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The Coroner's Lunch (A Dr. Siri Paiboun Mystery)
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About The Coroner's Lunch
Product Description Laos, 1978: Dr. Siri Paiboun, a 72-year-old medical doctor, has unwillingly been appointed the national coroner of the new socialist Laos. His lab is underfunded, his boss is incompetent, and his support staff is quirky, to say the least. But Siri’s sense of humor gets him through his often frustrating days. When the body of the wife of a prominent politician comes through his morgue, Siri has reason to suspect the woman has been murdered. To get to the truth, Siri and his team face government secrets, spying neighbors, victim hauntings, Hmong shamans, botched romances, and other deadly dangers. Somehow, Siri must figure out a way to balance the will of the party and the will of the dead. Review Praise for The Coroner's Lunch A Booklist Book of the Year An Independent Mystery Booksellers Association Killer Book of the Year A Book Sense Selection “A wonderfully fresh and exotic mystery . . . If Cotterill . . . had done nothing more than treat us to Siri’s views on the dramatic, even comic crises that mark periods of government upheaval, his debut mystery would still be fascinating. But the multiple cases spread out on Siri’s examining table . . . are not cozy entertainments, but substantial crimes that take us into the thick of political intrigue.” —The New York Times Book Review “The sights, smells, and colors of Laos practically jump of the pages of this inspired, often wryly witty first novel.” —The Denver Post “The Soho Press crime series . . . has done mystery connoisseurs everywhere a favor by adding Colin Cotterill to its publishing list. The author gives us exotic locations; a world that few of us know well; crisp, intelligent, and often-witty writing; and, most of all, a hero unlike any other.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer “This series kickoff is an embarrassment of riches: Holmesian sleuthing, political satire, and [a] droll comic study of a prickly late bloomer.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review “In Siri, Cotterill has created a detective as distinctive as Maigret or Poirot.” —Orlando Sentinel “This debut mystery, with its convincing and highly interesting portrayal of an exotic locale, marks the author as someone to watch.” —Publishers Weekly About the Author Colin Cotterill is the Dilys Award–winning author of nine other books in the Dr. Siri Paiboun series: Thirty-Three Teeth, Disco for the Departed, Anarchy and Old Dogs, Curse of the Pogo Stick, The Merry Misogynist, Love Songs from a Shallow Grave, Slash and Burn, and The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die, and Six and a Half Deadly Sins. He lives in Chumphon, Thailand, with his wife and five deranged dogs. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, October 1976 Tran, Tran, and Hok broke through the heavy end-of-wet-season clouds. The warm night air rushed against their reluctant smiles and yanked their hair vertical. They fell in a neat formation, like sleet. There was no time for elegant floating or fancy aerobatics; they just followed the rusty bombshells that were tied to their feet with pink nylon string. Tran the elder led the charge. He was the heaviest of the three. By the time he reached the surface of Nam Ngum reservoir, he was already ahead by two seconds. If this had been the Olympics, he would have scored a 9.98 or thereabouts. There was barely a splash. Tran the younger and Hok-the-twice-dead pierced the water without so much as a pulse-beat between them. A quarter of a ton of unarmed ordnance dragged all three men quickly to the smooth muddy bottom of the lake and anchored them there. For two weeks, Tran, Tran, and Hok swayed gently back and forth in the current and entertained the fish and algae that fed on them like diners at a slow-moving noodle stall. Vientiane, Two Weeks Later It was a depressing audience, and there were going to be a lot more like it. Now that Haeng, the spotty-faced magistrate, was back, Siri would have to
