Comrade shamans. The communist party of the new Democratic Republic of Laos has issued a directive: “The spirits will have to toe the line.” This is the second installment in my favorite mystery series, which is set in Laos in 1977 and features Dr. Siri Paiboun--"the reluctant national coroner, confused psychic, and disheartened communist."In the first book, we learned that the amazingly calm Dr. Siri has been delegated Laos’ honorary counsel to the spirit world and that victims come to him in his dreams seeking his help. Siri, age 72, is the re-embodiment of Yeh Ming a powerful Hmong shaman who had lived over a thousand years ago. Siri is unsure how to use his powers to aid the living or the dead, but Yeh Ming has been exorcising malevolent spirits for many centuries and has sizeable opposition in the spirit world. To have thirty-three teeth is a sign that you’ve been born as a bridge to the spirit world. Lord Buddha himself had 33 teeth. Lao tradition also holds that all living things were in possession of a kwun: something between a soul and a spirit. Humans were said to have thirty-two kwun. In time of bad fortune, some of the kwun may flee, and shamans are called in to invite them to return. The mid seventies are a bad time in Laos when loudspeakers blare communist propaganda. Siri was an orphan at a Buddhist monastery before French missionaries sent him to medical school in Paris, where he met his future wife, a communist revolutionary who recruited Siri to be a combat surgeon for the Pathet Lao. “Poverty led him to religion, religion to education, education to lust, lust to communism. And communism had brought him back full circle to poverty”A widower for many years, Siri is assisted in the morgue by nurse Dtui , “the unbreakable one.” She endures mockery for her weight and her plain face, but she lives with her mother and quietly teaches herself surgery by translating English textbooks into Lao and then back into Russian in an attempt to earn a coveted scholarship to medical school in Moscow. We encounter mysteries involving the deposed royal family, the That Luang temple, stupas (burial mounds), ancient elephants, escaped bears, shaky Russian helicopters, and temperamental temple puppets. Yet, I read this series not for the puzzle of the mysteries but for the endearing characters of Dr. Siri, Dtui and the beautiful people of Laos. Here is a link to my review of “The Coroner’s Lunch,” the first title in this series:http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
2nd in the Dr. Siri Paibon, national coroner of Laos series.It isn’t a Dr. Siri book if there weren’t weird deaths in the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos of 1977. Two men have been mysteriously killed on the same bicycle and it’s hard to figure out how exactly that could have happened. Then other mysterious deaths occur, and fear is about that a large, vicious animal--or worse--is preying on the countryside. Of equal significance, Dr. Siri discovers that he has 33 teeth (instead of the usual 32), definitely marking him as a shaman (which he already knew).There is a light-heartedness to the series that makes it fun to read. The cast of characters is unusual and interesting: Dr. Siri himself, Nurse Dtui (one of his assistants), Mr. Geung (his other assistant who has Down’s Syndrome), Civilai (his best friend), Phosy (a nosy police investigator). And more.What elevates this from fluff to medium-weight is the amount of information about Laos--both its culture and the operation of the country under the Communist Pathet Lao regime. this alone would make the books worth reading.The mysteries are enjoyable, and there’s no problem about tying up loose ends when you can call on the spirit world to help you.Good fun; highly recommended.
Do You like book Thirty-Three Teeth (2006)?
I really don't enjoy Magical Realism in fiction, and don't believe in ghosts, spirits, or any other juju in real life. Because of this, I fought like hell against enjoying the 1st book in the series, "The Coroner's Lunch". But once I willed myself into a suspension of disbelief, I was able to enjoy this book. The combined foreignness of life in a deeply impoverished and Kafkaesque communist society with the exoticism of the Laotian setting makes the series fascinating, even if the trade-off is accepting the existence of puppet spirits, enchanted amulets, and betel-chewing ghosts.
—Pattie
A good enough read, considering how quickly I devoured it (48 hrs, and that was with other activities and reading other books in there). Not bad for yet another novel series. Fortunately we are given enough "back story" (without it being too much) that it could be read as a stand-alone. However there are a few quibbles.The author's perceived necessity to provide "hooks" in every chapter or at the end of every scene leads to an awful lot of ambiguous, throwaway remarks or narrative phrases that are later verbally explained by someone else after the fact, instead of the author showing us what happens, as it happens. As a particular case in point, this "technique" (if you can call it that) spoiled the end for me as it felt silly and anti-climactic being told, whereas a well written action scene might have been of much greater impact. If the author can relate it second hand in the mouth of a character who saw it, why can't he tell it vividly firsthand? Another thing I found cringeworthy was having the obnoxious Mr. Soth speak in what reads like....Cockney? Really? It was almost as jarring as listening to BBC Radio Four dramatisations of Simenon's Maigret novels using Cockney accents for criminals, or broad Yorkshire for French paysans.I also got tired of the jumpy "cutting" back and forth from one plotline or scene or character to another. Shades of the modern TV action series. If you are so afraid your audience is getting bored, go back and edit the story itself, from the outline up. However, it was entertaining and a nice mix of gentle humour without having to be "funny" provided balance. "Paranormal" detective fiction isn't normally my thing, but there's enough "normal" here to bring it all together, though I wonder how the author's personal version of Laos in the seventies compares to the real thing.I wonder how many readers actually counted their own teeth?
—Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)
This is the second book in the Dr. Siri novels by Colin Cotterill. Dr. Siri is the "national coroner" of communist Laos - a dubious distinction which Dr. Siri is not very fond of. While the plot is good enough, it really is Dr. Siri's show in these novels. Dr. Siri's wry sense of humor about the new Communist government and its ineptitude make me smile and even laugh out loud. I also love Dr. Siri's two colleagues at the coroner's office - a supposedly "slow" Mr. Deung (who is really NOT so slow) and the tough but good-hearted Nurse Dtui.Well worth reading but start with the first book in the series, "The Coroner's Lunch". Great fun!
—Carolyn Bitetti
