing a book so late in the series is simple: I want to tell everyone that, contrary to established custom, the series isn't sagging, and the sleuthing isn't drooping. Siri's believability is quite as firm as it was, meaning if you didn't buy in from the get-go, you won't be in now either. I love our secondary characters quite a lot, and am invested in the world of Dtui and Phosy and Geung as much as Siri and Daeng and Civilai. It's just too much fun to perch on the back of the lilac police Vespa, pull my scarf over my nose and mouth, and whip along the trafficless roads around Vientiane to chase malefactors!Now that's one helluva mental picture, isn't it? But in this book, in this series, your fat old stiff-jointed American correspondent here can do exactly that. AND solve a crime. (Sort of, there really isn't a mystery-novel crime to solve in this book...so what, though?) I get to travel to the Hmong Otherworld! I am invited to an illegal Buddhist wedding! And through it all, my green-eyed hobbit-sized impish cicerone, Dr. Siri, sees how true and marvelous the world is, how little in it matters except being present and available and kind.Rightness. Completing one's journey and, thereby, completing the journeys of others. I hope all of us are able to say, looking at our last dawn, that we did that very thing, at least once. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
I'm not sure how far back things have to be before you call it historical fiction but I'd say 2ritten in 2008 about Laos in 1977 counts. The investigator in this series is Dr. Siri Paiboun, the French trained doctor who is the seventy-three year old national coroner of Laos. It is the transition period between Royalist and Communist Laos so people are having to be very careful about what they say and to whom they say it. Dr. Paiboun made a rude comment during a political gathering and as a result has been sent on a trip from Vientiane to a political meeting in the north along with his nemesis Judge Haeng and staff from the just department. Along the way there is an assault and Dr. Paiboun finds himself in an Hmong village where he is to drive out a devil and make things safe for the villagers to leave to found a new settlement. Back in Vientiane his assistants and friends have recognized a vicious Royalist who is referred to as the Lizard Lady. They are determined to arrest her have her safely out of the way before Dr. Paiboun returns. It is absolutely impossible for me to explain the action beyond this because the two sets of action involve devils, crashed planes, American materiel, people who have switched sides, politicians who cannot be trusted (are there any other kinds?) shamanistic medicine, western science, exploding bodies and some really powerful sedatives. The book was fascinating and as someone who knows absolutely nothing about the area known at one time as French Indo China I just determined to go along for the ride and take everything as offered. Well worth it. The characters are definitely different but understandable, the action is just comprehensible and the food sounds good.
Do You like book Curse Of The Pogo Stick (2008)?
Dr. Siri Paiboun is the 73 year old national coroner of Laos. He is off to the north to attend a communist meeting, something he is definitely not looking forward to. While there, he is kidnapped by Hmong women who believe he is Yeh Ming, the 1000 year old shaman who is supposed to inhabit Siri's body. Meanwhile, back in Vientiane at the morgue, Nurse Dtui discovers that a body delivered for autopsy has been booby trapped. Curse of the Pogo Stick is different from the previous novels in the series as Dr. Paiboun and his staff are separated, with two different mysteries going on. Curse of the Pogo Stick (and yes, there is a pogo stick in the story) by Colin Cotterill is the fifth novel in this mystery series set in the late 1970's in Laos. It is one of my favorite mystery series. I was hooked from the beginning by Dr. Paiboun. Laos is an exotic location. There are endearing and quirky characters including Dr. Paiboun, Nurse Dtui, Madame Daeng, and many others including a transvestite fortune teller. There is plenty of political satire, otherworldly phenomena and most importantly, Cotterill shows a deep understanding of the Laotian and Hmong cultures. I finished this book in two days. I enjoyed every minute. Please start with the first book in the series, The Coroner's Lunch, and read them in order. I'm an out of order reader, but even I read this series in order!!!!!
—Snap
I don't think there's any single genre that submits more books for review than that of the mystery. Literally (hah) dozens of them pile into the office every week. What that means is that at night, I pile a few on my nightstand and begin to read. If I'm not happily carried away within the first few pages, the book goes on the floor for the next day's recycling.The latest one to capture my attention is the fifth in a series by Colin Cotterill. This one takes place in Laos, and for all I know they all take place in Laos as the characters are natives. There are two women and two men, two old and two young -- a nurse, a doctor, a policeman, a cook -- two are engaged and two are married, to each other.The time is post Vietnam War with the communists trying to establish order and control with their special mix of tedium and big guns. Dr. Siri is incorrigibly irreverent. At one point, when an official dies during an excruciating conference, Siri leaps up and shouts: "This conference has suffered its first fatality. There will undoubtedly be more." Siri's punishment for his disruption ("And what would you have me do?... [whisper] for the people in his row to pass the body down to the end?") is another show of government "confidence", far far away and on the other side of the enemy controlled area. ("Where have you been, Siri?... There is no enemy.")You can guess where Siri and his minder end up. (No you can't.) Meanwhile, the other three have troubles of their own -- like booby-trapped corpses and poisonous old ladies. Someone is trying to kill, well, someone.Great story, superb characters, the history of the Hmong. This one's called "Curse of the Pogo Stick." If you've read any of the others, send a note.
—Heather Shaw
Why do I love these books so much? I find myself reading it slowly, stopping and starting because I know it will much to soon be finished. Ok, it is the characters and their feelings for one another. Dr. Siri and the Judge have their own adventure, while his soon to be bride, friends and colleagues have another.It starts out strong: "No, it wasn't the Hmong Siri was afraid of. He'd been in battles all his life and survived. a bullet to the head wouldn't have been that much of an upheaval to him now. what distressed him was the thought of being stuck in the jungle with spotty-faced Judge Haeng for a month. That he decided, would be a slow and agonizing way to go." (pg 28) I can picture the Judge eating the pig swill and having indigo hands.....Another quote I liked was: (pg 181)"...and the fact that there would never really be peace in the world because man was intrinsically stupid." Sometimes that is the way I feel.
—Jessica
